If it’s Monday, then today is another country. It is Panama, home to the Panama Canal among other things. The capital is Panama City and the population of this country is 3.7 million people that speak mainly Spanish. And some English. Their currency is Panamanian Balboa, but also the US dollar. Much easier for most of us cruisers. Panama spans two oceans - the chilled Caribbean on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. You can snorkel the reefs on the Caribbean side, or scuba dive with whale sharks in the Pacific. Or even try surfing. There are rain forests with ziplining, swimming with sea turtles or trekking cloud forest with howler monkeys. We have done many of these things, except scuba with whale sharks, surfing or ziplining. We will leave that to the younger crowd, thank you.
Panama City, the capital, is called high-octane Latin America with casinos, a huge nightlife, and a jungle of high rises with some ultra-modern high-end malls. And to be frank, it can be a dangerous place too if you are not careful. We will be arriving to the port of Fuerte Amador later today, so it was partly a sea day as well as a short port stop with a late afternoon and overnight visit.
It started out very hot once again with temps in the low 80’s and humidity at 82%. The winds were 18.5 mph with heavily hazy and overcast skies with a chance of rain. Last night around midnight, there was a fabulous lightning storm directly over the ship. The blue light lit up the room right through the closed drapes. Other folks heard the thunder, but we did not. With that action in the sky, we expected it would have rained, but when we got up early this morning, the veranda was bone dry. They are on the brink of monsoon or hurricane season, so rain is a given in this part of the world.
We had our lemonade break at the Seaview Pool where all of the small tables and chairs were tied down. We do recall the Captain mentioning 40 mph winds, so that might have been the reason to lash down everything. Greg joined us as we caught up on ship news. Today there was the first of three Mariner Recognition Events in the World Stage followed by a lunch in the lower dining room. The next ones will be on the 13th and the 15th. We may go to the last one, although we have been invited to attend all three if we wish.
We also passed through the Lido pool area where the Project Linus Blanket Showcase was on display. We can say that there was not one blanket alike and every one was nicely done. Leaders Gayle and Marty deserve a lot of credit for a job well done with their happy group of knitters and crocheters, as well as their volunteer helpers.
It was close to 2pm when Captain Frank came on the speakers. By then, we had already spotted Panama City in the distance and the dozens upon dozens of commercial vessels moored outside the canal. Every one of the ships has a time slot to enter the locks, and some might wait days to do it. Due to some work that was scheduled on the Volendam, the Captain got us here 2 hours early. Instead of 5pm, it was more like 3pm by the time the ship was docked at nearby Fuerte Amador. He was not sure how long it would take for the authorities to clear the ship, so he said to be patient. We docked portside and used the local covered zig-zag gangway that connected to the ship on deck two.
Just as we were pulling alongside, it started to rain….a drizzle at first, then the sky opened up. The rain pounded down so hard, it sounded like drums playing on the long metal- covered causeway that leads to the very newly-finished terminal building. Anyway, we are here overnight with the all aboard time at 3am tomorrow morning. Tonight’s sunset was 6:30pm and the sunrise tomorrow will be 6am. He expects the canal pilot or pilots to board around 5am, where we will go under the Bridge of the Americas by 6:30am. The Captain will open the bow at 6am depending on the weather. If he considers it unsafe or too wet, he will not open it. The weather will be about the same as today, and he repeated the warnings to stay hydrated and out of the sun as much as possible.
We left the ship at 3:30pm after the rain had stopped. Of course, we packed umbrellas just in case. There were a few ship tours here with a ride to Panama City on your own for $49 for 4 hours, or rooftop evening cocktails in colonial Panama for 3 hours and $195. An evening stroll and dinner in colonial Panama with dinner for 4 hours was $225. Our breakfast friends had a paid “farewell cocktails and dinner” in town as well with their travel group. Hope to hear about tomorrow morning.
Fuerte Amador was always a tender port, where the boats brought us into their small boat marina. Now that they have completed the huge new terminal, we do not tender. Located in this harbor by the name of Flamenco Marina, we have always enjoyed a meal at one of the waterside restaurants at Lenos and Carbon’s Gourmet. Besides views of the fishing boats and luxury yachts, there are shops and facilities in this complex. Sometimes if the ship docks earlier in the day, they provide a shuttle here. Today there was no bus and we had the options of taxis, rideshares, or public buses. The taxi guys and gals are SO pushy, we said no thanks dozens of times. We chose to walk which we estimated was over a mile, but it seemed like a lot more due to the extreme heat and humidity. At least the rain had stopped.
Many other folks were walking towards the Causeway where there were more shops, small marina, and restaurants. We prefer to be in the less-busy places, and the marina was just fine. We located the restaurant at the far end of the marina and were seated right on the patio railing with a most wonderful breeze. Honestly, by then, we were totally soaked because it was so humid. Our waiter suggested the local beer, which was not draft, but in ice cold cans called Balboa beer. He brought chilled glasses too. They sure tasted good, cooling us off. They had a wide-ranging menu, but nachos sounded good to us. We had a choice of beef or pork….we chose the beef and found it plenty for sharing. We followed up with one serving of a brownie with ice cream on top. A few other ship people entered the restaurant, but for the most part, it was filled with locals. A good sign the food and drinks were nice here, just as we recalled.
We stayed until it started to get dark around 6pm, then made our way back to the terminal. What we did not expect was seeing the clouds take on the colors of a beautiful sunset , which deepened by the time we reached the terminal. Such a nice treat – both the reasonably-priced food, and sunset. We had just enough time back in our room to get dressed for dinner which was going to be light.
With people in town on tours or walking like we did, the dining room was pretty empty. The Pinnacle Grill was having one of their pop-ups with The Taste of Tamarind, and the dining room had some nice appetizers. One of them was calamari fritti and the other was another bowl of their doctored-up chicken noodle soup. Salads were our entrees and Jello was our choice of dessert. By the way, it never did rain while we were out and about.
We will be up early to watch the start of the Panama Canal sailing. It is not often that we do this in reverse order, and we will get a better view from mostly the portside.
Bill & Mary Ann
