{"id":7009,"date":"2015-06-17T05:23:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T03:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/?p=7009"},"modified":"2020-12-18T13:08:27","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T12:08:27","slug":"a-technical-masterpiece-of-its-time-panama-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/2015\/06\/17\/ein-technisches-meisterwerk-seiner-zeit-panama-kanal\/","title":{"rendered":"A technical masterpiece of its time: Panama Canal"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Explore the Panama Canal Visitor Center at the Miraflores Locks<\/li>\n<li>Buy bus tickets for the nightly onward journey<\/li>\n<li>Roam massive Albrook Shopping Mall<\/li>\n<li>Board the night bus to Bocas del Toro<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sleeps a little better in a real bed. Even if it was quite cold at first because of the air conditioning and much too hot after it was switched off. We have breakfast before taking a taxi to the <strong>Moraflores locks <\/strong>goes. The first taxi driver somehow doesn&#039;t want to drive us there and throws us out unfriendly. So we take another taxi to the entrance area of the visitor center.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We get access to the observation deck for a whopping 15 USD. A large container ship is currently in the 9 m high lock. Using the natural pressure of the higher-lying Gatun Lake, 1,000,000 liters of water are pumped into the lock, which now lifts the huge ship within just under 10 minutes and thus has the second of a total of three steps on the Pacific side behind it. Before the ship can finally reach the Caribbean, it has to descend 82 kilometers and three more locks.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of making the Panama Canal a reality was tackled by the French in 1881, but later abandoned after more than 22,000 deaths - mainly from malaria and money fever outbreaks - and due to financial difficulties. In 1914 the Americans completed this masterpiece of human engineering after another 8 years of construction under the most difficult circumstances and operated the canal until 1999. More than a million ships have crossed the canal so far and a further expansion should allow even larger ships to cross the canal in 2015.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7011\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7011\" style=\"width: 1170px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mlnnzcgf0rm9.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/marcelgross.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2015_06_17.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-opt-id=1913133942  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7011\" src=\"https:\/\/mlnnzcgf0rm9.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/marcelgross.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2015_06_17.jpg\" alt=\"... and a second giant ship will follow soon\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" title=\"\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7011\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">... and a second giant ship will follow soon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A second large ship drives into the second lock and we observe the process a second time. Most of our San Blas group have now arrived. Niki and I will see the interesting one afterwards <strong>3D movie<\/strong> on the history, construction and operation of the huge structure. Then it goes through <strong>museum<\/strong> and other showrooms.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Together with an Irish couple we take a taxi to the <strong>Bus station<\/strong>. But for now we end up in the immense one <strong>Albrook Mall<\/strong>. You can really get lost here! Yes, <strong>one feels more in the USA<\/strong> than in Central America. After we bought tickets for today&#039;s night bus we go to eat in the food court. Then we stroll through some shops and Niki has a manicure done.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Take a taxi back to the hostel, where it&#039;s time to go <strong>Take farewell <\/strong>from the cool group. With the left luggage we go back to the bus station to have a quick meal in the shopping center. It is inconvenient to have to buy a chip card to use the <strong>massively hypothermic bus <\/strong>to be able to climb. Nothing there, from the comfortable night buses of South America with highly adjustable, wide seats and enough legroom!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Explore the Panama Canal Visitor Center at the Miraflores Locks<\/li>\n<li>Buy bus tickets for the nightly onward journey<\/li>\n<li>Roam massive Albrook Shopping Mall<\/li>\n<li>Board the night bus to Bocas del Toro<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/br><\/p>\n<p>Sleeps a little better in a real bed. Even if it was quite cold at first because of the air conditioning and much too hot after it was switched off. We have breakfast before taking a taxi to the <strong>Moraflores Locks <\/strong>goes. The first taxi driver somehow doesn&#039;t want to drive us there and throws us out unfriendly. So we take another taxi to the entrance area of the visitor center.<\/p>\n<p><\/br><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":50437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2110,2111,2139],"tags":[1187,2115,2142,2143,2144,2145,2146,2147,2148,2149,2150,2151],"class_list":["post-7009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tagebuch","category-mittelamerika","category-panama","category-panama-city","tag-nachtbus","tag-panama","tag-panama-city","tag-panama-stadt","tag-panama-canal","tag-panama-kanal","tag-moraflores-locks","tag-3d-film","tag-aussichtsplattform","tag-albrook-mall","tag-bocas-del-toro","tag-bus-in-panama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marcelgross.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}