January 19, 2026
Colon Panama
Weather mostly sunny, 80’s
Today was a very early day. My tour left at 7 AM and Shirey’s tour left at 7:30 and so we were up before dawn. We ate a good breakfast with Bob and Anna at the World Café and then got on our busses.
Miraflores Engineering tour
Our bus took up through Colon, a very needy city. We wound our way up to the tollway that connects Colon with Panama City. We saw arms of Gatun Lake and crossed the Chagres River. For those of you who haven’t read the McCullough book, the Charges River defeated the French plan and was the first challenge to the American engineers. The Americans decided to dam the river and make locks whereas the French had wanted a sea level canal, like the Suez.
We made our way into the suburbs pf Panama City and saw the tops of many skyscrapers. The ‘burbs were fairly well to do, especially those built around the former American Canal Zone places. This area is so different from Colon. We arrived at the Miraflores Lock complex in time to see a very large Princess Cruise ship make its way up to Gatun Lake. (We will later see that same ship passing through the Gatun Locks as we ended our tour.)
We were treated to an IMAX movie about the canal that lasted 45 minutes. It was quite interesting, but to me it was a partial retelling of the McCullough book. We were then put into the hands of a Canal guide who took us outside the gates to the edge of the lock. As we looked west, we saw the Pacific Ocean. As we looked east, we saw the San Pedro lock, the Centennial Bridge and the Culebra cut beyond.
Looking west at the Pacific Ocean
Looking east at the San Pedro Lock, the Centennial Bridge and the Culebra Cut
I got a whole new appreciation of the engineering and cleverness of the designers during this tour. Our guide, Mi, had so many facts and figures that it was overwhelming. Shirley wasn’t on this tour and so I missed her note taking! Some things I remember however. It costs a lot of cash money to use the canal, some large container ships pay up to 1.5 million, our cruise ship paid $200,000. Richard Hallibuton who swan the canal in 1930’s paid $.36.
Underground is a lot of plumbing. The size of the intake and outflow pipes were graphically represented by the construction of the viewing stand. They are 8 meters in Diameter!
The new Locks, just to the North of these replace both Miraflores and San Pedro Locks. More on the new locks later.
the size of the intake and outflow pipe
After Miraflores we were ready for lunch and so would our way next to the canal and up on top of the Culebra cut. This was the hardest area for the canal builders to clear. On the hills overlooking that area, the US Military built a golf course and now it is a resort and golf course called the Summit. They had a very tasty buffet for the Viking tourists.
The Summit golf resort
After lunch we drove through the rain forest, past the police academy and back to the tollway to Colon. We did not do into Colon however, as the next part of our tour was to visit the Agua Clara Locks. To get a perspective, our driver took us over the Atlantic Bridge to get a view of the Gatun/Agua Clara complex of locks.
The Atlantic Bridge, longest in Central America
We then toured the Agua Clara complex. The ships got too big for the 1903 locks and so Panama spent $5 Billion on two wider sets of locks. One augmented the Miraflores/San Pedro locks and the other paired with the Gatun Locks. They can pass the immense container ships because they are 60% wider and longer. They rely on tugboats instead of the electric locomotives on the old locks to guide the ship through. They also employ perpendicular gates instead of the “V” shaped gates. These gates are 10 stories tall and built in Italy.
Agua Clara Lock with reserve pools
OOCL Ship with ~15000 containers leaving chamber 1
Front of MSC Container Ship
Rear of MSC container ship
Double horizontal gates take 5 minutes to operate
These locks have reserve pools that save much water be re-using the water that drains when the ship elevator descends. In the Old locks, that water is lost to the Ocean. This is very clever! There are you tube videos about it for those who want a deeper dive.
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