April 20, 2018 – Colón, Panama

We spent one full day (April 19) and two half days – the evening of Apr 18 & the morning of Apr 20 – in Colón. Yesterday, hundreds of Segment 5 passengers disembarked (left the ship to go home) in the morning, and hundreds of new Segment 6 passengers boarded the ship in the afternoon. It’s all done very quietly and orderly on Crystal Symphony. There are no announce­ments made over the loudspeaker system, and there are no mob scenes. If we didn’t know it was happening, we wouldn’t have noticed it except for seeing new faces around the ship.

Crystal Symphony had been docked at Pier 2, next to a large warehouse, which was ideal for handling suitcases and luggage yesterday. Overnight, the ship moved to Pier 1 which, in addition to being a cruise ship port, is also a shopping plaza with restaurants, a supermarket, and small shops selling duty-free merchandise. According to information we saw on the Internet, it is one of the best (and safest) places for foreigners to shop in Colón.

Unfortunately, Colón has developed a reputation as being unsafe, with a high crime rate. During our short visit, there have been labor disputes and demonstrations all around Colón. Local authorities warned Symphony passengers to take extra caution around the port area and downtown. We had signed up for a tour for yesterday, through our travel agent, but the tour was canceled at the last minute. We don’t know why; maybe it was because of the labor unrest. We decided to act on the side of caution and stayed on the ship all day yesterday. We relaxed, worked on paperwork, and finished writing the Panama Canal posting for our blog.

We signed up for a 3-hour ship excursion for today, out of town, to visit the Panama Canal Expansion Observation Center and portions of the former Canal Zone. It was a 30-minute ride on a comfortable, air-conditioned bus from the pier to the observation center.

Our very good tour guide was named Rosalba. She told us that Colón was founded in 1850 as the Atlantic terminal of a railroad that was then being built to meet the need for a fast route to California for the “Gold Rush.” At that time, it was a busy, prosperous place. Even during her lifetime, Colón had been a very nice town, and she’s very sad about how grim it looks today. Population soared during the building period for the canal, but now there is high unemployment in Colón. The city’s biggest employer today is “Colón Free Zone,” the second largest duty-free zone in the world, after Hong Kong. Goods from around the world are imported here, stored, and then exported. It’s almost exclusively for wholesale merchant shippers, selling in quantity.

Rosalba emphasized repeatedly that, after the opening of the Canal Zone, there was almost no contact between Panamanians and the deployed Americans who were operating the canal and the American military forces who were guarding it. There were 14 American army posts and air force bases built along the 50-mile length of the canal. GI’s and their families lived in virtual American cities on those bases.

To reach the observation center today, we drove through a jungle-like tropical rainforest, where we were on the lookout for sloths and wild monkeys. We stopped a few times to observe them in the trees. We arrived at the Agua Clara Visitor Center a few minutes before 10:00am. At precisely 10:00, an excellent movie began on the recent canal expansion.

Here’s a quick timeline, as described in the movie: The U.S. drew up plans for a third set of locks and started trenching work in 1939, but then World War II stopped the work completely. In 1977, the United States and Panama agreed on transfer of the canal to Panamanian hands. Panama took over administration of the canal on Dec. 31, 1999. Expansion of the canal was overwhelmingly approved by a public referendum vote in 2006, and construction of the “Third Set of Locks” was begun in 2007. The movie clearly showed the massive workforce, huge machinery, and complex construction required. One fact we remembered: the 192 thousand tons of steel required for the construction could be used to build 19 Eiffel Towers. Only two years late in finishing construction, the new locks at each end of the canal – Atlantic and Pacific – became operational in June 2016.

The expansion allows much larger ships to make the 50-mile trip from ocean to ocean. Previ­ously the maximum size of the ship that could make the passage, known in shipping circles as Panamax, was limited by the size of the Canal’s locks and the depth of water. Building the new locks allows for so-called neo-Panamax ships with a capacity nearly three times that of Panamax ships (14,000 standard shipping containers instead of just 5,000) to travel the Canal.

Of course, the highlight of our visit was walking to the outdoor viewing platforms and looking at the panoramic views of the gigantic cargo ships going through the new canal lock and into or out of Lake Gatun. You get a nice bird's eye view from 150 feet above.

A big change at the new locks is that the old electric locomotives (called “mules”) don't keep ships centered in the lock. That work is now done by tugboats. Also note the lock’s gates don’t open like swinging gates. Rather, the “gates” slide sideways to let water flow into or out of the locks.

During our return trip to Colón, Rosalba guided us through several former U.S. military facilities on the Atlantic end of the canal, within what was U.S. territory -- the Panama Canal Zone (five miles on either side of the canal itself). One of these was Fort Gulick, a United States Army base which housed an airborne special forces group, as well as the “School of the Americas” – an initiative to train Latin American allies in military doctrine and tactics – now known as the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.” In 1984, control of the fort was turned over to the Republic of Panama who renamed it Fuerte Espinar. Many of the facilities used by American forces and their families are still standing but were abandoned and never maintained or re-occupied. One section of the former base is now being used as the location for a hotel.

We drove through another former family housing area for American forces and canal workers, called “Margarita.” The area is now what Rosalba called “very high cost” homes for Panamani­ans. Some still look like they did 30 years ago, and many others have been spruced up. Both Margarita and the former Fort Gulick are now considered to be within Colón city's limits.

We returned to the ship at about 12:15pm, and Crystal Symphony left for Cartagena at 2:00pm.

Jim & Ginny