Panama 🇵🇦

Hello Caribbean 😉

From Cartagena we flew to Panama because we almost missed the flight when they said at the gate that we can only board with a flight or bus ticket that confirms our exit from Panama. While boarding had already started, I reserved a cheap bus ticket from Panama to Costa Rica. With that, we managed to get on the plane and later pass through customs...We had to cancel the ticket right away because it was useless for us, as explained by ourselves 😂

We visited the old town of Panama City, which is currently undergoing major renovations. It will definitely be a gem when it's finished in about three years, right now it's still a bit of a rough diamond 😉

We didn't miss the Panama Canal either. It's an incredible feat of engineering that was completed in 1914 and is still in operation.
We were able to observe massive container ships passing through the locks for the actual canal, which has a bridge of 26 meters in height. The largest ships have only 61 centimeters of space on each side to maneuver through the lock. And all of this is not exactly cheap for transportation companies: the largest ships pay up to one million Swiss francs to navigate through the canal. Now we know why coffee and chocolate are so expensive in Switzerland... Here's a funny and inexpensive canal passage from Wikipedia:

The lowest fee was paid in 1928 by Richard Halliburton, an American who became the first person to swim across the Panama Canal. The world-traveling journalist and adventurer set out from New Orleans to Mexico in April 1928. The highlight of his tour through Central America was supposed to be swimming through the Panama Canal. The canal authority agreed, with the condition that they could only allow a "watercraft" to pass through. Halliburton was therefore measured and classified according to the tonnage measurement for ships and was allowed to implement his plan for a fee of 36 US cents, the lowest fee ever paid. He completed the journey, including all the locks, in eight stages. 🤣🤣

The next day, we flew to Bocas del Toro with a Fokker 50. It's about a 30-year-old aircraft and it was still going strong 🙈

Bocas del Toro... now that's the Caribbean with dream beaches and a way of life that is contagious. We really enjoyed those few days there and could have easily stayed three or four days longer 🏝 The guesthouse we stayed at was perfect. It was right above the water, with a terrace and hammock...
There's a lot more to say about the islands and the underwater world, but the pictures already say enough about that 😎😃