Colón Things to Do

3 more images

I have not really been to Colón except that I went through the Panama Canal twice on a cruise ship. VT has a location for Gatùn (the closest locks to Colón), so most of my pictures are there, but there are no other pages there so I'm putting one here.

We transited the Gatùn in November 2008 in the sunshine, so most of my photos are from that transit. In December when we came back it was raining.

The Panama Canal has three sets of double locks on both the Pacific and the Atlantic sides. Here, at Gatun, about 10 km south and west of Colon, you find all three of the Atlantic locks, rising and lowering ships which are making their way between Gatun Lake and the Caribbean.

Originally, the French had hoped to build a canal without locks at sea level as they had done at Suez in Egypt. The huge amounts of water that came down the Rio Chagres during the rainy season doomed this idea, however. Shortly after the Americans took over the Canal concession, the plan was changed to include the locks and a huge dam with which to impound the river. It is probably better in the long run for Panama to have the lock system in place as more of the transportation costs stays here within the country.

The locks here - nearby is Gatun Dam which created Gatun Lake - lift and lower the ships between the lake and sea level. Building of both these locks and the nearby dam were record setting in many engineering ways - largest earthen-dam, largest reservoir, largest amount of concrete poured - records that took many years to eclipse. The locks took four years to complete. For a super narrative on the construction of the Canal, read David McCullough’s “Path Between The Seas”.

There is a viewing stand right above the east side of the middle lock here at Gatun. You can watch as vessels are eased through the locks with the help of specially-built small locomotives. Remember, the locks are over 90 years old and still run with the same basic infrastructure. If you are not transiting the Canal, the viewing stand here gives you your best look at the lock operations. See my travelogues for more pictures of the locks.