When we returned to the city we decided to take advantage of another nice day and head out to the Colón province of Panamá to visit the Gatún Locks at the canal, as well as to make our way out to the famous Fuerte San Lorenzo. Our trip to the locks was an interesting challenge – having no road signs and maps that gloss over the area, we had nothing but instinct and the piecemeal directions by various locals to go by. After over an hour of turning around and stopping for more directions and repeated assurances that we would see a sign, we ended up at an RCI resort where we got a map made on MS Word that was severely lacking in clarity, but at least gave some idea of where to go and finally, we found our way!
The Gatún Locks are located on Colón’s Atlantic coast and are the first set of locks when entering Panamá.
They are made up of three chambers, each 100 feet wide and 1000 feet long.
Vessels passing these locks are raised 87 feet above sea level to enter the Gatún Lake, an artificial lake that actually also serves as a water resource for the Canal operations.
Once the ship finishes its transit throughout the reservoir, it will meet the next two locks and gradually lower the vessel to sea level as it exits into the Pacific Ocean.
This was the second set of locks that we visited and the cool thing about Gatún is that cars and other vehicles are able to pass across the canal before and after ships make their passages.
On our way back through, we actually were fortunate enough to get a great shot of a ship coming through the canal as it waited for cars to pass.
On a side note, as we were looking for the road to Fuerte San Lorenzo we bumped into a construction site down the road from the Locks and came upon a really nice guy who was actually from Detroit. It was funny as Anthony asked him where something was and they started to converse back and forth in Spanish before he asked us if we spoke English. As it turns out, he was working on a crew out by the locks actually excavating and building a new site that will become a third set of locks. As we spoke with him, he pointed all around and showed us the different areas that were being developed, saying “Take a picture of all of this, because next time you come to Panamá, it will all be turned into the new Locks, enabling a third ship to transit.”Gatún was just really cool and never ceased to amaze us with the incredible examples of engineering at its best.
Once we passed over the canal we headed toward Fort San Lorenzo.
En route we passed Fort Sherman, an old United States military base, which as it is now, has become the site for Panamá’s naval base.
The old base was pretty interesting to drive through and much of it was completely abandoned and in a state of disrepair.
It looked as if people just packed their things and left, which is apparently what happened when the U.S. abandoned the area in 1999.
As we entered the road to the Fort Lorenzo site, we were greeted by an older Panamanian gentleman who after a bit of conversing about where we were from and such, ended up allowing us to enter the site for $5 instead of the requisite $10. We began our trek down the dreaded road to the Fort (which by the way, was nowhere near as bad as many of the roads in and around Belize that we have experienced). We reached the Fort after a short 10-15 minute ride through some pretty thick jungle that opened up at the end to a beautiful vista of the Caribbean Sea with Fuerte San Lorenzo high on the nearby hills. When we arrived we also had the entire site to ourselves, which incidentally made for some great picture-taking opportunities.
The fort was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and remains one of the oldest Spanish fortresses in the Americas. Originally built in 1597 when King Phillip of Spain commissioned his men to create a fortress that would strategically protect the mainland coasts from the repeated attacks of pirate Francis Drake (Drake had been attacking the surrounding areas of Nombre de Dios and Camino Real).
During these times Panamá served as a major transit point for all of the treasures coming from nearby Peru. In 1671 Admiral Henry Morgan sent over 400 men under the command of Pirate Joseph Bradley to take over the fortress in an uncertain and challenging expedition. At first, the Spanish forced Morgan’s men to initially retreat, however, before leaving and losing all of their momentum, one of the Englishmen was able to set fire to the fort, helping them to not only advance and kill many of the Spaniards, but to also completely take over the fort (sort of like the taking of Helm’s Deep for those Tolkien fans out there). Before leaving the fort, Captain Morgan actually destroyed most of it. 80 years later in 1677, the Spanish rebuilt the fort, this time stocking it with additional cannons, batteries, and barracks. Although rebuilt and further fortified, the Spanish once again fell victim to the English, this time in the form of Admiral Edward Vernon in the year 1740 (Vernon incidentally is the same person for which Mount Vernon is named). During Vernon’s attack and bombardment, he captured and demolished Fuerte San Lorenzo soon after taking over the nearby Portobelo forts. The fort was bombarded over two days with 200+ lb. mortars that were filled with gunpowder and inflicted heavy damage, causing major destruction. After Vernon and his 200-man army took over the fort, it was once again destroyed. The ruins that remain standing today are the remains of the last reconstruction by the Spaniards in the year 1750.
What's Next??
Our time in Panama has come to its conclusion and now we will journey on. We're traveling to one of the first Spanish cities founded in Latin America and remained under Spanish rule for over 275 years. The city today remains surrounded by a wall over one mile in length.
Paz y Amor!
