Crowd free Cancun

Our Central American vacation is done and dusted. Last Sunday, we flew from Panama City to Cancun, Mexico. Since then, we've spent our time lounging by the pool and swimming in a surprisingly warm ocean. As you’ll have read in earlier posts, I took a day trip to Coba and Tulum while Garry soaked up more UV. We then spent two days in Chichen Itza, before returning to Cancun for a final night.  

Getting here was half the fun. Our route from Panama to Mexico was far from direct. Our ticket restricts us to airlines within the One World alliance, so we flew to Cancun via Miami. Our American Airlines flight from Panama City departed shortly after 2:30 pm. We arrived in Miami shortly before 6:20 pm and transferred onwards to Cancun. We finally landed in Mexico at about 8:30 pm, an hour after sunset. Naturally, our transit through Miami involved the usual immigration charade American authorities love.

Flying out of Panama City was memorable. I’d completely forgotten that it sits on the Pacific coast. We’d originally flown in after dark so we never saw the isthmus bridging two continents. However, our departing flight crossed it in broad daylight. It's surprising just how narrow this strip of land really is. Our plane was still climbing as the Caribbean coast came into view.

As we flew out of Panama City rows of ships were anchoring off the coast waiting to transit the Panama Canal. Dozens of vessels were visible from the air. Unfortunately, my hastily snapped photos failed to capture everything. However, if you look carefully at the image above you’ll see two flotillas at anchor separated by a channel leading into the canal.

Our home away from home in Cancun has been The Westin Resort. It was the perfect hotel for a relaxing beach vacation. It’s located at the southern end of Cancun’s gently arcing white sand beach stretching 13km down the Caribbean coast. Every morning we woke to a stunning ocean view. 

The hotel’s location was a godsend. Cancun’s intensive tourism infrastructure is concentrated to the north in what’s known as the Hotel Zone. You’ll find a relentless cavalcade of American fast-food chains, bars and chaotic traffic here. Think Hooters and McDonalds. There’s very little that’s distinctly Mexican (and local Taco Bell wannabes really don’t count). Contrast this with the Westin. It’s effectively the final hotel along the coast. As a result, there’s limited road traffic, no shopping mall, and fewer people on the beach.

We also discovered something special in the sand dunes nearby. Apparently, turtles still venture out of the sea to lay eggs above the high tide zone overnight. Local volunteers retrieve them the following morning and transfer them to a fenced-off zone in the dunes next to our hotel. We never saw any turtles, but it’s kind of cool to think that there was a turtle nursery right next door.

We ventured out for lunch earlier in the week. However, the experience wasn't exactly memorable thanks to the traffic chaos and jostling throngs of people. Our meal was also nothing special. In fact, the most authentic meal I've eaten was at a roadside cafe during my Coba tour. I enjoyed a classic Mexican Chicken Mole for lunch made with hot chillies, dark chocolate, spices, and tomatillos. Yes, you read that correctly. Chocolate in its raw, unsweetened form is a bitter ingredient that gives the sauce an earthy base.

Our final night in Cancun, after returning from Chichen Itza, was back at the Westin. Sadly, the hotel booked us into a dungeon-like ground-floor room without a view. Although, on a positive note, it was abnormally spacious and comfortably air conditioned, perfect for watching the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony live on TV. There we were, two Australian citizens, sitting in Mexico, watching live events in China. We’re now in LA, having flown here via Dallas. Later tonight we fly to Auckland. How small the world has become.

Across the Continental Divide

Garry anointed today as Geek’s Day as this morning we completed a partial transit of the Panama Canal. Our day began with a short bus trip to the small town of Gamboa which sits on the shores of Lake Gatun in central Panama. Lake Gatun makes up almost a third of the Panama Canal’s length (24.2 kilometers across the isthmus). It’s an artificial lake, constructed to hold the vast amount of water required to operate the canals locks.


From Gaboa a small passenger boat took us along the canal, through the Gaillard (Culebra) Cut and on towards two sets of locks that finally lower ships 26 metres to sea level and the Pacific coast. Our entire voyage took little more than 3.5 hours to complete, taking us almost 40 kilometres along the canal’s 77 kilometre length.

Without doubt the Gaillard Cut is the canal’s most spectacular engineering feat. This 12.6km waterway slices through the Continental Divide separating each coast of the Panama isthmus. It’s simply an enormous manmade valley, 540 metres wide at the top, with walls rising an impressive 52 metres above the canal itself. More than 76 million cubic metres m³ of rock and soil was removed over several decades before the cut was finally completed in 1913.


Today the cut boasts another spectacular engineering feat, the Centennial Bridge. This is a cable-stayed bridge spanning 1,052 metres across the canal at an attitude of 80 metres. The sight of a Panamax ship passing under this bridge through the Gaillard Cut gave us the best possible sense of how incredible an engineering feat the canal had been. We were told that the bridge’s West Tower had been built 50 metres inland to allow space for the future widening of the canal. Such forethought was wise as we soon past a massive excavation site where the canal is now being widened to accommodate post-Panamax sized ships – all part of the new expansion program due for completion in 2014.


Passing through the three locks that take you down to sea level was an amazing experience – even for a non-Geek like Garry. Two separate sets of locks lower each ship in three stages. The first, single-stage Pedro Miguel lock, takes you down 9.5 metres from the Gaillard Cut to Miraflores Lake. The second stage, is a twin set of locks at Miraflores that drop you 16.5 meters at mid-tide along a 1.7 kilometres course. Mid-tide is an important distinction as the Pacific Ocean coast boasts tides that rise and fall almost six metres. As a result the final set of lock gates at Miraflores are the tallest on the entire canal, rising an astonishing 25 metres from the bottom of the lock.


The experience of dropping 9 metres inside a water-tight concrete chamber is almost impossible to describe. One moment you’re at the level of the surrounding countryside. Within minutes you find yourself deep inside a giant concrete arena with slimy, wet walls towering above. It’s another moment that brings home the canal’s amazing engineering feats. Geeky or not, today's partial transit was a journey to remember.


Our next stop in Central America was Cancun and the Yucatan peninsular. Click here to travel with us.

Panama City

Our first full day in Panama started with a mid-morning drive to the Miraflores Locks. Here two pairs of locks lift ships more than 56 feet from the Pacific Ocean to a small lake. This marks the start of an 80km journey across the Panama isthmus to the Caribbean. A four-storey visitor’s centre offers uninterrupted views of giant sea-going vessels passing through the locks. Almost 40 ships a day pass through these locks, more than 14,000 every year.


Watching these enormous ocean-going vessels pass metres away is breathtaking. We spent almost an hour watching a giant car-carrying ship vessel and an equally spectacular container ship pass through the Miraflores Locks. Each ship barely fitted into the lock with less than 50cm clearance on each side, hence the term Panamax (Panama Canal Maximum size) given to these ships. An increasing number of ships are built precisely to the Panamax limit, ensuring that the maximum amount of cargo can always be carried by a single vessel through the canal. However, the tight fit in each lock means that such ships are only allowed to transit during daylight hours.


An extensive museum inside explained everything in more detail, including a new $ 5.25 billion expansion of the canal that started last year. Here we learnt that it takes little more than eight hours for a ship to transit the canal, saving an alternative 16-day voyage around Cape Horn. The average toll is around US$54,000, rising to US$300,000 or more for a guaranteed priority booking.

Our tour guide then took us up Cerro Ancon, a small hill overlooking the canal. The summit also offered a stunning view of Panama Bay and the city’s rapidly changing skyline. After a brief stop for lunch, the remainder of our day was spent touring Panama City. First, we drove along the Amador Causeway, a three-kilometre breakwater protecting the canal entrance. Almost ten per cent of the fill excavated from the canal was used to construct this roadway linking four small islands to the mainland.

We then toured the city’s Colonial district, a small cluttered district that once formed the heart of old Panama City. The entire city had once been surrounded by a broad, protective stone wall. Today only a small remnant remains. However, the area's narrow French and Spanish-inspired laneways are a joy to explore. The streetscape bore more than a passing resemblance to the French Quarters in New Orleans, while a poignant waterfront memorial commemorates the 22,000 lives lost during failed French efforts to build the Panama Canal.


Our final stop for the day was Panama Viejo, the oldest European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas. It was founded in 1519 by the conquistador Pedrarías Dávila and rapidly became the gateway for Spain’s conquest of Latin America. Today, nothing more than stone wall ruins remain. The entire city was burnt to the ground in 1671 during a fierce battle with the English pirate Henry Morgan.


One sight among the ruins captured my imagination - a simple old stone bridge crossing a narrow creek. This bridge was the start of a road that once took plundered Incan treasures from the Pacific coast, across Panama to the Caribbean, and on to Spain. Our guide explained that thousands of slaves had crossed this bridge each year carrying the treasure on their backs. Mules were never used because slaves were far cheaper to purchase and maintain. It's quite a contrast to the mighty ocean-going vessels that transit the same route today.


Click here to read about our own transit of the Panama isthmus.

Third world welcome

Garry and I have arrived in Panama. Our BA flight departed Heathrow shortly after 9.30am, reaching Miami nine hours later. The contrast between Miami airport and the efficient, shiny new Terminal Five couldn’t have been starker. Security took five minutes to complete at Heathrow. In Miami we queued for half an hour in a tiny immigration lounge for a regular entry visa.

International transit doesn’t exist in the USA. Its Government actively discourages such passengers, considering them a threat to national security. As a result, every arriving passenger is forced to enter the nation before catching their transfer flight. However, the US Government has decidedly odd rules regarding transit luggage.

At Heathrow we were told we’d have to collect our bags in Miami and transfer them ourselves. We waited in the baggage hall for 20 minutes. Not one bag appeared. We approached an American Airlines representative and were advised that the airline automatically transfers luggage destined for Central America. We later discovered that automatic transfer was only available to foreign airlines transferring bags to American-owned airlines. Passengers transferring from one American airline to another always have to collect their bags. Surprisingly, this restriction was introduced after 9/11. I wonder why are foreign airlines considered safer than American ones?

Our arrival in Panama took bureaucratic contradiction to the next level. Shortly after landing the pilot announced that our terminal gate was occupied. He went on to explain that we’d been instructed to sit for an hour on the tarmac until a gate became available. We eventually disembarked, only to be confronted with arrows to immigration and baggage collection pointing in opposite directions.

We took a stab at the right hand corridor and soon found ourselves standing at an immigration counter. It was here we learnt a few lessons in third-world border security. Garry entered the country within minutes despite the fact that his immigration officer had never heard of the United Kingdom. His paperwork was processed without hesitation. Meanwhile, I handed over the same paperwork to a second officer and was told I didn’t have the appropriate Tourist Card issued by my airline. No such card was mentioned during our flight and no airline representative greeted us on arrival with said cards.

Without warning the Immigration Officer took my passport and pointed me in the direction of the baggage hall. He instructed me to get a Tourist Card from the nearest airline official and come back to him. I couldn’t believe it. I was being invited to enter the country without a passport. For the next twenty minutes, in the middle of the night, I was sent from one airline representative to another, each vaguely pointing to opposing ends of the baggage hall in a vain search for a Tourist Card. I was even directed to go back through two passport control counters into the immigration zone.

Defeated, I returned to the immigration officer I had first encountered. He took pity on me and without a word of explanation walked me through the airport to a tiny temporary podium on the opposite side of the building. Here a young man was handing out American Airline’s Tourist Cards for US$5 each. I was now free to enter Panama.

Perhaps the most priceless moment throughout the entire experience was being escorted past Garry by two immigration officials. Given that I was confused as he was I simply shrugged my shoulders and disappeared into the distance. I'm sure he thought I'd been arrested.

Our next adventure involved our luggage. The baggage hall had six carousels. None had flights listed on their accompanying screens despite rows of bags circulating underneath. After several stampedes around the hall passengers on our flight were finally united with their bags. The fun continued as we exited the customs hall. We were now almost three hours behind schedule. It soon became apparent that our tour representative was nowhere to be seen. Several weary calls to the tour company ensued before being instructed to catch a cab to our hotel on the promise that all expenses would be reimbursed.

Almost 21 hours after we’d left home we finally found ourselves in a hotel in Panama. It was amusing to reflect on our experience passing through three airports. Two felt distinctly third world, one did not. Luggage transiting through the USA can be transferred automatically while people cannot. Two passengers, travelling on Australian passports, can gain access to the same country via completely different means for no apparent reason. American Airlines is unable to correctly instruct non-American customers on basic travel needs. If simply getting to Panama was any guide, the rest of our holiday was set to be one huge adventure.