Panama Update #80
November 3, 2008
Today was our 3rd consecutive day out in the field. We had to drive across the canal at the Gatun Locks to get to the field site. The cars line up at the crossing until any ships are clear of the locks, then they can lower the bridge for the cars. On the previous day we only had to wait a few minutes to get across, but today we had about a 45 minute wait to drive across because there were several large ships in the process of moving through. I am getting so used to seeing the big ships that it seems normal to me now. I remember how remarkable it seemed the first few times I saw them. The first site we went to for the field work was called Fuerte San Lorenzo. It is high on a bluff at the point that the Chagres River meets the Carribean. It is a great lookout spot for the canal and a lot of the ship traffic in the area. The fort was established in the early 1800s, then Henry Morgan took it over in the 1820s and used it as a headquarters to take over all of Panama. Eventually it was destroyed and rebuilt and has been used for many purposes over the years. It is such a critical lookout that the US used it in World War II and all the way to the year 2000, when they returned the land to Panama. Now it is a rundown historic site. It is Panama Independence Day from Colombia this week, so a lot of tourists were visiting it. Nikki and I cooked dinner for the group of 8 people who are staying here and helped out this week with all the field work. Tomorrow we head back to Panama City and plan to watch the election results at a friends house who lives near-by and who gets CNN. On Wednesday we hope to settle the apartment situation, but until the contract is signed, we cannot say for sure.
