Cruising the Panama Canal

(telegraph.co.uk) The sights, sounds and smells of the Panama Canal take Sue Attwood on a thrilling voyage of discovery.

I’m in a kayak on the Chagres River on the Caribbean coast of Panama, the river down which the Spanish brought their treasure from Peru to the Spanish Main and up which Henry Morgan sailed with his army of privateers in 1671 to sack the city of Panama. It’s steamily hot and I can hear the eerie cry of howler monkeys deep in the forest, screaming like a car cornering at speed. In front of me, within reach, is a three-toed sloth, not something you come across in the daily run of things.

In fact, since this remarkable little cruise on the 108ft catamaran MV Discovery began four days ago, the assault on all the senses has been intense. Discovery’s itinerary is enticing: beginning at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal, she first heads south-east for Darien where guests are taken upriver into the jungle in motorised longboats to an Embera Indian village.

The second day is spent lazily snorkelling, kayaking and beachcombing in the idyllic Pearl Islands. Entering the canal on the third day, Discovery overnights near the Smithsonian Tropical Research Centre for jungle walks and boat trips accompanied by Smithsonian guides.

She descends through the locks into the Caribbean in the afternoon of the fourth day and then into the mouth of the Chagres River to spot more birds and animals. A visit to San Lorenzo Fort high above the Chagres mouth completes day five. Portobelo on the Spanish Main, an irresistible magnet to every buccaneer in the Caribbean, is the final stop.

Discovery has 12 comfortable double cabins, each with powerful shower, air-conditioning and enormous windows. There are two Zodiacs and a number of kayaks (for near silent wildlife-watching) on a platform that lowers the kayaks into the water so no one has to get their feet wet. There are 11 crew, including two experienced guides, and a chef who cooks with Panamanian ingredients, including plantain, yucca and local fish.

A striking aspect of this cruise is the many differences you encounter. The Embera Indians in the Darien, with their houses on stilts, could not be further removed from the bustle of the canal and the wild beaches and turquoise seas of the Pearl Islands. The anti-pirate fortifications on the Caribbean coast seem, again, a whole world away, yet all this is effortlessly packed into seven days and liberally garnished with wildlife, including animals one has never heard of before, let alone seen. Puttering up river into the Darien jungle with mangrove swamps on either side we see a crab-eating raccoon with a black and gold hooped tail and osprey, frigate birds and mangrove black cock. There are barriguda trees that shed their leaves in dry weather and store water in their trunks, and buttercup trees or poro poro that are covered with yellow flowers.

The jungle may be beautiful but this is no jaunt in the park. As the Lonely Planet guide to this area bluntly states: “…if you get lost out here, you’re done for.” It’s the sheer scale of the Panama Canal that makes it so thrilling. Everything is vast from the 25,000-ton oil tankers queuing in the golden morning light to enter, to the heavy lock gates weighing 720 tons, to the towering walls of the locks as 26 million gallons of water deluge into the chamber raising the Discovery up into the canal. And if you don’t care for canal detail there are birds to look at and crocodiles on the bank.

It is somehow unexpected to find out how very beautiful it is in the middle of the canal. The land was flooded when the canal was built and the Smithsonian became custodians of the area in 1946. Their research station is based on Barro Colorado island, a refuge for myriad multicoloured birds, agoutis, spider-monkeys and more.

To start with it’s difficult for our untrained eyes to spot monkeys crouched on branches and parrots in distant trees so it is essential to have professional help and this is where Octavio and Ian, our on-board guides, and Ricardo, from the Smithsonian, excel. Their well-trained eyes spot things we can’t see to begin with, even when we’re told where to look.

There’s quite a wind as we exit the canal and turn into the mouth of the Chagres. Discovery’s shallow draft, so handy for slipping into small inlets and bays, ill-suits her to the short periods she is in rough seas and seasickness pills are kept permanently on the bar. Our final port of call is Portobelo. This tiny, attractive place, now a World Heritage Site, has two churches and three forts to defend it. A wonderfully evocative 17th-century customs building with grass growing out of the roof houses a fly-blown museum displaying cannon balls, old coins and curling newspaper cuttings. Sir Francis Drake is buried at the entrance to the bay and the cannon embrasures in the crumbling forts still face out to sea as though half expecting a spectral attack.

But it is the sensory experiences as well as the sites that make this cruise memorable: the coolness of the air while watching toucans from the observation deck in the opalescent dawn; the white jungle flowers that have a sweet smell like newly baked cake; the explosion of flavour as the chef’s punchy chimichurri sauce hits the taste buds for the first time; and the thrill of anticipation experienced at the rattle and shudder of Discovery’s anchor being raised as she prepares to depart for the next diversion.

Getting there

Reef and Rainforest Tours (01803 866965; www.reefandrainforest.co.uk ) offers the seven-night Journey Between the Seas cruise from £3,699, based on two sharing and including international flights.

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Original Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/riversandcanals/6824673/Cruising-the-Panama-Canal.html
Date Retrieved: December 16, 2009