I think, I already showed you in the last video but this is where Panama is kind of at its thinnest and this is where the.. where the Panama Canals run so Good morning Internet, it is 8:40 in the morning and welcome back to the channel Welcome here in Panama City! Really cool place to be and today I'm going to take you to.. one of the greatest wonders of the new world which is the Panama Canal. Because Panama Canal is actually a lot more interesting than you might think. So I'm gonna go there and have a look and show you around a little bit Okay There is a lot of high rise.. right here
on the new part of town so you got old Panama City which is on that side.
This is the new part of Panama City I actually just have to make a
U-turn because I have to go that way The Hilton Casino Trying to find a better viewpoint Here I'm a little bit higher So right behind me you can see the Panama Canal or well part of it because the entire Panama Canal is 50 miles long which is about 80, 82 kilometers I think. I think I already showed you in the last video but this is where Panama is kind of at its thinnest and this is where the.. where the Panama Canals runs. It runs through the Lago Gatún over here and then it cuts straight across here It's this red line here, until Panama
City and well the importance of the channel is basically shown by how many vessels pass through here. At the moment it's about 14 500 vessels that pass through every year and 10 years ago they already passed a milestone of one million ships That pass through.. it's crazy and for a really long time the size of the original locks of the Panama Canal have been used to determine the maximum size of ships That were being built worldwide and that size is known as the Panamax. Oh there's also still a.. So besides the oversea we are still
transporting things by railway here as well So the idea to create a water passage that would link the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans already dates back from the 1500s when King Charles I, from Spain sent out a group of people to survey the river over here. But even though at the time they thought it would be impossible to cross through the mountainous jungle. The idea of having a shortcut to connect Europe to Eastern Asia that idea remained and ultimately it were the French who attempted it for the first time so the French team was led by a man called Ferdinand de Lesseps and he was also in charge of building the Suez Canal in Egypt so he had a little bit of
experience and they started their construction efforts in 1880 but they faced a monumental
challenge and besides constructional problems they were battling with tropical
diseases like yellow fever and malaria and that was actually one of the main reasons
why they stopped the project a few years later And well, then the United States kind of swooped in and they took over the project in 1904 And at some stages of the project, they had six thousand men working on a nine mile stretch at the same time so that was one of the hardest stretches
that they had to go through and eventually they completed the project in 1914 and by that time, it had cost 350 million dollars which at the time was the most expensive construction project that the United States had done ever in history So why did the French fail and the Americans succeed? So if we take out the tropical diseases from the equation It was the way that they were looking at building the actual canal. So what the French were trying to do is build a level canal but the problem is, is that there was a natural topography so in the middle the land was higher so if you then still want a level canal connecting both oceans then you'll need to dig a very, very deep canal and when you start doing that your slopes are not going to be stable and they're going to collapse so if
you want to have stable slopes you need to dig an even wider canal and excavate even more and more so it was just a monumental task for them to be able to pull it off that way and doing it
that way they also didn't take into account tides The Americans on the other hand realized that a level canal would never work and they constructed locks which were expensive, difficult but in
the end it was the only solution to get it done and save millions of cubic meters of excavation Now they build locks in three different locations But I think the most impressive ones are the Miraflores locks. So let's go and check those out So there are 12 locks in total and now
I'm standing at the Miraflores locks So ships are lifted here into two steps up to
that level. Then the next locks lifted again One more step until Gatún Lake and then on the other side of Gatún Lake there are again locks and they lower the ships down into three steps back to the Atlantic side. So on this side on the Miraflores locks, ships are lifted 16 meters up.. crazy, right? And well that's on average because it all depends on the tides so when it's extremely high tide the lift is 13 meters and when it's extremely low tide the lift is 20 meters so on the Pacific side you get huge tidal differences on the Atlantic side the tidal differences are very small so there the lifts are pretty much always the same Now the lock chambers that you see here
are massive concrete structures so the side walls are about 15 meters thick at the base and then towards the top there's less strength required so they tape it down into steps and they're a little bit thinner at the top. Each lock chamber requires a hundred thousand square meters of water to fill it from the lowered up to the raised position and of course the same amount of water must be drained again from the chamber to lower it again Well, I had to wait a little bit and the..
weather completely changed as you can see But there's one coming through. And the next one is already coming there as well. So they have two channels on all the locks so ships can
pass each other simultaneously from both sides And I don't know how well you can see
this because it's a little far away But just on the right hand side of that ship.. you see like a little.. it looks like a little train which runs on those rails on the sides and they call those mulas which basically means mules And they are guiding the ship to make sure that it passes safely because you can see it's super tight fit.. for pretty much all of them. Anybody ordered anything from Amazon prime? Here it comes Just full with containers with Amazon prime So you can see the difference in water level now That this one is all raised and so now this vessel has passed through the first step and it's now continuing in that part which is the second step to lift it up all the way till that level over there There's nothing coming from the
other side at the moment so they can just pass two vessels from the
same direction at the same time now So now this one is almost in so then they're
gonna close the locks on the back side And then pump all of this water into these locks So they're opening the locks now.
You can see that the water is level So it's now ready to pass into the
second step that one is already through And there she goes So how fascinating was that? Cool, right ?
I could watch that the whole day I think It's just.. wow yeah that humans can come up with this type of stuff I think is pretty incredible Anyway, so it was Americans that built the
original Panama Canal and they handed it over to Panama in 1991, I think and since then there's been more and more construction on it So there's been a deepening project and widening projects and obviously a lot of maintenance dredging and most of that dredging is being done by.. well, I think it's DEME, which is a Belgium Dredging company. I was actually.. so I
worked five years for dredging company I think I mentioned before that my last
assignment was in Ecuador in Guayaquil but before that I was actually also here in Panama City.. working on a tender here for the Panama Canal And um.. yeah I think we lost that also.. to the Belgium competitors But anyway.. those projects are quite complicated because there's also a lot of rock around here So many of those projects actually involve a lot of drilling and blasting to get rid of that rock Which makes come.. yeah projects always a little bit risky and complicated. Um anyway, I think it's time we head to Panama City. I just want to have a look around the old town which is quite cool And um.. ride around there a little bit
and show you that, that part so let's go Check out this view. So that's the new Panama City And I'm now kind of riding on this ring road
around old Panama City which is over here I actually missed my turn. I was supposed to go in there and now I'm on this road but anyway I'll just ride around it and find another entrance on that side Casco Antiguo (Old City) So welcome to the old part of town
with some really awesome buildings Somewhere here. Ai ya, this little church.. is
pretty famous. Um I'm not sure if I can.. If it's open. That's closed.. oh that's a shame Oh no, it's open on that side.. yes So the altar is actually made of wood and covered entirely in gold leaf. Stunning, right? And legend says that in 1671 there was a pirate called Henry Morgan and he was attacking the city And the Jesuit priests then painted the
entire altar black to hide it from the pirates and that's how they managed to
keep it and it survived the pirate attack Alright, so I'm just going to ride a
little bit more through the streets of old town and then I'm just gonna ride back to the new part of town again. I just really have to watch the street signs very well here because it's all one-way streets. So before you know it You're riding against uh traffic See so there's still some really old
structures still standing like this one here For example There's some very cute streets out here Just gonna ride to the seaside now. See
there's another one Can't believe it's still standing See here, you can see as well that they built a new building right against an old building there Hello Cool right? There are some.. I don't know.. Men in uniforms Now sure what they're guarding That was a little.. a little tour of old Panama City I think this.. this city is pretty, it's pretty
cool. I.. I liked being here as an expat and Yeah it's both modern, there's history. You
got the Panama Canal.. really awesome so Yeah it's been a good, good place to spend a couple of days. I was just so tired after that whole Crossing of the Darien Gap and spending three days on little boats I just arrived here completely exhausted. But now I'm feeling much better already but it's good So yeah, that was it for today.. I really
hope you like this video and if you did Please give me a big thumbs up, subscribe down below and then I'll see you in the next video Oh fish market here.. judging by all the birds looking for easy meal
