Hands Across The Oceans

How on Earth did they do it?

Those pioneers of engineering, the visionaries, the get-out-and-do-it merchants who took wild dreams and made them reality?

I can't imagine what effort of will it must have taken to carve a shipping lane through the corridor of the Americas, but here it was before me; the Panama Canal, a causeway for modern intercontinental transportation, playground of the steel leviathans of intermodular shipping.

Another visit to the magnificent Parque Natural de Metropolitano this morning. 6 am kick off, went with Brooks, the London-based computer whiz who looks after registration. As befits one who shares his name with a running shoe this lad can lope; he barely broke sweat on the 4.5 mile route.

Took a cab to the start of the trail this time, adding a half-mile warm-up from the official park entrance to the steep climb. What a half-mile that turned out to be! First up we spied a small Capybara, a cross between a rabbit, a rat and a Guinea Pig. The portly creature padded along snuffling amongst the lower ferns and paid us no attention at all.

Within a few moments, barely fifty metres along the trail, we disturbed a pair of common Basilisks, known locally as 'Jesus Lizards'. These puppies have large webbed hind feet that enables them to thrash across the surface of ponds or small rivers in a mad Roadrunner stylee. They showed us their talent as we broke cover, making a heck of a racket as they fled across a large brackish pond. I first read about Basilisks in an adventure novel about an American naturalist collecting rare specimens from the Amazonian rainforest. I was eleven years old at the time. Now here I was watching a pair of them in the wild; it was a special moment for me, evoking memories of those halcyon 'Adventure' days when I'd curl up with one of Willard Price's beautifully crafted tales. I'd dream of going on Safari or wrestling mighty Anacondas in the jungle swamps before waking up in a pool of sweat . . . but that's enough about that.

We continued along the gently climbing corridor, the walls of dense green foliage breeping and chirping as we ran. A few twists and turns later we stopped in our tacks. Twenty metres ahead sat four white-faced monkeys, casually sifting through the debris along the pathway like an American chain gang cleaning the highway. They gave us the most cursory of glances before sauntering off into the jungle, tails held aloft in a distinctly haughty and obviously dismissive manner. Cranking up the pace we hit the path leading to the vista-rich summit of the La Cienaguita trail. As we took a well-earned breather I gazed out towards the Pacific and the mouth of the Panama Canal, remembering last night.

On Tuesday evening a majority of the exhibitors, delegates and service personnel attended an ACP official TOC Americas welcome function. Set atop the Miraflores Lock building the soirée provided all manner of canapés, carved meats and liberal rations of vinos tinto and blanco. I ignored all this and made my way to the observation deck where I stood, slack-jawed, watching a procession of humungous container ships line up to pass through the locks of this magnificent waterway.

I've been in shipping for 25 years, sending any number of ocean containers to all points East and West. A good many of them made this very journey, chugging across the Atlantic through the Caribbean to enter the canal at it's eastern entrance before spilling out into the Pacific. Now here I stood, free booze and grub eschewed, to see one of the modern wonders of the world in action. Massive container ships, their command towers and accommodation decks as tall as an apartment building, were roped and towed by an army of small diesel engines run along rails set into the sides of each 1,000 foot-long lock. With barely five metres to spare on either side these transport leviathans, laden with up to six thousand TEUs (TEU = one 20’/ 6 metre container module), slid soundlessly through the gateway. As I watched one, the MSC Panama, her burden stacked twelve-high on her aft deck, she started to sink. Like a great maiden lowering herself into a narrow bath she slowly, gracefully descended into the lock. Millions of gallons of reddish-brown water pumped furiously beyond the hundred foot lock gates as egalité was acheived. Finally the whole shebang stopped, the mighty doors swung open and the MSC Panama was on her way, sliding effortlessly out of the lock and into the wide open spaces of the canal.

The people around me chattered and guzzled, oblivious to proceedings. They'd seen it all before of course; this was their business, daily bread-and-butter stuff. To me this was a dream come true, a wondrous event to be savoured and banked, to be replayed over time. I babbled wildly to anyone who would listen about the poignancy of the moment. I was in danger of being thrown overboard so I curbed my enthusiasm and watched the next vessel - a 'small' LPG carrier, around fifteen thousand tons displacement - complete a ritual that's performed time after time, twenty-four seven, three-six-five.

I find it incredulous that this monument to human engineering was completed in 1913, albeit at no little human cost; around one thousand workers perished during excavation and construction. The scale of such an undertaking, with the limited resources available at that time, leaves me breathless. What vision! What bravado, the sheer ambition of such a project - to carve a link between the hemispheres, to join East with West and let the traders flood through without risk to life, limb or cargo in the teeth of the monstrous seas around Cape Horn.

This morning, after I'd completed a good, swift run (thanks mostly to Brooks) and stood under an ice-cold shower for ten minutes so as not to sweat horribly through my suit all morning, I visited the ACP people at the show to thank them for their hospitality. They seemed genuinely moved by my energetic response to the trip, telling all about their plans for 2014 when the extension to the world's busiest waterway should be open. But it was one gentleman's response to my running tales that got my attention.

'So, did you see any Tarantulas? No? How about African Bees? We have a lot of African Bees in Panama - they can be quite deadly. We also have some 'difficult' snakes, too.' The colour, impressively dark after my recent travels, obviously drained from my face at this point. 'Oh yes', he continued, a cheeky smile playing across his lips, 'I do all my exercise in the gym.'

I've nipped onto RunTheWorld dot com and found a nice safe route for Friday - it looks like a corker, running from the city out along a narrow causeway to the Calzada de Amador. And not a tree-snake in sight.

Comments

[SP]

Christ Sweder, you were right, and as the pic of you in that tight orange T shirt will show, you have put on a pound or two.

[Mid Life Crisis Man]

Dunno SP, I thought it looked like another of those orange jump suits...

[Sweder]

I think you're all being extremely harsh. Though I must say they had to stitch two life vests together to fit me . . .

[RinkRearArtek]

Usnea For Medication In Cats http://goodburgerpa.com/ - xanax for sale Unfortunately, Xanax is associated with some side effects. http://goodburgerpa.com/ - purchase xanax