I started the day with a beautiful morning walk along the Amador Causeway to look at the Panama City skyline and the Bridge of the Americas. This causeway was built using the excavation tailings of the Panama Canal. After my walk, I loaded the bike and rode up to the Miraflores Locks to watch ships transiting into the canal. The canal was completed in 1914 and stretches for 51 miles. It is considered to be one of the man-made wonders of the modern world. There are only two sets of locks, one on each end of the canal. The Miraflores/San Miguel locks on the Pacific side and Catún locks on the Atlantic. There is a man-made lake in the middle. Ships transiting from the Pacific go through the Miraflores locks in two steps, lifting 54 feet. A little further on they go through the San Miguel lock which lifts them an additional 31 feet for a total of 85 feet. They sail across the Catún lake and are then lowered 85 feet in three steps at the Catún locks. The entire transit from Pacific to the Atlantic takes 11 hours. I've been fascinated by the Panama Canal since I was a kid. If you read my bio you will remember that I spent a lot of time in the library. I recall reading a book about the engineering and construction of the canal that began in 1904. A decade later when the canal opened, over 30,000 workers had died predominantly from malaria and yellow fever. Can you imagine that being done today? OSHA would not approve! From the locks I rode across the city to the Overland Embassy. Panama City is the end of the road as there is a 60 mile gap of jungle that separates Panama from Columbia. This is called the Darien Gap and it is for the most part impassable, though there have been a handful of overlanders that have used months of brute force to get their vehicles through. For the rest of us mere mortals we must find a way around the gap. There is no commercial ferry service so your choices are to either ship by air freight, sea freight or find a private vessel to shuttle you. When I was waiting in line between the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican border, I met a Canadian couple who were traveling in a heavily overloaded Land Rover Defender. When I asked them how they were going to manage the gap they told me about the Overland Embassy in Panama City. Two young overlander-entrepreneurs Alejandro and Ana, natives of Panama City, saw a need to create a logistics company to assist overlanders with this complicated step. I found their office and Ana helped me with all of the paperwork that was required and booked Tiggrr's trip to Bogota, Columbia for this Saturday. Ana told me that Panama only has two seasons. The hot season (which is just beginning) and the hot and wet season when it rains for months on end (which just ended). The actual temperature doesn't change between these seasons... only the moisture. After signing papers and paying for the ticket, Ana gave me a bucket and a hose to give the bike a wash in their parking lot as it has to be clean for import to Columbia. Friday is a national holiday in Panama so I have to drop the bike off at the airport tomorrow morning. Someone from Overland Embassy's office will meet me there to assist with customs and final preparations. They also arranged for someone to meet me in Bogota to help me recover the bike on Monday. I found a budget hotel back in the historic district to spend a couple nights before fly myself to Columbia.