Teacher on Two Wheels

Above: Time lapse footage of a boat passing through the Panama Canal

Wednesday 4/8/08 Panama City, Panama

The boat sat patiently and waited for the gates to open, for a chance to move into the lock. More than 1,000 containers sat stacked on her deck. All were colored those muted, faded colors that are so well-suited for shipping containers: bloody rust, gun powder blue, old bone yellow.

An alarm sounded. The gates began to separate. They moved just as you’d expect anything built in the early 1900s to move: slow and steady. At last, the ship could advance. She didn’t lurch forward like a corvette with new tires at a fresh green light. No, she was far too big and bloated for that. Instead, she crawled. She rolled out of bed and dragged her feet. When her tail end made it past the opened gates, the gates slid closed behind her. They clicked shut. Sitting deep in a concrete tank now, the ship began to feel new water rush under her belly. Every so slowly, she rose. Inch by inch. Slow. Impossible to watch the movement in a glance or two. Over time, she rose 27 feet and bobbed at the top of her massive holding tank. When she had floated high enough, when her aquatic elevator took her to the top floor, the next set of gates began to open, just like the first. She pushed out of the tank and moved just a bit closer to the Caribbean Sea.

The Panama Canal is a testament to the endurance and collective strength of mankind. For 50 miles, the canal cuts through dense Panamanian jungle. Each inch of each mile was worked for. Thousands of workers died during her construction. Yellow fever. Malaria. Dynamite accidents. Workers were brought to Panama from many parts of the world to help with her construction. They left homes and families behind for the sake of her creation. The rock through which she cuts is a type of shale, soft and prone to landslides. New technology was invented to help remove the mountains of debris she expelled from her innards. Every step of the way was a challenge. Projects failed. Treaties were challenged. Crews of workers buried their peers in the same ground they fought to move and sculpt.

But one day the Caribbean crew stared eye to eye with the Pacific crew. They shook hands. The water flowed and the canal took her first breath, opened her eyes. Decades of work ended in success.

Today the canal is the aortic valve of Panama’s heart. It feeds her with goods from all over the world. It lines her pockets with the tariffs she demands. It has made Panama the most prosperous country in Central America and will continue to do so far into the future. The canal is going to be expanded in the coming years to allow larger ships to make it through her confines. Considering the fact that boats pay canal fees based on the size of their cargo, and that some boats currently pay as much as $240,000 U.S. for a single passage, the canal stands to earn far more money for her mother country in the future than she currently does.

All the money she brings in isn’t funneled straight into Panamanian banks as profit, however. It takes 250 million dollars a year to maintain the canal.

The key to her success is not only the obvious fact that she connects two vast bodies of water and bisects one of the world’s largest land masses. The locks, or sections of the canal that use water to raise and lower boats, are also key to her continued importance. The canal feeds boats into a large man-made lake that sits above sea level in the middle of Panama. To get the boats into the lake, locks are used to raise the boats dozens of feet above sea level. After passing through the lake, more locks are used to lower the boats back down to sea level.

It takes a cargo freighter about 24 hours to make a complete passage through the canal. A single 24 hour passage shaves as much as 30-40 days off of the previous trans-global shipping routes that used to take boats down around the tip of South America. Much of the boats traveling from west to east are carrying Asian factory goods to the east coast of the United States. Boats heading west take goods from South America to Asia. Opening the canal uncorked a multi-directional flow of goods that laid the foundation for the globalization we currently see creeping across the planet today.

I rode out to the Mira Flores Locks, the most popular spot to watch boats pass, with two Swiss cyclists I met in Panama City. The three of us happened to email the same Couchsurfing host at the same time to ask for accommodation. Miguel, our host, graciously agreed to let all of us stay in his apartment at the same time so we could meet and possibly arrange future plans to ride together (the three of us have similar routes: we are headed south to Argentina). When I met Pius and Stefan, the Swiss cyclists, I immediately felt indebted to Miguel; we got along like old friends.

Granted, we’ve only hung out for 24 hours. But, for what it’s worth, descriptions and impressions:

Pius (pronounced Pews, as in church pews) is a 29-year-old mechanical engineer from Zurich. With a smile that he can’t ever seem to wipe off his face and an energetic disposition that leaves him bopping around and rattling jokes off all day, he’s the type of guy a really depressed person would want to punch in the face. When he was 18, he rode a tandem bicycle with his girlfriend from Zurich to Moscow. After the trip was over, despite getting robbed, an ordeal in which Pius pounced on his fleeing attacker to try to recover his stolen stuff, Pius was hooked. He had tapped into the sacredness of the bike touring experience. Tired, though, and with rattled confidence thanks to the robbery, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever go on a big tour again. Two years passed, however, and he started feeling the same itch he felt before he rode to Moscow. Determined to avoid traveling while shrouded in the type of naivety that made his Moscow ride feel reckless, he planned and studied. He saved his money. He searched for the perfect riding partner. He went to Holland to meet with a custom bike manufacturer and get fitted for a recumbent bike. He did all his homework to make his trip the most rewarding trip possible. Ten months ago, he left Alaska. In 10 months, he hopes to be in Argentina. He’s still smiling.

Pius is riding with Stefan. They met five years ago and Stefan didn’t hesitate when Pius asked him if he wanted to go riding for 20 months. Stefan, a tall 24-year-old triathlete and recent college graduate with a wild mop of hair, vibrant blue eyes, and red glasses, is more soft-spoken than Pius but equally as personable. He, like Pius, speaks near-perfect English in addition to his native German and school-learned French and Italian. Contemplative, Stefan visibly thinks sometimes before he speaks and enjoys keeping a thought journal that he updates each night. In it, he records thoughts that he’s had throughout the day while in the saddle, regardless of how trivial they were. He’s a sponge for new-ness. He’s the type of guy you could imagine laughing with curiosity at the cultural idiosyncrasies that other people meet with frustration. Like, for example, I could picture him being intrigued (rather than revolted) by a decaying Cambodian rest stop pit toilet stamped with footprints of wet human waste. He’d just laugh and think out loud, “OK, how can I work with this??”

In the comfort of Miguel’s massive downtown Panama City apartment, Pius, Stefan, and I talked, schemed, sent emails and came up with a plan. It involves a boat, Colombia, and the three of us. More details to come.