The first time I went through the Panama Canal I was struck by how much it reminded me of a ‘National Geographic’ ideal version of the Amazon. All dense jungle and silt-brown water. The canal cuts directly through the heart of the jungle, connecting what feels like two worlds – a carefully organized and constructed means of bypassing what would otherwise be a very long, and sometimes dangerous, trip. Even on my third (or is it fourth? I honestly don’t remember, and that’s not me trying to name drop, it’s just that things blur) time through, it’s still a surreal experience. Cargo ships slide by us as we enter the final loch, their crews bustling on the stark bow, a much more complicated procedure for them than for us it seems. We wait patiently in line, and watch a huge cargo train snake along the shore beside us, a ribbon of blue and yellow cars against the deep green of the jungle.
It’s hot here. Very very hot. Warm enough that few of the crew venture outside, and few of the passengers who have been through this transit before brave the outside decks. The sun seems to beat straight down and reflects off the ship’s white super-structure and wooden decks so that you are nearly blinded as you make your way from one end of the ship to the other. Since the company uniform doesn’t include a hat, and since our uniform shirts are made of non-breathing heavy polyester, I’m one of the many who choose to stay inside in the AC.
For a long stretch of minutes the huge towering wall of the cargo ship blocks our view of the shore. Massive bricks of corrugated red, green, blue and white block out the light at the same time as they reflect it. Everyone one of those containers on its way to becoming the load for a semi-truck, stacked atop each other in a seemingly endless towering structure that crawls at a snail’s pace past our windows. Suddenly I find myself thinking of the old girl guides’ song
Barges, I would like to go with you I would like to sail the ocean blue
Barges, have you treasures in your hold? Do you fight with pirates brave and bold?
As the massive convoy comes to a temporary halt in the loch next to us, I find myself remembering when I used to look out my own window and wonder where the distant lights that indicated the ships on the horizon were going. We used to make a game out of it, my parents and I, naming a destination and a cargo for each letter of the alphabet and seeing how far along we could get before the ship was out of sight. No matter how creative you were, whoever got stuck with ‘Z’ always ended up saying that it was a cargo of Zebras going to Zanzibar.
It’s been years since I played that game, and now as we sit here staring at this cargo ship, I find myself wondering where it’s going, what its carrying, what its crew must be like, do they miss their families? How long have they been away?
You can barely tell the locks are lowering, but they are, slowly sinking us down and down to once again become even with sea level. It will take a long time, hours really. I admit I’ve never really paid attention to it before, but it truly is a marvel of technology. I’m reminded, as I almost always am when I’m in some kind of canal, of working the locks in the pouring Welsh rain with my parents when we went on vacation in the UK – this is the same technology as that, just much much bigger.
Looking out the window, I also think of my grandmother , who would doubtlessly comment on how amazing it is that there are so many shades of green in the world. One of the many times I wish Gran was still alive, she would have loved this. Though I expect she would have bonded more with the crew than the other passengers.
As we slide out of the second to last lock, hardly seeming to have changed altitude at all, the jungle once again falls into either side of us. No sign of civilization except for what looks like a power line on the far bank, from this distance it looks no thicker than a spider’s web, as if it could be blown away with a tiny breath. If it weren’t for the fact that we’re in the wrong country, you would think you could find the lost city of the Inca’s somewhere among those rolling hills. Occasionally a red roofed house breaks the endless sea of green, reminding us that people do in fact live here. That it’s not all wilderness. Suddenly the houses are all you see, civilization breaking out of the wilderness like a creature surfacing for air.
Life goes on both inside and outside the ship, I doubt the people in the city outside pay any more attention to us than they would a freight train going by or a car passing them on the road. When you live so close to the extraordinary it’s easy for it to become the every day.
For my part, I’ll be grateful when we slip into the last lock and return to normal, sailing through the middle of dry land will always feel more than a little odd to me.