Panama Cruise 2025 Nov 7 Day 11 Fuerte Amador (Panama City)

So today we docked early at the cruise port of Fuerte Amador (Fort Amador), which is a historic U.S. Army base at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal. This area is called the Causeway Islands, four small islands by the pacific entrance to the canal. They are linked to the mainland via a causeway made from rock extracted during the excavations from the Panama Canal. In part the causeway was meant to serve as a breakwater for the entrance.
A four-lane road runs along the causeway to each island, and there is a bicycle/jogging path as well. The islands are as follows: Naos, Culebra, Perico and Flamenco. 

During World War II, fortifications were constructed on the islands to protect the canal but were never used. They have since been dismantled, but bulwarks and empty gun emplacements still exist.

Our plan for the day was to catch the hop on hop off bus just outside the cruise port and explore the area, so we got directions to walk out to find the bus stop. We walked and walked from island to island looking for the bus we did not manage to find it.  We did manage to see a few things along the way. We walked past a Canal Pilot location. We were able to see one of their ships traveling to a ship that just left the canal to pick up their pilots.

We walked along for about an hour towards Panama City, stopping a city bus stop, only to have 3 busses pass us by without stopping, we finally hailed a cab and it took us to the old French Quarter.  

Statue dedicated to the workers of the canal

There were two museums in the area and a very large catholic church. The first museum we went to was on Panama, it was a very nice local museum that gave a great overview of Panama, the people and its presidents.

We learned that most Panamanians are of mixed race, since the Spanish conquest in the XVI century and then all the people who came to work over the years that the canal was being built added to the country’s diversity.  They say that 80 % of Panamanians have a diverse ethnic background.

On September 7th, 1977 the Panama Canal Treaty and the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal Treaty was signed by the then President Jimmy Carter and the head of the Panama Government Omar Herrera. The canal was to be turned over to Panama on Dec 31, 1999. 

The next museum that we explored was one dedicated to the Panama Canal.
This museum was very well done, they gave a very good history of the area and the building of the canal. There is so much information but I will try and give a simple overview.

The Panama Canal is an artificial 82-kilometer (51-mile) waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, locks at each end lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial fresh water lake 26 meters (85 ft) above sea level, locks then lower the ships at the other end. An average of 200,000,000 litres (52 million US gallons) of fresh water is used in a single passing of a ship.

The French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps and engineer Philippe Bunau-Varilla were the driving forces behind French attempts to construct the Panama Canal (1881–1889). De Lesseps had made his reputation by successfully constructing the Suez Canal (1859–1869), a route that had soon proved its value in international commerce. Unfortunately, he thought that he could build a Suez Canal like system for Panama. What he didn’t take into considerations is the fact that the two oceans were not at the same level and there was too much land between to excavate a canal that was all on the same level.  So between being unable to excavate all the rock needed to build the canal and the malaria from the mosquitos they were unable to finish construction.  The US decided that it was too important a waterway not to finish, so they purchased the right to complete the canal.

The US had one major area to overcome while they were building the canal, the presence of yellow fever and malaria which caused the deaths of thousands of people. In 1904 Dr William Gorgas led a sanitary campaign to establish a water and sewage systems, cleanup brigades and ordered the installation of mosquito nets fumigation and the paving of streets. Thanks to him yellow fever was eradicated by 1906 and malaria was reduced by 1908.

When the US started the construction they established a Panama Canal Zone which they controlled. They established the Gold Roal and Silver Roll. The gold roll was usually citizen of the US, they had better salaries, better housing and access to better products in the commissarial, compared to workers belonging  to the silver roll who came from over 97 different countries.

The prevailing inequality and racism in the Zone create a scenario for the exploitation of laborers in the silver roll positions. There was segregation throughout the Zone, schools, dining halls, and hospitals well into the mid 1900’s when the civil rights movement in the US started to take hold.  

We did have an interesting experience as we were going through the museum, a lady came up to us and asked Len and I where we were from, we said Canada and she said she was from the US and she was disgusted with this museum because it was the most Anti American she had every seen and she was leaving, I guess she couldn’t handle the truth.

After the museum we went back out to the Independence Square to take a look at the The Metropolitan Archcathedral Basilica of Santa María la Antigua which is a Catholic church located in the old town of Panama City in Panama. It was consecrated in 1796, although construction work began in 1688, 108 years earlier. It was quite spectacular inside.

We decided to walk from the French quarter down into the city, we walked along the streets and found this really neat little market area. It looked like a grocery store from the outside and once inside there was good but it was individual  vendors selling produce and other products and in the second section there was a meat market with individual butcher stalls. It was all very clean and well done.

It was a high traffic area and there were lot of small stores and street vendors and not a lot of crosswalks. However we found that if you waited on the street like you wanted to cross the cars would just stop for you, they put there flashers on and just waited for you to cross.  After exploring the downtown area we caught another cab back to the cruise port where we got back on the ship and into a cool shower.

We had an early dinner again and then made it to the Universal Lounge for a ship production show called On the Bayou. It was a show based in New Orleans and it was done in this location because the stage moves up and down for different levels. It was one of the best shows that we saw.  We were going to take in the Magic show again in the theatre but we were so tired from the day, we walked just over 18 km today so we decided to turn in early and get a good sleep because we had to be up early in the morning for our start through the Canal.