My Panama Canal Assignment

I wanted to write something insightful about the Panama Canal. I really did. With interesting trivia like the highest toll ever paid was more than US$300,000 for a cruise ship and the lowest was US$0.36 for some clown who swam through. Unfortunately everything I tried to write ended up sounding like a third grade Society and Culture assignment. All that was missing was a big sheet of butchers paper and a set of textas.


So I won't tell you about the two failed attempts by private French companies to build the canal, or the 1903 acquisition of the project by the United States government, who improved on both the construction techniques and health of the workforce (most deaths were from malaria or yellow fever) but took sovereignty over the canal for the next 74 years. Or that escalating protests by Panamanians led to an agreement for the United States to hand back sovereignty over the canal to Panama on 31 December 1999.

Work has started on a third set of locks to accommodate larger ships which will cost US$5.2 billion and is due to open in 2014, the centenary of the canal opening. But that isn't very interesting or insightful, nor is the fact that the biggest five users of the canal are the United States, China, Japan, Chile and South Korea and approximately 45% of all transfers through the canal are shipping containers.

I will tell you that it takes about 8 or 9 hours each way to get through the canal, which is a shame, because it means there are few tourist boats actually offering visitors a ride on the canal and I had to be content viewing the canal in operation from the shore. And this means I can't offer any observations about travesing the canal, because I didn't.

In fact, about the only genuine insight I can offer after seeing the Canal in operation is that I have looked at a lot of toll roads and other forms of economic and social infrastructure over the last ten years, and this is definitely the coolest toll road I have seen.