Panama City is a place of contrasts, from the ultra modern high rise such as the new waterfront Trump tower, the ultra modern-ultra chic malls that the average Panamanian could afford to shop in to the old city (which was incidently, like every other city in central America once sacked by the famous Captain Morgan) and the local buses which are ex-US school buses painted to reflect the relationship between naked ladies with swords and Jesus.......I like it (for a city). At first it seemed really big and expensive but it was anything but, you can basically cross the town in a taxi for $3US.

I stayed in a very dodgy hostel in a very good location and managed to do a lot of leg work seeing the place.

The coolest thing about Panama City to my mind is the Canal. I´ve head a lot of rhetoric in the past about it being an 'engineering wonder...blah, blah, blah' and I was sceptical but seeing the Miraflores locks with a container ship and a passenger ship going through was amazing. I´m not going to bore the non-engineeringtypes with facts and figures but the amount and steel and concrete in the locks is just amazing! Not to mention the weight of the water they deal with....

From my dealings in shiping in the past I´ve often head of a 'Panamax' class of vessel (which in the largest vessel size that can fit through the Panama canal). After walking around some of the malls in Panama city I don´t think that Panamax was invested to describe vessels but rather a feature of the women here. In Panama City I was shocked that the female manikins in many of the clothing stores had astounding breasts. Now I´m not the kind of guy that gets excited by a store dummy (really....) but these things had breasts on them that must have been at least J-cup, if your struggling to imagine that picture a normal sized store manikin with breasts larger than my head!!!!! After seeing this and being astounded I paid a lot more attention to the local women as I walked around looking out for one with these gloriously disproportionate mamaries, but alas I didn´t find a single one. I guess they must only come out when its sunny!

My biggest regret is that I didn´t manage to get a photo of one of these Panamax monsters, however I will try and get one in David.