Miraflores Locks and the Trip Home to La Cruz

Our first hours here were filled with hopping a cab out to the Amador causeway, to see the myriad of ships and smaller boats waiting their turn to pass through the canal.  As it turned out, we were amazed that so many were waiting as the locks were not that busy. 
  The next day once again a cab ride, but to the Miraflores Locks Museum and viewing area.  The museum is well worth the admission fee, giving a thorough account of the history of the locks from inception, including the problems with disease, mosquitoes, and the terrain itself.  The viewing areas are on several different levels which provide a great view of the ships transiting the locks.  We were lucky enough to see two ships go through, as they only have ships during certain hours each morning and then again in the afternoon.  It appeared that during the off hours they perform maintenance on the locks and allow smaller vessels to pass through.  We were fortunate enough to see a lone catamaran go through, giving us a good feel as to what it would be like for us in the future.  They had four line handlers on the boat, and two on the locks tying them off and walking them along as the water rose and fell.  The boat only had fenders, which was interesting as we had been told of having to rent tires for the sides as fenders.  We had an elegant lunch at the high end restaurant, giving a great view of the passing catamaran.  Leif truly enjoyed his day, as did I, but it was more of a "guy thing" with all of the locomotives pulling the ships, and reading in the museum all about the types of machines used to move dirt. 
   Our departure day came quickly, and we were off to the airport for our flights back to Puerto Vallarta.  All went well this time, even though our last flight wasn't listed on the boards until 15 minutes prior to take-off, and we had no idea to which gate we needed to run, as they don't know until the plane arrives.  As it turned out, they had cancelled our flight, but decided later to find a plane for us...  We arrived in P.V. around 7 p.m. tired and happy to be back home.  The Honcho was in great shape after two weeks, only a little dirty.  The air was cool, crisp and slightly humid, not like Bocas.  Kind of a relief.  In the next few days we are provisioning for our trip south, and putting Honcho back together again after taking everything from the outside and putting it inside for our trip to Bocas. 

   I feel pretty much the same as I have throughout the trip, my stiffness is steady, which is a good thing I guess.  The only thing is that I have caught a bit of a cold, which isn't great, but hopefully the juice plus will do it's thing and I'll get over it quickly.  Having a lack of immune system is a bit trying when riding on planes filled with hacking people and coughing children.