Late Monday afternoon we got a call from the cruise operators informing us that they were going to pick us up at 5:30 instead of 6. So, we were up bright and early in the lobby where we picked up in a bus and after picking up another two groups of passengers, we headed for the train station where we went from the south coast to the north coast of Panama. The south coast is the Pacific side and the north, obviously, the Caribbean (or the Atlantic). In the early days, the train was the major route for connecting the two oceans (before that it was mule trains and/or slave trains. Since they built a road, the train is now mostly for tourists and some commuters. The ride is only an hour and we got to see some of the work on the new locks for the expanded canal.
At Colon, we reboarded the bus (the driver had beat us across the isthmus) and headed to Portobelo, a small city on a very defendable bay. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the bay in 1502. It ended up being the hub of commerce for shipping to Spain. It was both highly defended and often attacked by Francis Drake and the famous pirate Henry Morgan among many others.
I
n Portobelo there is a church with a black Jesus. The figure was apparently discovered under water in the bay and someone tried to bring it to Spain. Every time they tried some disaster struck so they decided that it wanted to remain in Portobelo. A group of American soldiers saw it and the black soldiers nicknamed the figure the black Jesus and the name stuck. Twice a year the figure is prominently paraded. The figure was discovered on October 21st and they celebrate that anniversary. It is the biggest festival in Panama and the source of income for the town. The other time they parade it is on Ash Wednesday.
We took the bus back to Colon and boarded the ship, our home for the remainder of the cruise.