A Train Ride

Eek! We're going to be run over!

Today we went by bus to Colón. Panama City is on the Pacific, but Colón is on the Caribbean. The bus ride was an hour and something and for some odd reason the air-conditioning was dripping condensation on my window in particular. Probably mere coincidence.

After the long bus ride we had to take a short walk to the railway station to catch the Panama Railway Company train. The line was built a long time before the canal, in 1855. It was a big train which was yellow, red, and black. Looking at it reminded me a bit of the Belgian or German flag. We had to wait a bit before they let us board the train. The carriage we got in had a curved glass roof so you could see up. There was also a high part of the carriage and a low part. We sat in the high part but on the side away from the Panama Canal. There was lots of jungle and thick plants. The air smelled hot and moist. After a little while I went out on the observation deck at the back of the carriage. Two interesting things happened. We saw a spare piece of rail besides the track, and we unexpectedly came into a tunnel. We crossed part of a lake on a bridge and we saw two big ships heading up the canal and a few old broken houses.

When we reached the end of the journey they gave us snack packs which was weird because they're supposed to give out the snack packs on the train not after the journey's finished.

We looked round in the gift shop for a while and then caught a taxi back to the hotel. I'm not having dinner in the hotel restaurant for the first time. Tomorrow we're going on a ship up the canal.