Welcome to the Panama Weekly News Roundup! Here’s the latest.
Panama Maritime Authority Signs for New Cruise Terminal.
Jan de Nul and China Harbour Engineering Co. (CHEC) have won a contract worth $165 million to design and build a new cruise terminal on Panama City’s Amador Causeway. The firms’ joint venture, Cruceros del Pacifico, will complete the terminal within two years, according to industry media.
The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) envisions the new terminal as a home port for large ships, and it will have space for two vessels of nearly 1,200 feet in length. It will also have passenger parking, administrative buildings and green spaces. AMP will oversee its operations directly.
The terminal will be Panama’s first on the Pacific side, and AMP has specified a maximum capacity of 10,000 passengers, a sign of expectations of significant traffic. Colon, on the Atlantic side of the ithsmus, already sees more than 180 vessel calls per year.
Source: Maritime Executive
How MLS has helped put Panama on the brink of the World Cup.
Panama head coach Hernan Dario Gomez turned heads on Wednesday afternoon when he announced that his squad would not hold Thursday’s training session, their final one before Friday’s massive World Cup qualifier vs. the United States (7 pm ET; ESPN2, Univision, UDN), on the pitch at Orlando City Stadium as is customary in these situations. They’ll instead continue to work out at ChampionsGate, a posh resort community in this quiet area some 45 minutes southwest of the city.
It’s a departure from the norm and just the sort of quirky move that “Bolillo” is known for. But it probably won’t ruffle his players too much. After all, most of them are familiar with Orlando City SC’s home, and most other MLS venues as well.
Six members of Panama’s current roster play for MLS clubs, and another seven have stints in the league on their resumes. That experience has served both the players and their national team well in recent years, and it can only help them as they look to knock off the favored US and stay on course for the first World Cup appearance in their small country’s history.
“It levels the playing field,” David Sakata, a Panama-based journalist with Diario Pro and Cable Onda Sports, told MLSsoccer.com.
Source: MLSSoccer.com
The Panama Canal mark II: Third traffic lane for this engineering marvel.
Of all the mind-bending facts and figures about the expansion of the Panama Canal, the one that surprises me most is that this isn’t the first time it’s been attempted.
Twenty-five years after the canal opened in 1914, work began on a second set of locks and approach channels to accommodate America’s larger warships. The project ran for several years before being cancelled after World War II. In 2007, Panama decided to have another crack at it. The plan was to build a new set of larger locks at both ends of the canal to create a third lane of traffic (the existing locks already allow simultaneous passage in both directions), thereby allowing bigger vessels to use this handy 77-kilometre shortcut between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
The project was supposed to finish in 2014 to coincide with the canal’s 100th anniversary.
Source: Stuff NZ
Panama’s Caribbean Coast: Beaches, beauty, and natural wonder
Panama’s Caribbean coast has a unique history. It’s the first coast the Spanish settled upon, a place rich in resources and pristine beaches, and hosts the northern mouth of the Panama Canal. For the past century or so, however, Panama’s Caribbean coast has largely been overshadowed by the economic and tourism powerhouse of the capital city and developed beach areas of the Pacific.
What’s the main draw of the Caribbean coast of Panama?
For starters, the Caribbean. Much like every other country that shares a coastline on this sea, Panama’s portion has well over 1,000 miles of pristine turqoise-blue beaches that hug its shores. From the San Blas islands to Isla Grande, Isla Escudo de Veraguas to Bocas del Toro, it would take weeks to see and enjoy all of the fabulous beaches there. This makes tourism the biggest draw to the majority of the coast, however, it’s not quite the same tourism that the Pacific coast relies on. The “Caribbean side” of Panama, as it’s commonly referred to, draws more of an adventure tourism crowd, as well es ecotourism. And there are a few solid reasons for this.
Source: International Relocation Firm Blog
