Waterways have been used to transport people and merchandise all over the world. The river Severn is no exception. Many centuries ago small hide-covered, willow-framed craft were used - coracles. Later, log rafts and small boats appeared. Over the years these developed into small, then larger, barges. These were sailed when possible but often hauled along by teams of men or horses.

At one time there were up to 700 such sailing barges on the river. Locally they were called Trows.

When Britain's Industrial Revolution came into being the trows played a vital role in transporting raw materials like coal, iron ore and foodstuff from the ocean-going ships in Bristol and Gloucester up the river to Worcester and Stourport. There the cargoes were transferred to narrow canal boats and taken to the factories. Trows also carried the finished products back to be loaded onto the big ships for export.

On its way to the sea, the Severn flows through several cities, towns and villages, some well-known and others not. The river used to be tidal up to Worcester but nowadays only to Tewkesbury. The lower reaches of the river are very dangerous. Downstream from Gloucester the tidal range is one of the highest in the world. Sandbanks constantly change position and the deeper channels move with every surge of the tide.

The historic docks at Gloucester have seen many changes over the last two hundred years. They had been built originally as the terminus for the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal which linked the city to the tidal waters of the River Severn and the Bristol Channel. This canal by-passed the most hazardous part of the estuary but many trowmen still used their experience to navigate the river. Also they saved the cost of using the canal.

The docks were once busy with the schooners that traded around our coastline and the various barges and lighters which used to take goods along the river. Nowadays the basin is filled with pleasure craft ranging from narrow canal boats to large plastic motor cruisers. Sometimes you may be lucky enough to see one of the occasional visiting ocean-going vessels or tall-ships. The old warehouses were built originally to store grain and other goods but are now converted to offices and flats. Some older boats do remain in the basin however. Many of them are moored around the National Waterways Museum or near the dry docks where they await repair or restoration.

The railways took away much of the trow's work. They were more reliable, not dependent on wind and tide. By the turn of the 20th century many trows had been broken up or left to rot on the river bank. Some had engines fitted, others were de-rigged and used as dumb (unpowered) lighters. These were usually towed in lines of three or so behind a steam tug.

Eventually no trows were left on the river. Your only chance of seeing one now is at the Blist Hill Museum in Ironbridge, Shropshire. This is “SPRY”. She was derelict, lying half-submerged in the mud of Diglis canal basin near Worcester. The museum rescued and restored her. Actually, only a couple of original timbers are in the new trow so you can argue whether she is a restoration or a replica.

               

She's just a museum piece now, restored for exhibition purposes. Originally built in 1894, at Chepstow, she is a Wye trow really. She is 71 feet long and 18 feet beam. Pitch pine above the waterline and elm planks beneath. Double sawn oak frames. Her Official Number s 99538, you'll find it carved onto the beam. Built by William Hurd at Chepstow. She'd have known theRiver Wye as well as the Severn.

So that's it for the trows, the end of the line. As I wrote earlier many trows were left to rot along the river. There is one place, Purton near the Gloucester to Sharpness Canal, where around 80 old working boats were abandoned. Some of them have already disintegrated and disappeared into the ground but there are still some parts of the old vessels in view. It is a very sad, almost ghostly, place but well worth a visit.

     

According to statistics by the Panama Tourism Bureau, the tourism industry contributed $1.45 billion to the nation's economy, representing 9.5 percent of Panama's total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), making it the largest single industry in the country. Rated the number one place in the Americas for retirement by Modern Maturity magazine of the American Association of Retired Persons, Panama has a relatively stable, dollar-based economy, and a notoriously secretive banking system attracting plenty of funny money (it's the third most popular off-shore banking destination in the world behind Switzerland and the Cayman Islands).

Free of ferocious hurricanes and political discord, Panama is growing rapidly. Circumstances which haven't been lost on skyscraper manufacturer Donald Trump: Panama City is the largest Trump property in the world. Scheduled to open in 2010, the $400 million dollar ostentation will be one of the most exaggerated displays of insularity in the world, featuring 627 condo residences, 369 hotel/condo units and penthouse units ranging in price from $300,000 to over $2 million. In typical Trump fashion, property owners will have little or no contact with local cultures or ordinary citizenry, except for the ones working in the beauty salon, flower shop, or gourmet restaurants inside the “luxurious, cosmopolitan waterfront property in the electrifying and growing Punta Pacifica.”

Today's Panama, at least in the mind of your average first-world foreigner who spends less than ample time outside the confines of gated Gringoland, is a warm, loving, and safe place, rife with opportunities to party, relax, and self-enliven. While abundant opportunities certainly exist to stimulate the senses of thy self, below the surface, a legacy of political dissatisfaction, militarism, social tension and unrest endures.

Panama City was the first European city on the Pacific Ocean and is the oldest Spanish settlement on the Pacific coast of America. It was founded on August 15, 1519, by Pedro Arias de Avila, who was exceedingly bloodthirsty, responsible for the deaths of many of the Isthmus's indigenous people as well as the execution of his rival Balboa on a spurious charge of treason.

More than 150 years later, the famous pirate Henry Morgan (known today as the caricature and namesake of a rum product), after having taken the Caribbean-side Spanish fort of San Lorenzo, led his band of Welsh buccaneers on a brutal trek across the Isthmus to sack Panama City. Built primarily of wood, the city burned to the ground during a savage battle between the buccaneers and the Spaniards on January 28, 1671. After Morgan's rampage, the Spaniards decided to rebuild the city on a more easily protected spot, less than 10 kilometers to the west. The entire new city, bordered by a thick wall and other fortifications, was inaugurated on January 21, 1673. Despite the fact that it was deemed by some to be inadequately sheltered from marauding pirates, the city was never raided again.

History of the Panama Canal

For 400 years, cutting a strait through the mountains and jungles of Panama to link the Pacific and Atlantic oceans had been the tantalizing vision of Europeans. (The canal is a short cut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and saves ships a long haul around the southern tip of South America.)

The United States had wanted to build an Isthmian route since the 1840s to facilitate the massive migration spurred by the California Gold Rush. But they weren't the first country to actually try doing so: The French-backed Compagnie Universelle Pour le Canal Interoceanic was founded to build the Panama Canal in the mid-1880s. Costing $240 million (twice the cost of the Suez Canal), it was the greatest human undertaking ever attempted. Crucial engineering mistakes, along with the ravages of tuberculosis, yellow fever and malaria (two out of every three workers had been killed or seriously debilitated by illness), delayed the project to the point of bankruptcy. By 1889 the project was officially discontinued.

New York lawyer William Nelson Cromwell went to Washington in December 1898, to convince President William McKinley to build the Panama Canal, but at that time, public and political sentiment had been in favor of a Nicaraguan Canal, which would be known as the product of the American people. Following McKinley's assassination, vice president Theodore Roosevelt became the man in charge, and he was determined to have the Panama Canal as part of his expansionist legacy. Panama was the property of Colombia at the time, and Roosevelt threatened to support full-scale Panamanian independence through secession, if the Columbian Congress failed to ratify the newly signed Panama Canal Treaty, an agreement made much to the president's liking and the United States' economic and political interests.

Panamanians extended that if the U.S. supported secession, the country would make a more advantageous treaty with the United States, “giving the foreign government the equivalent of absolute sovereignty over the Canal Zone.” Roosevelt said that, if Columbia balked at the U.S. offer, he would sponsor Panama's independence and promptly recognize the new country's government.

When Columbia rejected the treaty, made without their consent, signed by pro-independence minded members of a protectorate, Wall Street syndicate J.P. Morgan (who was part of a scheme that would make millions buying the rights to the Canal for $3.5 million and reselling them to the United States at $40 million) in collusion with President Roosevelt, planned, instigated, and manufactured a revolution in Panama. Columbian military officers invaded Panama, where they were met with the quintessential gruffness of gunboat diplomacy. With nary a shot fired, the United States wrested away Panama from Columbia, transforming a luckless province into an independent country, and signing a new treaty which granted the U.S. “in perpetuity the use, occupation, authority and control of the Panama Canal Zone.”

“This is why Panama is a byproduct of Latin culture and American presence,” explained Eduardo Herrera, 24, of upper echelon Spanish-Panamanian stock, whose aunt is the owner of the Sierra Llorona lodge, a birdwatcher's rainforest paradise, 90 miles west of Panama City. Upbeat, well-spoken, and acutely aware of U.S. political, social, and economic life, Eduardo quickly has become more than just a guide, but a friend. Most of my 12 day stay here is spent with him, catching and eating octopus, talking nonstop about our two countries, dodging traffic in a massive sport utility vehicle, with an engine mysteriously lacking even the slightest bit of power. Merry, unaffected, shrewd and likeable, Eduardo offers his views on life in a carefully reasoned, philosophic fashion which affords instant proof that there is not only plenty of intelligence inside his head but that that intelligence has undergone careful cultivation.

“We've adopted many of your same behaviors. Many Panamanians change cars every two years and buy the latest consumer based toys and products. We are consumerists, just like you.”

Panama - U.S. Tensions

Problems between Panama and the United States - stemming mostly from Panamanian dislike of the overbearing presence of the U.S. military - erupted continuously throughout much of the 20th century. Because of the logistic and economic vitality of first the Panama Railroad and later the Panama Canal, the U.S. had insisted, treaty after treaty, on reserving the right to play a role in the future of the Isthmus. Multiple times, especially in the fledgling days of the republic, the United States intervened in Panama's domestic life.

“Panamanians are like any other people,” explains Eduardo, as we drive a byway known as Camino Real, a bumpy swatch of asphalt constructed by the U.S. military during World War II, intended as an alternative supply line in case of Japanese invasion - its dense canopy obscures the road from helicopter sight.

“We do not want a foreign country setting up a military base, off-limits to locals, dividing the country in two. But, it's our legacy now. It's what we are known for throughout the world. It was a gift in many ways. If the U.S. didn't set up here, we would be plagued by the problems of Columbia. We would be Columbia.”

The most infamous incident of emerging Panamanian nationalism took place during the Flag Riots of 1964, when a group of college students attempted to lower the U.S. flag in the Canal Zone, and raise their county's flag in its place. Four students were fatally wounded by the U.S. military, and days of rebellion, looting, and destruction followed.

In 1983, following the death of president Omar Torrijos Herrera in an airplane crash, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, a former darling of the CIA and its director George H.W. Bush, seized firm control of the military and the entire country. Through the decade, Noriega's behavior became increasingly unstable and violent; he had been implicated in the murders of political opponents and was deeply involved with international drug smuggling.

“Pineapple face, that's what we called him,” says Eduardo. “He was crazy. He challenged the United States to a fight, holding a machete in his hands. No right thinking person wants that man anywhere near this country again.”

Periodic violent clashes between Noriega's Panama Defense Forces and U.S. military personnel traveling outside the Canal Zone reached a lethal point on December 17, 1989, when a U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant, was shot dead in Panama City. Three days later, on December 20, 1989, President Bush ordered an invasion of Panama, dubbed Just Cause. Around 1,000 to 4,000 civilians were killed. Noriega, who had long been a CIA asset, surrendered on January 3, 1990, and was flown to Florida. (His prison sentence for drug running was completed only months ago, and where he goes upon release from U.S. custody is still being determined. The French wish to extradite and charge him with a bevy of additional drug-related charges.)

“It's a shame that so many Panamanians were killed in the invasion,” says Eduardo, walking with me through the ruins of Inglesia y Convento de los Jesuitas, a stone church built by a small Jesuit community in 1607.

“You can watch the videos of it on You Tube. U.S. soldiers burned down and bombed many buildings. The hard part of it is, American intervention was, in many ways, a gift. I couldn't imagine life in Panama under Noriega. He was a madman.”

Panama Canal 2008 

Once large enough to handle and process most of the world's freight, the mighty Panama Canal has gotten a little too close for comfort in the eyes of the world's shipping industry. Wracked by concerns of its two locks being insufficiently narrow, engineers are working on improving the Canal to accommodate greater width. The centerpiece of the project will be the creation of a third set of locks that will allow the canal to handle ships carrying up to 12,000 shipping containers at a time; these ships do not fit in the canal today.

The expansion began in September 2007 and is scheduled to be completed in time for the centenary of the canal's opening in 2014. The new locks of this parallel canal are going to be large enough to accommodate vessels more than 160 feet wide and 1,200 feet long.

The Panama Canal has been getting some press of a wholly different variety lately, too: Just weeks ago, 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain was disparaged by claims that his birth outside the United States legally prevented him from running for president. A February New York Times article raised the question as to whether McCain satisfied the necessary constitutional prerequisites, but since the Panama Canal Zone was a U.S.-run military territory when he was born the controversy has quickly died down.

McCain was born in 1936 on the Coco Solo submarine base where his father was a Navy officer. According to the NY Times, “his family returned to the United States within three months of his birth and he has no other connection to Panama.”

“Your next president may be a Panamanian,” laughs Eduardo, once informed of the possibility. Quickly, he adds his own personal spin - or selection, really - regarding the 2008 U.S. presidential election, an event, he says, closely being monitored by all Latin Americans.

“Almost all Panamanians want Obama to win,” he says, with a self-effacing grin liberally stretched out across his plump face. “Many are more interested in your election than ours in 2009. Bush wasn't for his people, but his own interests. Your country stands for freedom, but Bush was acting against American ideals and the rest of the world, terrorizing others. Obama, I think, would be fairer.”

The Columbian Border, Crime in Colon

Given one of the highest rankings for tourist safety from the Pinkerton Intelligence Agency, Panama is probably less dangerous than any large North American city. But, as with any travel abroad, it's inadvisable to walk around the streets flaunting your money clip, digital camera, credit card, or valuable belongings. Moreover, a recent regional study on crime in Latin American found Panama with a lesser crime rate than Costa Rica, which is typically thought of as the safest of Latin American countries.

Some economically and socially woeful neighborhoods of Panama City such as El Chorrillo, San Miguel or San Felipe - scarred by Dickensian poverty and desperation - are not safe at any time of the day. But, a place to be avoided at all costs is Colon - a shanty jumble of overcrowded hotels and boardinghouses, inhabited by squatters and sleazebags - ranking first in Panama in terms of chronic impoverishment, unemployment, and crime, earning an international reputation as a treacherous place.

Indeed, every article written since the advent of the guidebook advises tourists to avoid this city, inhabited mostly by descendants of Jamaicans and Barbadians brought to Panama as menial labor by the French and the Americans to work constructing their canals. Created in 1947, La Zona Libre, a walled compound within Colon, is the world's second largest free trade zone, after Hong Kong. Despite the fact that it rakes in ten billion US dollars each year, Colon, the largest city on the Caribbean coast, remains an abjectly vile, Dantean vision of purgatory, with sewage and refuse scattering in all directions and often flowing beneath your feet.

Out of grotesque curiosity Eduardo and I drove through the teeming tenements of Colon - a dangerous place appearing as if it hadn't been visited by a breath of fresh air or a drop of cleansing water in decades - one of the most depressing places in the Western Hemisphere, replete with weary junkies, roaming thieves, and wanton gangs, all condensed in living conditions so pitiable as to make one pinch themselves with zeal hoping to awake but anywhere else.

“I never take tourists here,” warns Eduardo. “But I've made an exception, because I have a good sense of what you want to see, and who you are. You don't seem satisfied with me talking about it. I'm used to seeing it.”

“Eduardo, this is what I'd imagine the crowded horrors of a slave ship to be like.”

When the last of the U.S. troops assigned to the Panama Canal Zone left the country in 1999 as part of the handover of control of the Panama Canal to local authorities, all foreign military bases were repurposed to shelter the local populace. Along with Costa Rica, Panama today is one of the two hemispheric countries without a standing army; for its domestic security it relies upon a national police force. With an area of 78,200 square kilometers and a population of slightly over three million, Panama features a 225-kilometer long boundary with Colombia. The recent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) threat to kidnap Panamanian politicians and police officers if its self-proclaimed, Marxist-Leninist, revolutionary guerrilla comrades are not hastily returned should not be taken without alarm. In recent years, as in other Central American Isthmus countries, there has been an intense increase in the volume of gang warfare in Panama. MS-13 - or Mara Salvatrucha - is the biggest and fastest-growing of the Latin American street gangs, with up to 60,000 maras active in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and, thanks to our porous and neglectful immigration policies, in more than 40 U.S. States.

The Future: Prosperity or Instability?

Panama is a beautiful country brimming with bright and personable positivity, a claim not subject to argument. Furthermore, it has the lowest inflation rate and the most stable economy in Latin America. Although only a little more than 30,000 square miles - roughly the size of South Carolina - Panama has plenty of faraway, remote spaces. Approximately 35% of the country is sheltered by National Parks and protected areas. Unlike more touristy eco-destinations in Mexico or Costa Rica, a traveler here often finds himself among the few visitors to even the most popular sites. Its fabulous, exotic beauty certainly has enough luster and excitement to keep beach bums, water sports enthusiasts, and eco-tourists smiling, but similar to other Latin American countries, the realistic grittiness and destitution of the daily life of the citizenry may shock. Before you visit do keep abreast of political happenings, as Panama's future dangles precariously between visions of sublime Costa Rican prosperousness and problematic El Salvadoran volatility. Hopefully with ample external help from rich friends, including the U.S., and the constant influence of internal advocates of peaceful progressiveness, its road to economic and cultural prosperity will be unswerving. At the Panama City airport, shortly before my departure, Eduardo seemed to best summarize the promise of Panama, with two sentences which struck me as strangely sentimental, if not beautiful, a blend of optimism and realism, blithe assumption and deeply embedded pessimism.

“Corruption and tyranny and war are the cancers of Latin America. War delights quarrelsome peoples, while God wastes his time creating stars and flowers.”

It's relatively cheap to take a boat trip starting in Little Venice and ending up at the London Zoo or Camden, if you don't mind being crammed in with other tourists. I saw some people enjoying their own private boat, cruising along with friends, but unless you fill the boat to capacity which perhaps defeats the purpose, you'll be paying a lot per head. So if you already know someone with a boat or purposely make friends with one, you'll most likely be enjoying the canal from land with the rest of us. However it's probably the best way to view the canal and area, and it would be safe to say it's one of the most photogenic spots in London.

You can walk all the way to Camden or just to Regent's Park, but then there's no reason to leave the picturesque area of Little Venice where the Grand Union Canal and Regent's Canal meet. There's the Waterside Cafe, a little boat turned cafe on the water and further down an area where loads of tourists queue for boat rides. When you walk further down to Paddington Basin, the area nearest Paddington Station, it becomes a little too similar to Canary Wharf. There are huge office buildings, a few boats that act as offices, and a couple ugly buildings that look to be from the "60"s. But it is still worth walking down all that way to see how unbelievably close to Paddington Station this little oasis is.

If you take the canal the other way towards Regent's Park, there comes a point where you can no longer walk right alongside the canal as it becomes a private area where only people who actually own boats can enter. However this doesn't matter because as you walk along the road and are nearing Edgware Rd you happen upon Cafe Laville which will make up for not being able to walk alongside the canal, as it sits directly on top of the canal on the Maida Vale Tunnel. That is, if you can get a table. The cafe is quite small and with a view like that, very popular.

Little Venice is best for strolling and taking in the view. On the Saturday afternoon I was there, it had the relaxed and friendly vibe of a small town. There were people walking their dogs, guys roller-blading, couples walking and chatting, as well as a few people walking purposefully, most likely towards Paddington Station. Still, it's easy to forget that you're in the middle of a fast paced, active city.

Rushing through France on a coach tour is one way to see a range of motorways, and eventually a small taste of Paris, but it leaves the traveller with a bland impression of a grand and enchanting country.

One of the better ways to experience France is to hire a canal boat and cruise slowly through the countryside. Rural scenes of rolling pasture are made more exciting when on a turn of the canal; a spectacular ancient chateau looms into view.

It is preferable to have someone who can speak a little French, because most people in the French countryside have only one language. just as the majority of English speaking people in their home countries. The challenge of conversing with the lock keepers or the local shop keepers adds to the fun of the trip. It is a chance to test those almost forgotten school phrases.

CANAL REGIONS

There are three main areas where companies hire boats to cruise the canal: The South, where the canals meander from the Bordeaux area across to the coast of the Mediterranean . Inland from Brittany to the South of the Chateau region, there is a network of excellent canals. The biggest region of them all is the Burgundy area and north, reaching up into Germany.

Deciding on which canal to see is difficult as each area has its own distinct character. Two weeks is preferable to one and certainly a one way hire from one point in a canal to another is better than a return journey.

Brittany can have very changeable weather and might not be the best choice for early or late in the summer season. The south has less of the small villages. Burgundy has a good range of options and ample to see.

NEGOTIATING THE LOCKS

It takes a little while to get used to the procedure of the locks. Going up is harder than going down and it wouldn't hurt to aim for a cruise that takes the descent rather than the ascent.

Two people can negotiate the locks if one disembarks just before the entrance to the lock and works alongside the lock keeper, while the other one drives and stabilises the boat.

On an ascent, the water will be let into the lock raising the level of the canal. Some operators will gently fill the lock while others will flood the confined space, with an alarming rush of water, and a quiet smirk lurking on their lips. The ropes are thrown to the person at the top and secured around a post.

The driver must be able to keep the boat from bumping into the sides of the lock by using the boat's engine or by the person on the ground keeping a tight hold on the ropes. Gradually the level increases and the driver rises in the boat up to the next level. A new world awaits from this vantage.

On the descent, the boat sits placidly in the lock and there is little need for ropes as the water drains away lowering the boat to the new depth. Sometimes there may be three or four locks joined together, or more.

The more people on the boat trip, the easier managing the boat becomes. A larger boat is no more difficult than a small one if there are sufficient crew.

ON BOARD

For the duration of the cruise, the boat is home. It is equipped with sleeping quarters, a kitchen, a shower and toilet and a dining/living area.

No one can travel any faster than six knots. It is illegal to make any wake. This keeps the canal walls from eroding. It means the journey is leisurely and serene.

COUNTRYSIDE

How anyone can trust fishing in these murky, well used waterways is a mystery. But there are fishermen and fishing huts to be seen. The muddy waters have life, we are told. At least reflections of life are certainly there to see from the farms and livestock along with river bank.

Early in the morning the drifts of river mist float thinly on the water and lift and fade. On clear days, the canal mirrors perfect images. Stone bridges become looming stone circles and the trees that line the water's edge stand admiring their shapely images as they lean with dropping arms toward the water.

FRENCH VILLAGES

A quick stop to toss the bicycles from the roof of the boat onto the bank. Off to a local village for long crisp loaves of French bread for breakfast. Bread from a tiny settlement of six houses; better than ever tasted before.

Make a stop a little earlier than the working lunch break time at noon, to buy exquisite cheeses, pastries and fruit tarts. A rural village no bigger than a few houses, will have a patisserie with first class baking. A woman will attend your needs, with her hair coiffed and her make-up and dress, ready for the Champs Elysee. Your tart will be handed to you in an elaborate box complete with ribbons, exquisitely presented.

There is no point in rushing. Once the lunch time is in process in France, no one is open for business. There is a sudden stop to all work and no locks will open, no shop will show any signs of life for two hours. There is nothing for it but to settle on the boat and enjoy the day's eating delights.

In some towns there is a chateau to visit or a cafe to eat at. Simply wandering the cobbled streets and photographing historic houses and churches, is a satisfying way to idle the lunch time away. Riding through the paddocks and meadows and spotting stone dwellings and a surprise small chateau is another way to use this time.

Food is much cheaper in general in the countryside, than in Paris and it is here that true French food and of course local wines, can be sampled.