A Whole New Meaning to a Dead End

March 21, 2026

I’m skipping most of what was another good day in Panama, to focus just one brief but amusing incident which occurred on our way to where our little group of pre-voyage adventurers (17 of us) was to board the National Geographic/Lindblad Quest, to begin our cruise through the canal and then on to Costa Rica.

We had spent the day visiting a National Park (Castillo de San Lorenzo) and then visited the first lock on the Caribbean side of the new canal channel. We then had a relatively short drive to get to the docks in Colon. We were very close, moving along on a small road when we hit a police roadblock – apparently there were repairs in progress on the road, and the police pointed us on to a detour. But, we immediately noticed that the detour was an entry to a cemetary. Really. Not just a little cemetary, a huge cemetary, which included a separate Jewish cemetary. It was kind of interesting, but very weird to be driving in a bus, on our way to board a cruise ship, and winding our way through an overgrown but still active burial ground. We also passed some very large, extremley delapidated buildings which someone noticed happened to be a prison. Even better. A real adventure!

So we continued on down the road, wondering where it was leading, until we hit the main road we had been on. Where there was a locked gate, and two police cars. The two officers were unable to open the gate, so they indicated that we should turn around and head back But by that time, there was a line of cars and buses behind us. Quite the show. So, our fearless driver managed to turn the bus around without driving over a grave, and we headed back to where we first entered the cemetary. By this time, we were giving our trip lead a very hard time about this unannounced excursion on our itinerary. Others wanted to know if we could stop and take pictures (just kidding). We got to pass the prison again, and someone noticed that the inmates were hanging out the windows, waving to us. I guess everone got a good laugh out of this. 

So we had to back track a bit to take a different road into town, and we eventually made it to the ship. We were just a little late. And I had another good story to tell.