Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Panama Canal
The
PANAMA CANAL
is the country's most recognizable landmark, crucial to its economy
and inextricably entwined with its historical and cultural development. Arguably the world's
most important waterway, it sees around fourteen thousand vessels and over three hundred
million tons of cargo pass through its locks every year - a figure that may double once the
canal's ambitious expansion plan has been realized in 2015. A gargantuan feat of engineering,
the construction of the Panama Canal, completed in 1914, set the standards for twentieth-cen-
tury engineering. At $352 million it was the most expensive project ever undertaken, with the
world's largest earthen dam creating the world's largest artificial lake. The most enormous
locks ever built contained the greatest amount of concrete ever used - just over three million
cubic metres, the equivalent of sixty Empire State Buildings - and possessed the largest ever
swing doors. Yet it is the combination of the scale and ingenuity of the achievement with its
ruggedly beautiful tropical setting that makes the canal so special.
There are several ways to appreciate what the canal has to offer, all of them within easy
striking distance of the capital. Most people take a trip to
Miraflores Locks
- a convenient
fifteen-minute bus ride out of Panama City - which has a well-situated visitor centre with a
museum and viewing platform, offering a fine view of ships as they pass through. Facilities at
the canal's other viewing platform, across the isthmus at the equally impressive three-cham-
ber
Gatún Locks
, are not as developed and take longer to reach, though you can get even
closer to the action. Different perspectives again are offered by fishing or boating trips on
Lago Gatún
, and by speeding across the isthmus and alongside the canal by
train
. But by
far the best way to get your head around the technical brilliance, natural beauty and sheer
magnitude of the feat is to travel along the canal (“transit”) on a boat.
