Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Parque Nacional Camino de Cruces
The park entrance is 2km up the Carretera Chivo Chivo, a right turn a couple of bends after the Miraflores
Locks • Daily 8.30am-4.30pm • $5 • 500 0839 • Any Paraíso or Gamboa bus from
Albrook's bus terminal
will drop you off at the bottom of the Carretera Chivo Chivo, which requires a high clearance vehicle, or 4WD
in the rainy season
Despite bearing the name of the conquistadors' famous trade route across the isthmus (named
after the now-submerged settlement of Cruces), the
Parque Nacional Camino de Cruces
is
often overlooked as a tourist destination. Yet, while it is hard to escape the sound of nearby
traffic in places, the reserve is a prime location for spotting sloths and provides important
traces of colonial times.
There are four
trails
on offer: the
Sendero Capricornio
provides an easy 1km circular stroll
from the park office through some of the park's mainly dry semi-deciduous forest. But it's
worth expending slightly more energy on the
Sendero Mirador
(3.2km total), which offers
a moderate hike up to a breezy wooden watchtower, affording an impressive panoramic view
of the canal and distant city skyscrapers. The remaining two trails, the
Ruinas de Cardenas
and
Camino de Cruces
, are both still in need of clearance work, though you don't need to
venture far along the latter before you'll come across some of the original cobblestones.
Camping is permitted near the park office, though there are no facilities beyond a bathroom
and running water.
Pedro Miguel Locks and the Gaillard Cut
Just over three kilometres beyond Miraflores lie the smaller
Pedro Miguel Locks
, which are
closed to the public. The canal then narrows into the infamous
Gaillard Cut
, where over
two-thirds of all canal excavation occurred. Its 13km stretch posed the most persistent tech-
nical headache for engineers, and severe landslides continued long after the eventual opening
of the canal. On the left, a little beyond Paraíso, the canal's former dredging headquarters,
rows of small white crosses mark the
French Cemetery
, which sits on the continental di-
vide, a poignant reminder of the doomed French attempt to build a canal in the 1880s. The
road then climbs, passing a turn-off to the elegant, cable-stayed
Centennial Bridge
, opened
in 2004 to celebrate Panama's hundred years of independence. After 3km of dense rainforest
the road forks: to the right it cuts through the Parque Nacional Soberanía to the Transístmica
and the new motorway, which both link Panama City with Colón, while to the left it contin-
ues to Gamboa.
Parque Nacional Soberanía
The park office is 15km northwest of Panama City on the road to Gamboa where the road forks • Park office
daily 8.30am-4.30pm, though there is always a warden on site • $5 • 232 4192
Providing the most accessible substantial body of tropical rainforest from Panama City, a
mere thirty-minute drive away, the
PARQUE NACIONAL SOBERANÍA
is one of the
