The Panama Canal: Engineering on a Scale That Still Seems Impossible

The Panama Canal opened in 1914 after a decade of American construction that followed two decades of failed French effort. The French attempt, begun in 1881 under the same Ferdinand de Lesseps who built Suez, employed 20,000-plus workers and lost more than 20,000 of them to yellow fever and malaria. The project collapsed in bankruptcy and scandal in 1889. The Americans succeeded partly through scale and partly by solving the mosquito problem: Walter Reed’s 1900 demonstration that mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever allowed a fumigation campaign that made the jungle habitable enough to build in.

The canal is 80 kilometres long and connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the narrowest point of the American isthmus, saving ships roughly 12,000 kilometres compared to rounding Cape Horn. More than 14,000 vessels transit it annually, carrying around 5-6% of global maritime trade. The expansion completed in 2016 added a second, larger lane allowing post-Panamax vessels (carriers too wide for the original 33-metre locks) to transit for the first time.

Watching Ships at Miraflores

Miraflores Locks, 10 kilometres from Panama City, is the most accessible lock system for visitors. The three-chamber locks raise and lower ships a combined 26 metres between sea level and Gatun Lake. Watching an enormous vessel move through with millimetres of clearance on both sides, guided by the electric mules (actually small electric locomotives on tracks) and the ship’s own engine, gives you a sense of scale that reading about it cannot replicate.

The visitor centre has four viewing terraces at different heights, a museum on canal history and engineering, and a restaurant with a direct view of the locks. Admission is around $20 for adults. Ships transit around the clock; the schedule for the next 24 hours is posted at the visitor centre.

The Panama Canal Museum

The Interoceanic Canal Museum in Panama City’s Casco Antiguo covers canal history far more comprehensively than the Miraflores visitor centre. The building is a former school built by the French canal company in the 1880s. The exhibits cover the French failure, the American construction, the labour system that brought workers from Barbados and Jamaica under inferior conditions compared to European and American staff, and the canal’s political history through Panamanian nationalisation in 1977-1999.

Casco Antiguo and Panama Viejo

Casco Antiguo, the old colonial quarter, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cobblestone streets, Spanish colonial churches, and 19th-century buildings are undergoing rapid gentrification. The Iglesia de San José has an ornate baroque golden altar; the legend that it was painted black to fool Henry Morgan during his 1671 sack of the original city is vivid but probably apocryphal.

Panama Viejo, 8 kilometres east, are the ruins of the original 1519 settlement that Morgan actually destroyed. The cathedral tower and foundations are accessible for around $15 admission.

The Gamboa Rainforest

Pipeline Road near Gamboa, 30 kilometres from Panama City, is historically one of the most productive birding sites in the world per kilometre walked: 500+ species recorded. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has operated a research station on Barro Colorado Island in Gatun Lake since the canal’s construction; half-day boat tours to the island run around $100-130 per person and include a guided forest walk.

Getting Around

Panama uses the US dollar. Uber or taxi from Casco Antiguo to Miraflores costs around $15-20. January through March is the dry season and most comfortable for visiting. Mosquito repellent is advisable year-round in the rainforest areas.