Panama Canal
About this Adventure
Fact File:
Duration: 12 days
Price: 2245 GBP
Travel down the Panama Canal to marvel at the greatest of human achievements.
Many people travel around the world to see the engineering marvels of years gone by, Machu Pichu, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and Stonehenge see millions of visitors each year, but far fewer are tempted to visit those that are still in use. The Panama Canal is one of the greatest human achievements and is still in use more than 100 years after it was started.
The course of the canal can be followed in many ways. By small boat, train, bus and you can even hike along its predecessor the Camino de Cruces.
We recommend hiring a small boat and touring the big ships, it is impossible to judge the scale of these modern monsters until you get up close, without a sense of perspective they lose all sense of size. It is then easy to get a bus back along it.
One of the most interesting ways of travelling the canal is by train, from the open standing carriages you get a sense of what a huge feat of engineering this really was, and also that much of the canal is in fact enormous lakes which have been connected.
Finally, and most tiring, we recommend the Camino de Cruces a small track through the rainforest which was for centuries the smaller equivalent of the canal. People would pack up the goods and carry them across the land to the coast. The juxtaposition of man’s earliest and latest solution offers a graphic illustration of the progress we have made in simplifying our lives.
One possible itinerary from Journey Latin America:
Day 1: Arrive Panama City, 2 nights.
Day 2: Partial transit of the Panama Canal.
Day 3: Guided city tour; drive to Gamboa for 2 nights.
Day 4: Excursions and activities at Gamboa Rainforest Resort.
Day 5: Hike in Soberania National Park. Fly/drive to Boquete, 2 nights.
Day 6: At leisure in Boquete.
Day 7: Drive to Caribbean Bocas del Toro, 4 nights.
Day 8: At leisure on the beaches of Bocas del Toro.
Day 9: At leisure on the beaches of Bocas del Toro.
Day 10: At leisure on the beaches of Bocas del Toro.
Day 11: Fly to Panama City. Overnight.
Day 12: Transfer to the airport.
Journey Latin America can organise tours and personalised itineraries to Panama.
