Things move at a more leisurely pace in Central America, but on the Panama Canal marine traffic is lined up with Swiss precision. At Gatun Locks hulking Chinese containers jostle with cruise ships and tiny Panamanian tugs. “I’ve done the Panama Canal 50 times,” says Steve Gayda, Celebrity Infinity’s cruise director, as the ship slips into the lock. “It’s always different depending on the shipping, the light, the wildlife and the deck you’re on. Sailing under the soaring Bridge of the Americas still gives me a thrill.”
More than a million vessels have passed through the Panama Canal. Even for seasoned cruisers, it remains a voyage to savour. On this particular sailing the quaysides were lined with cranes and dredgers that were digging a new shipping lane. The “big ditch” is celebrating its centenary this year by doubling in size. Our on-board Panamanian guide — one is provided by the authorities for every transit — told us Celebrity Cruises had paid US$382,000 (£224,000) to use the canal: such high tolls fuel the country’s enthusiasm for the project.
We transited the original three sets of locks, with Gatun on the Atlantic side lifting ships to the level of Lake Gatun, 85ft above sea level, before lowering them on the Pacific side. Here we encountered the locomotives knownas “mules”, after the beasts of burden formerly responsible for manoeuvring ships between the swirling waters of the lock chambers. At first unprepossessing, these sludgy brown waterways soon become a source of wonder.
The canal was built by the Americans between 1904 and 1914, but digging had already begun in the late 19th century as a French project. “Those were different times,” said our guide Jeronimo Welch. “The French had no chainsaws, bulldozers or medicines with which to fight malaria, while the Americans arrived with dynamite, dredgers, steam-powered cranes and hydraulic rock-crushers.”
More than 27,000 workers died while building the 48-mile canal. Today it links not only two oceans but also several civilisations, and supports a variety of conveniently close-to-shore fauna, including parakeets, scarlet macaws, toucans and three-toed sloths.
You can see a toucan in Panama. Photo: Alamy
We glided across Lake Gatun into the steep Culebra Cut, crossing the Continental Divide and passing beneath Centennial Bridge. Ahead of us lay the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks. Traversing these, I soon spotted the skyscrapers of Panama City and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
Captain Michael Sympouras, master of Infinity, revels in the size and scale of the locks: “Sometimes there’s only 10 inches between our ship and the lock walls,” he said. Jeronimo sees the balance of power in the locks rather differently: “Every cruise ship needs a Panamanian pilot who runs the show and helps the captain to line up the ship at the locks.” Any slight difference of emphasis was silenced by the looming Bridge of the Americas, which spans the Pacific entrance to the canal. This soaring intercontinental suspension bridge, gateway to Panama City, is best seen from the bow of a ship.
The best cruises allow a day to savour the crossing and another day’s exploration at water level. Excursions by dugout canoe (motorised longboat) put an entirely different perspective on the semi-tamed canal, whether they involve an anthropological adventure to meet a local tribe or just an opportunity to monkey about with sloths or spot well-camouflaged crocodiles.
On the River Chagres, which was used by Spanish conquistadors to transport their treasure from Peru to the Spanish Main, indigenous Amerindian communities row their dugouts much as they did in Christopher Columbus’s day. The Embera Indian communities still rely on hunting, fishing, canoe-making and craftwork, even if most admit to having left the era of poison darts and animal skins behind.
Cruise on the Panama Canal, which celebrates its centenary this year. Photo: Alamy
The younger members speak Spanish and shy away from wearing skins. Still, the medicine man mentioned in passing that native remedies against snake bites have been taken up by major pharmaceutical firms. In the communal longhouse women displayed intricately woven palm-leaf vases while the chief spoke of compromises made with a “civilisation a mere boat-ride away”.
Leaving the tribe behind and now forbidden to leave our canoes, we saw baby crocodiles sunning themselves on logs and spotted a sloth swimming spread-eagled on Lake Gatun. White-hooded capuchin monkeys watched from the treetops; iguanas and leaf-green Jesus lizards basked on creepers; bats and frigate birds roosted on spindly trees. According to Jeronimo, Lake Gatun boasts 974 species of birds, including Panama’s national emblem, the endangered harpy eagle. We failed to spot one; the black jaguar and leopard-like ocelot also eluded us.
In Panama City I eschewed the modern centre in favour of the colonial core, Casco Viejo, where the John le Carré film The Tailor of Panama was shot. Part gritty barrio, part Graham Greene backdrop, it is undergoing urban renewal, but in parts feels as wildly unregulated as Panama itself. Beyond the Presidential Palace are shabby French mansions, old-school dance halls and bars selling sugarcane firewater. Tucked among the creaking colonial mansions is St Joseph’s church, with its golden altar supposedly saved from English pirate Henry Morgan’s sacking of the city in 1671. Made from gilded mahogany, the altar is said to have been daubed in a mixture of mud and oil to disguise it.
Even here, there is no escaping the pull of the canal. Plaza de Francia is named for the 22,000 French workers, most from the French West Indies, who died of malaria or yellow fever while building it. Our story came full circle at the new Biomuseum. Designed by Frank Gehry, it commands the Amador Causeway, a peninsula that overlooks the Pacific gateway to the canal. Complete with rainforest biospheres and botanical gardens, the building’s jagged silhouette supposedly evokes the forces of nature that shape our world, although detractors liken its design to a capricious collage of corrugated cardboard. Dubbed the ‘‘bridge of life’’, the bold museum sees itself as a geological and biological bridge between the Americas.
It will be this iconic view of the city, ocean and canal that catches the attention of passing cruise ships. In the words of Jeronimo, “Without water, Panama wouldn’t be Panama.”
Celebrity Cruises offers a 17-night Westbound Panama Canal cruise from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco, including calls in Colombia, Panama (with canal transit), Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico, departing April 28, 2015. From £2,090pp including flights (0844 481 7682; celebritycruises.co.uk).
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