Page 98 - The Rough Guide to Panama (Travel Guide)

96 The Panama Canal and CenTral isThmus The Panama Canal
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 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. The
Canal’s other main observation point, across the isthmus at the new Agua Clara Visitor
2 Centre takes longer to reach, and looks down from a hilltop, offering a more panoramic
and holistic view of the Canal expansion programme in particular (see box, p.303).
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”) by boat.

The Canal by train: Panama Canal Railway
Corozal Passenger Terminal, Building T376, Corozal West, Panama City • Mon–Fri departs 7.15am (1hr), returning from Colón at 5.15pm;
reservations are advisable and it’s worth getting there early (6.30am) to secure your vantage point • $25 one way • T317 6070,
Wpanarail.com • A taxi costs around $6 from the centre of Panama City to the Corozal terminal
The Corozal Passenger Terminal of the Panama Canal Railway is the departure point
for the scenic transisthmian train journey. The original Panama Railroad, built in the
1850s during the California Gold Rush (see box, p.294), transported more than $700

THE BIG DITCH
erroneously nicknamed the Big Ditch, the 77km Canal eschews straight lines as it weaves its
way from the Pacific to the Caribbean or atlantic entrance, which is actually 42km to the west,
on account of Panama’s eel-like shape. British politician and historian James Bryce dubbed the
waterway “the greatest liberty man has ever taken with nature”, though ironically it has resulted
in a symbiotic relationship between the two: the Canal’s constant thirst for water to feed the
locks is highly dependent on the preservation of the adjacent national parks to protect the
water catchment area. This is even more true since the Canal’s recent expansion; despite the
new locks’ ingenious basins, which can recover sixty percent of the water used, the overall
water loss from the Canal has increased.
The original lock chambers measure 304.8m by 33.53m, affording colossal Panamax vessels
a mere 0.6m of leeway either side, yet they function in much the same way as they did when
they were first used. Once the gates are closed, these vast vessels are kept aligned by cables
attached to pairs of electric locomotives known as mules (mulas). The huge tunnel-like culverts
then kick in with phenomenal efficiency, taking only eight minutes to fill the giant chamber
with the equivalent of 43 Olympic swimming pools. The new locks, which are more than half
as big again, demand an arguably even trickier operation, since the mules have been
abandoned in favour of tugboats, which are attached to the bow and stern of the ships, and
squeezed into the same lock chamber as the towering metal behemoths they’re guiding.
Tolls for ships are calculated depending on type of vessel, and size and type of cargo. The
average toll for the largest Panamax vessels is $126,000 for the 8–10hr journey plus $13,000
each for up to three tugboats required for the more difficult stages of the transit, as well as
fees for the obligatory Canal pilot. For neopanamax vessels, which can carry up to fourteen
thousand containers, costs are set to rocket: at the time of writing the record stood at
$800,000, with the first million-dollar crossing likely over the next few years.
It is no wonder then that the Canal’s annual revenue is well in excess of $1 billion, and
expected to rise to $2 billion by 2021, though the repayment of a $2.3 billion loan to finance the
expansion – not to mention the litigation fees to decide who pays the vast cost overruns – will
swallow up some of the profits for the first few years. For the ships, despite the eye-watering
costs, the Canal still represents a major saving in time and money, as it avoids them having to
make the difficult 15,000km-journey around the treacherous seas of Cape horn.
The history of the Canal is covered in more detail in our Contexts chapter (see pp.295–298).

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