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Running some 82km across the isthmus between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Panama Canal , one of the greatest engineering feats of all time, is the country's biggest visitor attraction, and an easy day-trip from Panama City. Quite apart from its sheer magnitude, the canal also possesses an unexpected, rugged beauty. Though the corridor that surrounds this vital thoroughfare is home to almost two-thirds of Panama's population, for much of its length the canal cleaves a narrow path through pristine rainforest , large tracts of which are protected within Parque Nacional Soberania and on Isla Barro Colorado Isla . These are among the most accessible tropical rainforest preserves in Latin America, and all of them support exceptional biodiversity. Soberania and Chagres also offer the opportunity to walk along the remnants of the Camino de las Cruces and the Camino Real - paved mule trains carved across the forested spine of the isthmus in colonial times, providing a convenient route by which the treasures that the Spanish accumulated could be transported from Panama City to the Atlantic. From 1903 to 1977 the strip of land that extends for five miles on either side of the canal was de facto US territory, known as the Canal Zone . The last US military bases closed at the end of 1999, when control of the canal was finally handed over to Panama, but the well-ordered society the US established in the Canal Zone still remains, in delicious contrast to the tropical disorder and vibrant Caribbean culture of Colon and the surrounding coast, whose inhabitants are descended from the workers brought in to build the waterway. At the canal's Atlantic entrance, Colon is an infamously poor and dangerous - yet strangely compelling - city, steeped in history, while the Caribbean coast of Colon Province offers a perfect antidote to the city's sometimes depressing  © 2003 by Rough Guides Ltd. as trustee for its Authors. Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved. Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd. Buy the book here!
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squalor. To the west, along the Costa Abajo , the formidable ruins of the colonial Fort San Lorenzo still stand guard over the mouth of the Rio Chagres amid untouched tropical rainforest; while to the northeast stretches the Costa Arriba , an isolated region of pristine coral reefs and laid-back fishing villages, much of which is protected by the Parque Nacional Portobelo , set around the ruins of the colonial ports of Portobelo and Nombre de Dios .
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