It was an engineering miracle that cost twenty thousand lives to build. A boon to modern shipping, it was originally conceived to move large armies quickly. Today you can travel on a cruise ship from one ocean to the other, but it will cost your cruise line close to one million dollars every time it uses it.
Fuerte Amador/Panama City
Okay, so here’s this tourist boat—a simple barge with 20 or 30 seats in it, pushed by an outboard motor—and we’re cruising a quiet backwater of the Chagres River. I am sitting about in the very middle with a lady to my left and two people to my right. The name of our tour is Monkey Watch and there are the monkeys, a troop of white-faced marmosets on the shore.