Colón

I stood at the railing as our ship approached Colón, watching container vessels ahead of us in the queue—massive ships that would soon begin their journey through one of humanity's most audacious engineering achievements. The Panama Canal. I'd read about it in school textbooks, seen documentaries about its construction, but nothing prepared me for the scale of what awaited. The air felt thick with humidity and anticipation as tugboats maneuvered in the distance.

Our tour bus wound through the outskirts of Colón toward Agua Clara Locks, the expanded locks that opened in 2016 to accommodate the new generation of mega-ships. The visitor center sits high above the canal, a stadium-style viewing platform that places you close enough to watch crews working on vessels 1,200 feet long. I arrived just as a Neopanamax container ship began entering the lock chamber below. The precision was breathtaking—inches of clearance on either side, tugboats nudging the bow into position, locomotives called "mules" keeping the ship centered with steel cables.

The water began to drain from the chamber. I watched, mesmerized, as this floating city of steel slowly descended—52 feet in about twenty minutes, recycling billions of gallons through ingenious water-saving basins. The smell of humid jungle air mixed with diesel and the salt breeze from Gatun Lake. I could hear the rumble of the lock gates, the splash of water cascading through the culverts, the distant horn of a ship waiting its turn. My eyes filled with unexpected tears as I grasped the human achievement unfolding before me.

For the first time in years, I felt humbled by what we're capable of when we set our minds to it. Thousands of workers died building this canal over three decades. The French tried first and failed catastrophically—defeated by yellow fever, mudslides, and hubris. Then American engineers and laborers—many of them from Caribbean islands seeking work—carved this passage through the Continental Divide. They conquered disease through mosquito control, designed an ingenious lock system, and built something that still functions over a century later. Standing there watching a ship transit that my great-grandparents couldn't have imagined, I understood something new about ambition and sacrifice.

After the locks, our tour continued to Fort San Lorenzo, a UNESCO site perched on a cliff overlooking the mouth of the Chagres River. The Spanish built this fortress in 1597 to protect treasure galleons sailing from Peru. Henry Morgan attacked it in 1671 before sacking Panama City. Walking through the cannon-studded ramparts, moss-covered stone walls, and dungeons where prisoners once awaited their fate, I felt the weight of centuries pressing down on every stone. The view from the battlements—endless jungle stretching to the horizon, the Caribbean glinting in the distance—was precisely what Spanish soldiers saw four hundred years ago.

The contrast between fort and canal struck me as profound. One represents the old world's desire to extract and control. The other represents something different—a connection, a passage, an invitation for ships of all nations to cross from ocean to ocean in hours rather than months. However you feel about American intervention in Panama, the canal changed global trade forever. Ships no longer needed to round Cape Horn.

Our tour included a stop at Portobelo, another UNESCO site where the Spanish conducted treasure fairs—annual events when silver from Peruvian mines was loaded onto galleons bound for Spain. The village drowses now in tropical heat, but the massive fortifications still stand, their rusted cannons aimed at a harbor that once held more gold than any place on Earth. I bought fresh coconut water from a local vendor ($1) and sat on a cannon for a long while, trying to imagine fleets of treasure ships anchored where simple fishing boats now bobbed peacefully in the quiet afternoon sun.

I heard later that some passengers chose to explore independently and had difficult experiences in Colón city. The port terminal itself felt safe, with shops and organized tour departures, but the surrounding area has genuine security concerns. This isn't a port for wandering—it's a port for witnessing engineering marvels and ancient fortresses through organized excursions, and that's perfectly fine. The excursions here are genuinely worth every dollar.

The moment that stays with me: standing at Agua Clara as the chamber refilled, watching the container ship rise like a building emerging from the earth. My heart swelled with something I can only call wonder—the recognition that humans built this, that workers died for it, that every day hundreds of ships use it, and that I was privileged to witness the simple miracle of two oceans joined by ingenuity and sweat. I came to see an engineering marvel. I left understanding why some things are called wonders of the world.

Reflections are my own; I'm charting soundings in another's wake. Visited during Caribbean positioning cruise, 2024.