THE PANAMA CANAL LOCKS

The entire Panama Canal experience is unique in this world. To take it all in you'll have to appreciate the breakwalls, the lake, the locks and the Gatun Dam, with its impressive Atlantic side view of the Chagres River. The canal is considered one of the world's great engineering wonders of all time, a grand proof of human ingenuity that serves the development of all nations. Its origins go back to 1903, when Panama and the United States signed a canal treaty. On August 15, 1914, the US-flag Ancon was the first vessel to navigate the new waterway.

One of the canal's key components is its locks system, which works thanks to three artificial lakes that are replenished by tropical rains during Panama's long rainy season. The canal also features the Culebra Cut, a massive ditch dug at great human expense and still being widened today, but the heart of the canal is its system of gravity-powered hydraulic locks that raise and lower ships 54 feet to allow them to sail the 81.3 kilometers between oceans.

This tour includes visits to canal-area residential neighborhoods, military bases, Miraflores Locks, and the Canal Administration Building with its beautiful murals. In the Miraflores Locks observation deck you will receive bilingual information about how the canal works as you watch it in action, and you'll have the opportunity to see they waterway's functions demonstrated on film and on the amazing scale model that they have there.

DURATION: 2½ Hrs.