It has been called "the big ditch," "the bridge between two continents," "the greatest shortcut in the world." When it was finally completed in 1914, the 51-mile waterway shaved nearly 8,000 miles off the distance between New York and San Francisco and changed the face of the industrialized world. In 1882, the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps with a labor force of 10,000 men set out to blast his way through the jungles of Colombia. The project ended seven years later in disease, bankruptcy and disaster, and it is President Theodore Roosevelt who is largely credited with the completion of the Canal. Still, much of the credit belongs to this masterful visionary who convinced a skeptical world to attempt the impossible.

But while the history of the Panama Canal is fascinating, it is the natural beauty that surprises most of all - an ever-changing panorama of jungle-clad hills, shimmering Lake Gatún, the high-arched span of the Americas Bridge and the intricate workings of the locks and gates, themselves.