We arranged for a man with a four wheel drive to take us from the Pacific to the Atlantic, cutting across Panama. We drove through the hills that form the spine of Central America, lush green hills with vegetation piled over vegetation in the way that makes me truly miss the tropics. Then we arrived at Gatun Lake, to view the canal locks.
They were simultaneously underwhelming and impressive. A ship was squeezed in the lock, making its way down to the Atlantic, and it all happened very slowly, very gradually and looked surprisingly small. It was only when a man walked up to the side of the canal that I realised just how large the ship, and thus the canal, was. It was a ship carrying cars, which I gather is a whole separate category of ship, rather depressing.
The lake is manmade and was very beautiful, with green islands and white ships flecked all around it. There used to be a crossing over the canal just in front of the locks but it has been replaced with a very long and quite beautiful suspension bridge with wonderful views across to the sea on one side and the locks on the other. We took this bridge and went on to San Lorenzo, an old Spanish fort that was sacked multiple times by pirates. The way to this was through an abandoned US military bsae, with once-identical concrete blocks now grown over with trees and vines and with roofs fallen in, windows smashed.
The fort was lovely, perched on a cliff overlooking the sea and a brown tropical river, all mossy and stony. The pirates were all English, people like Francis Drake etc, whom I and the GF had both been taught were intrepid explorers and heroes, certainly not pirates at all.