Panama

Panama bends like a letter S between Central and South America, narrow enough to cross in a day yet wide enough to keep two oceans apart. Its mountain spine peaks in the west at Volcán Barú, from whose summit both coasts can be seen on clear days, and in the east the Darién forest is so dense that the Pan-American Highway stops at its edge. Because of the bend, the canal’s Pacific end lies east of its Caribbean end.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the isthmus in 1513 and became the first European to see the Pacific from the Americas. The pirate Henry Morgan burned old Panamá in 1671. Panama broke from Spain in 1821 and joined Gran Colombia. A French canal begun by Ferdinand de Lesseps collapsed in the 1880s amid yellow fever and debt. Panama declared independence with American backing in November 1903, the United States opened its canal in August 1914, and control passed to Panama at the end of 1999.

Guna women sew molas, layered cloth panels cut away to show birds, fish and mazes, and at Carnival in Las Tablas dancers wear the lace-trimmed pollera. Sancocho, chicken soup with culantro, is the national comfort food, and the Panama hat is actually woven in Ecuador. Roberto Durán in boxing and Mariano Rivera in baseball carried the country’s name abroad. Money follows the ships: canal tolls, container ports at Balboa and Colón, a free-trade zone, banks and a busy flag register.