For almost nine decades, the Panama Canal has been a magnet for travelers from around the world. One of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century, the canal project involved the removal of more than nine billion cubic feet of earth, creation of a 166-square-mile artificial lake, and the carving of a channel through Panama’s rugged mountainous interior.

On Dec. 31, 1999, Panama inherited this important trade route from the U.S., which built the canal and had managed it since 1914. The U.S. handed over its control to Panama under terms of treaties signed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader General Omar Torrijos in 1977.

Most tourists see the canal from the deck of a cruise ship and never set foot on Panamanian soil. However, keeping both feet on dry land allows more freedom to explore "The Big Ditch" and opens the gates to its remarkable history.

The best place to begin is in Casco Antiguo, Panama City’s oldest neighborhood. Along its narrow streets, rundown tenements rub cornices with Spanish colonial churches, ruined convents, and elegant 19th-century buildings left behind by the French when their canal-building attempts ended in scandal and financial disaster. Old Spanish sea walls still surround much of the historic district and provide a place to view Panama Bay and the pencil-thin skyscrapers of modern Panama City.

In Casco Antiguo’s Plaza de Francia stands a stark obelisk crowned by a cockerel, a symbol of the French Revolution, commemorating 22,000 workers who perished between 1878 and 1889 during France’s failed attempt to dig the Panama Canal. Statues of canal pioneers surround the monument like ghosts.

Leading this ephemeral group is a bust of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the flamboyant Frenchman who successfully organized construction of the Suez Canal and then, at 75, went on to mastermind the Panama fiasco.

Nearby, on Casco Antiguo’s main square, stands a handsome edifice with colonnades and a Mansard roof. French engineers used it as their headquarters until the U.S. took over the canal project in 1903.

This rejuvenated four-story building houses the new Panama Canal Museum, which uses artifacts, photographs and videos to trace the canal area’s history from pre-Columbian times to the present. The magnitude of this project is evident from fascinating turn-of-the-century newsreels showing blasting and dredging of the canal, along with construction of its colossal lock chambers and gates.

The road to Miraflores Locks, about 30 minutes from Panama City, skirts Balboa, a tidy enclave built by the U.S. to house canal administrators and employees. En route there are striking views of the elegant Bridge of the Americas, spanning the canal’s Pacific entrance, and the stern-looking Canal Administration Building commanding a hillside overlooking the city.

At Miraflores Locks, a visitors’ center screens a video on the canal’s history, and elevated bleachers provide close-up views of ships being guided through the locks by small locomotives called mulas or "mules." The locks’ massive 800-ton gates open and close as ships are lifted a total of 55 feet in two steps, requiring enough fresh water to meet the daily needs of a small city.

Just past Miraflores Locks lies the French Cemetery with its sea of plain white crosses, each bearing only a number. This grassy expanse hewn out of the jungle contains graves of workers who died – mainly from yellow fever and malaria – during the early days of France’s ill-conceived efforts to dig a sea-level canal without locks.

The next set of locks, Pedro Miguel, raises north-bound vessels a final 30 feet. Ships then disappear into the Gaillard Cut, a sinuous passageway hacked through the Continental Divide. The Cut was by far the most difficult part of the canal to construct.

It was here that the French gave up, succumbing to massive mudslides triggered by torrential downpours, raging fevers that decimated their workers’ ranks, and finally bankruptcy of Ferdinand de Lessep’s Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique.

Boats emerge from the nine-mile Gaillard Cut near Gamboa. They then set out across enormous Gatun Lake, formed by damming the wide Chagras River that flowed from its source in the highlands to the Caribbean Sea. The lake took two years to fill and submerged huge areas of tropical forest, displacing 50,000 people. It was the world’s largest artificial lake until 1936, when the Hoover Dam created Lake Mead in the U.S. Today, Gatun Lake supplies all the water needed to operate the canal’s locks.

From Panama City, a busy highway leads to Gatun Locks, on the north side of the 30-mile-wide isthmus. Here ships are lowered in three stages and then set free like captive whales into a long channel leading to the Caribbean Sea. A twisting road leads from the locks to the top of crescent-shaped Gatun Dam.

On one side of the sweeping dam spreads Gatun Lake with its flotilla of ships waiting to enter the locks. Beyond its frothing spillway meanders the peaceful Chagras River, tamed for now by this audacious work of man.

Two bus companies have routes from San José to Panama City.

Ticabus leaves from Avenida 4 between Ca. 9 and 11 in San José at 10 p.m. every day. The trip takes about 18 hours and costs ¢14,000 round-trip. Buses from Panama City depart for San José at 11 a.m. daily. Call 221-8954.

Panaline buses leave from Av. 13 between Ca. 14 and 16 at 1 p.m. every day. The trip is a few hours shorter and costs ¢12,000 round-trip. Buses from Panama City depart for San José at 12:30 p.m. daily. Call 225-1205 or 258-0022.

Make sure you bring evidence of your return ticket to Costa Rica. Otherwise Panamanian immigration officials may charge a hefty fee at the border.

Flights with Copa Airlines (222-6640) or Grupo TACA (296-0909) are more expensive - about $300 round-trip - but take only an hour and 15 minutes. They are also the only possible option when border workers go on strike, as they did last weekend.