Ruins of the old bell tower in "Panama Viejo," or Old Panama, the first permanent Spanish settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas, is backdropped by the modern skyline of Panama City, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A young woman poses for photos inside a former bastion that was part of the colonial defenses against pirates in Casco Viejo, the historic district of Panama City, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A park ranger walks along the "Camino de Cruces," a colonial road built by the Spanish to transport treasure across the isthmus to the Caribbean for shipment to Europe, in Panama City, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A tourist stands in front of a map outlining colonial interoceanic trade routes at the museum of Fort San Lorenzo, a 16th-century Spanish fortress that guarded the Caribbean entrance to the Chagres River, in Colon, Panama, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Youths climb a colonial-era wall to dive into the sea in the "Casco Viejo," the historic district of Panama City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Ruins of the old bell tower in "Panama Viejo," or Old Panama, the first permanent Spanish settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas, is backdropped by the modern skyline of Panama City, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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A young woman poses for photos inside a former bastion that was part of the colonial defenses against pirates in Casco Viejo, the historic district of Panama City, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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A park ranger walks along the "Camino de Cruces," a colonial road built by the Spanish to transport treasure across the isthmus to the Caribbean for shipment to Europe, in Panama City, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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A tourist stands in front of a map outlining colonial interoceanic trade routes at the museum of Fort San Lorenzo, a 16th-century Spanish fortress that guarded the Caribbean entrance to the Chagres River, in Colon, Panama, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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Youths climb a colonial-era wall to dive into the sea in the "Casco Viejo," the historic district of Panama City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
PANAMA CITY (AP) — For centuries, Panama served as a natural bridge for global trade. Mule trains hauled treasure over stone-paved trails, riverboats floated gold and silver down the Chagres River to Caribbean ports like Portobelo, guarded by the cannons of Fort San Lorenzo, and later, the world’s first transcontinental railroad ferried passengers and cargo from ocean to ocean.
This photo journey looks back at the routes that carried the world across Panama’s isthmus long before the first lock opened in the .
These crossings made Panama one of the world’s most strategic corridors long before engineers carved the canal. Today, traces of those forgotten routes remain: moss-covered cobblestones hidden in the jungle, the colonial ruins of Panama Viejo, sacked by pirate Henry Morgan and later re-founded, fort walls crumbling above the sea, and the Chagres still winding on as a silent witness to centuries of passage.
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This documentary photo story has been curated by AP photo editors.
