Soberanía runs along the eastern bank of the Panama Canal from Gamboa almost to Colón, and it is the most accessible serious rainforest in the Americas: forty minutes from Panama City, on a paved road, with more than five hundred bird species recorded inside it.
The reason birders come is Pipeline Road — Camino del Oleoducto — a rough track built during the Second World War that runs seventeen kilometres into the forest. Audubon Christmas bird counts here have repeatedly set world records for species seen in a day. Antbirds, trogons, motmots, four species of toucan and both howler and capuchin monkeys are routine; the birding is best in the first three hours after dawn, which means leaving the city in the dark.
The village of Gamboa at the park's edge was built for canal employees and sits where the Chagres river meets the waterway, with boats out to the Emberá villages upriver and to Barro Colorado Island, the Smithsonian's research station in the middle of Gatún Lake. Day visitors can walk the shorter Sendero El Charco or the Plantation Trail without a guide; a guide is worth it for the birds.