PERFECTLY PANMA

This Central American country, rich in natural beauty but often overlooked by visitors, is finally coming into its own.

- John Bowe

OUR HELICOPTER SWOOPED skyward with an easy bound and Panama City came into view almost instantly-hundreds of gleaming skyscrapers silhouetted against the Pacific. A dozen ships queued neatly, waiting to enter the world's most aesthetically pleasing marvel of engineering: the Panama Canal. 

As we zipped above the waterway, I was awed by the audacity of its creation. The canal, completed in 1914, operates 24/7, like a conveyor belt, passing vessels back and forth between the oceans. Ships the length of several football fields glided past tidy parcels of farmland and Soberania National Park, a 55,000-acre natural preserve. From inlets covered in neon-green algae, snow-white egrets took flight over ships stacked with thousands of brightly colored containers-imagine a mash-up of Gauguin and Mondrian.

PANAMA HAS LONG BEEN seen more as a trading post than a destination. From the days of colonists and pirates to the more modern era (of, say, bankers and lawyers servicing offshore corporations), its touristic charms have gone largely unappreciated. Since the U.S.-led ousting of strongman Manuel Noriega in 1989, the country has marched steadily, if improbably, toward prosperity and political stability. With almost 13 million acres of the world's most biodiverse rain forest, rich with jaguars, hummingbirds, and two thousand butterfly species (take that, Costa Rica), plus some 1,800 miles of unsullied coastline, this country is poised for a tourism boom. Historically, lodgings outside the capital have contented themselves with hosting the budget-conscious backpacker crowd. In the past few years, however, thanks to government initiatives and the efforts of conservation-focused developers, a new class of luxurious resorts has come to offer a cushier way into the country's insanely unspoiled attractions.