BCI once formed part of a hilly landscape that became partly submerged in 1913, when engineers dammed the Chagres River to build the canal, and was set aside as a nature reserve in 1923.

The setting is Parará Purú, a settlement of the Emberá people, located in Panama's interior in the Chagres National ... vastness of the river system to the Quebrada Bonita waterfall.