We decided to do the 14 hour passage to Portobella on mainland Panama overnight which was fairly straightforward.
This is not a picture of a sunset but rather sunrise over Portobello as we arrived. The sun is rising just over the entrance to the harbour so imagine being the first to arrive from Europe on a wooden ship as Columbus was in 1502. No idea of where the reefs were or the depths in the harbour that you thought was there but wouldn’t know for sure until you arrived. Francis Drake used the port in 1570 as a base to rob Spanish merchantmen. He returned in the 1590s and destroyed the beginnings of the Spanish fortifications. He reputedly died during the same voyage and was buried at sea.
Apparently there used to be so much plundered gold in the warehouses here that the silver was left piled up in the streets.
The ruins of the fortifications are in surprisingly good condition with a lot of canons still in situ! |
|
|
The vultures seemed friendly….
The town itself is pretty ramshackle but has a charm. In spite of the recent additions the old is still very obvious. |
