Perpetuating Peace in Panama: Portobelo Vacation

Diablo Rojo bus to Portobelo

My first vacation in Panama was relaxing, educational and fun. The trip from the Emerald City to Colon was on an express bus, standard Greyhound size. And they mean express. Once you leave the city and get on the autopista, there are no exits for the entire 50 mile trip to just outside of Colon. No houses, no nothing except green on both sides of the 4 lane concrete ribbon. And one rest stop at the mid-point and lots of Cell antennas.

The pimped out inside of the Diablo Rojo bus

Outside of Colon, I boarded a packed bus for Portobelo. This was one of the converted US school buses, elaborately painted and decorated called Diablos Rojos – Red Devils. Though the drivers are not worse than the Coaster drivers. The interior was what I imagine a New Orleans whore house might look like, stopping every 5 minutes to load or discharge passengers on a 1 ½ lane road.

Beautiful grounds of Coco Plum - rooms are behind foliage at left

I chose the Coco Plum Hotel and Golden Frog Dive Center and was not disappointed in any way. I fell in love with Coco Plum at first sight. Lush tropical landscaping, everything way over-decorated with a tropical / nautical kitsch theme. Lots of ginger, herbs and fruit growing all

The rooms are pure tropical / nautical Funky

around. The room was large, again with ceramic fish all over the walls. Air conditioned but no hot water, TV or phone. Just my kind of place. A gorgeous little beach and warm water, but not swimmable as the depth about 300ft out is still just waist deep. Unlike the Pacific side of Panama which has 15-18 ft tides, the Carib side has about 1

The beach is small, scenic, but not for swimming

ft tides. Also, the hotel is in a lagoon, protected all around by reefs, so not much for waves.

The restaurant was decorated with all sorts of relics – old gas cans, old anchors, boats, floats winches. The food was incredible – all fresh seafood. They will not serve frozen, which limits dinner choices, but is worth it. The first night no lobster, but fresh octopus, which I wrongly assumed would be like calamari

Restaurant is even funkier than the rooms

(squid). Not so – it was not in rings and VERY tender. Chef Maria did it up in a coconut/ginger sauce that was just extraordinary. And the best fried yucca ever. Next night was only corbina in an aji (garlic) sauce , with coconut rice and a pineapple chutney. Finally got the lobster on my third night – two small (illegal??) tails. Absolutely tender and tasty, with just a little herbal butter.

The diving was OK, but nothing like Belize or the Bahamas

The diving was less than spectacular. Rey, the Divemaster runs a great shop with the very latest and best equipment. So many tech upgrades since my last dive in 2002. But, with all the rivers that exits this coast, any rain sends particulates into the water. Most folks dive here in the dry season. Visibility was about like that off West Palm Beach, FL. We dove the nice reef at the entrance to the lagoon – beautiful corals and lots of fish, even some lobster, in about 25-40 ft. It was OK, but pales in comparison to Belize or the Bahamas. The top 5 ft of water was like a bathtub (fresh river water), with cooler temps below. Still very comfortable without a wetsuit. We tried a second dive up the coast, but it was about the same.

The original Fortaleza San Lorenzo was not defensible

Next day, I walked the coast road into Portobelo itself. The town is quite famous as the Caribbean end of the Camino Real. A few years after Balboa pioneered a route from the Pacific to the Carib, this faster, easier and safer route was found. And Portobelo had a very nice, natural deep water harbor. Coincidentally, Baboa was executed just about the same time. Gold and silver mined or looted from the Pacific areas of Peru and Ecuador was then brought to what is now Panama City and trekked by mule train (or slave train) through the jungle trail that led to Portobelo, where it was shipped to Spain. Parts of the highway from the City to Colon are actually built on the path.

Bigger and more guns on higher ground made the new
Fort Portobelo harder to attack, Still taken twice by English

Problem was that having all that loot flowing through and being stored made Portobelo – also where Columbus made his first landing in Panama, thus the name of nearby Colon – a prime target for English and French raiders. The city was looted several times and finally abandoned in favor of a more defensible harbor at

I bet 18 of these bad boys made some noise

Colon. The original Fortaleza de San Lorenzo was built right on the water’s edge and had only 4” cannon and was easily taken by Morgan and others. The second Fort Portobelo was up higher and had more and bigger guns. Still, it was captured twice and the trans-shipment port was moved about 25 miles up the coast to Colon.

Playa Blanca was well worth the visit.

A $15 water taxi ride from the now small town (pop 2000), brought me to Playa Blanca, a classic tropical beach, which reminded me of Trunk Bay beach in St Johns USVI. The swimming was gorgeous, though very shallow until about 500 ft off the beach. Some enterprising young lads sold 3 liter bottles of water for $3 each for rinse-off. There was another small shack selling hamburgers (not bad). All that was lacking was the queso for a “Cheeseburger in Paradise”. No kosher pickle or cold draft beer, either.

I skipped a second dive in favor of a hike

I crossed many streams - would not want to
try this in a heavy rain

in the jungle of the Portobelo National Park. The trail is mostly kept clear, but the jungle grows so fast, that at times the trail disappeared and I wished I had brought a machete. I crossed a dozen or more streams and climbed many hills and valleys. Lush, tropical beauty is everywhere. I saw some fantastic neon blue butterflies and heard the cry of the howler monkeys, along with the yakking of parrots. Once again, I was struck by the lack of insects, except for the leaf-cutter ants which flow in lines across the jungle floor. I took dozens of photos, but none really captured the immense size and scope of the giant plants and trees. Here are a few...