Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
they communicate in their own dialect. The men sport painted faces, conical hats and out-
landish tattered clothes, worn inside-out and decorated with everything from empty beer
cans to teddy bears; the women wear multicoloured
polleras
, their hair garlanded with
flowers, and dance to beating drums and choral chants. In the many comic rituals, “pris-
oners”, including the odd unsuspecting tourist, are taken and released for ransom - a few
coins or an offer of a beer will usually do. The celebrations reach their climax on Ash Wed-
nesday with the Festival de los Diablos. The ferocious scarlet-and-black devils (represent-
ing the evil spirits of the Spanish colonials), who have been previously running amok in
frightening masks, brandishing whips, are captured by a posse of angels, who drag them
off to be baptized.
In an attempt to preserve this waning culture, and aware of its potential to generate tourist
income, the Portobelo authorities support a biennial Festival de los Diablos y Congos in
March, which is well worth seeing.
Brief history
It is said that Christopher Columbus, believing himself to be on the verge of death after
days on a storm-tossed sea, spotted a beautiful sheltered bay surrounded by forested hills and
gratefully exclaimed, “Che porto bello”. While the name stuck, the strategic importance of
the natural harbour was not truly appreciated until 1585, when it became clear that Nombre
de Dios - then the principal Spanish port on the Panama's Caribbean coast - was too exposed
and should be relocated to Portobelo. As if to reinforce the point, Sir Francis Drake destroyed
Nombre de Dios in 1595 before dying of dysentery - his coffin supposedly lies at the bottom
of the ocean at the entrance to the bay, near an islet which bears his name.
In 1597 San Felipe de Portobelo was officially founded, prompting further fortification and
providing a new target for spoil-hungry pirates and privateers, including notorious buccan-
eer Henry Morgan, who pounced at night in 1668, and squeezed one hundred thousand pesos
from the Spanish authorities in exchange for not levelling the place. British naval commander
Sir Edward Vernon, attacking seventy years later, made no such concession and destroyed the
two fortresses. Though new forts were built in the mid-eighteenth century - those still vis-
ible today - they were smaller, since Portobelo's commercial importance was already waning
as the Spanish had rerouted their ships round Cape Horn. When the Spanish garrison finally
abandoned the town in 1821, its 150 years of strategic significance came to an end.
Fuerte Santiago and around
Main road • Open access • Free
Fuerte Santiago
is the first fort you encounter before entering the town proper from the west,
built in the mid-eighteenth century following the destruction of the original fortifications by
the British. The main entrance takes you through a vestibule protected by gun ports to the
