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wood prints portobelo gold road historic unesco panama spain trade panama canal

photographs portobelo gold road historic unesco panama spain trade panama canal

The Portobelo Gold Road was one of the precursors to the Panama Canal. It connected the town of Portobelo with Colon (now one of the end of the canal).The name Portobelo, means “beautiful harbor”. The village was founded in 1597. Portobelo grew to become a strongly fortified town at the north end of the old Gold Road which ended in Colon. As a point of transshipment and exchange for the colonial merchandise of Spain and South America, Portobelo was famous for its annual fairs, as well as notorious for its high prices, congested quarters, and tropical fevers. Once the busiest city in the New World, it was attacked a number of times by English buccaneers. The abandonment by Spain of the treasure fleet system and fairs in the 18th century, the building of the Panama Railroad (now the Panama Canal Railway) in the 1850s, and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 brought about its eclipse. Portobelo’s Spanish fortification ruins are of great historical interest and were designated a...

I love to tell stories. About twenty years ago I had my first freelance travel article accepted by a magazine. Much to my surprise, the magazine expected photos along with words. I had not taken any during the preliminary work for my article. I drove back to the site and took the photos for the article with my little Olympus digital camera. The article was published with those very amateur photos. In time, I bought an Olympus OMD-EM5, a great camera for nature and travel photographers and discovered that I enjoyed telling stories with pictures more than I did with words. The last twenty year have been an incredibly exciting time as resources for photographers have exploded. I have been lucky enough to have some great teachers along the way...