Top Travel Leads

Sail the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean towards Contadora and the Pearl Islands, where the Discovery will stay the first night before continuing to the Darien. From here navigate towards the Panama Canal and begin sailing in direction of the Caribbean and the cruise destination, the town of Portobelo. Founded by Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage to the new continent in 1597, Portobelo is rich in history as it was the site of many sea and land battles between the Spanish. Explore the fortifications built by the Spaniards to protect their treasures and visit the Church of San Felipe, the sanctuary of the Black Christ. Spend the night in the bay of Portobelo, a grand finale to your Luxury Panama Canal Cruise, Pacific to Atlantic Voyage of Discovery.

About 500 yards east of the Decameron beach resort is a cluster of beach properties. Nestled among them, overgrown in weeds and coastal scrub jungle sits abandoned Manuel Noriega’s beach house, a vacation home of the former head of Panama’s secret police and a former CIA operative that US later brought to trial and arrested on drug-trafficking charges. It’s said many of the area houses were owned by Noriega’s top officers during the 1980s and the largest one of them by the general himself. Posted by Panama’s Ministry of Finance, the gate fronting the access road proclaims entry is forbidden and violators may be arrested. As the property is easily entered from the beach, the warning does not seem to deter steady stream of curios Panamanians as well as foreign tourists from entering the fenced off compound to glace at the once imposing dwelling with lavish interior. Today ghosts seem to hunt the concrete shell of the formerly architecturally remarkable structure. Shot at and left to rot for nearly 20 years now, the skeleton still gives good feel of the architecture. The living room was large, of semi-circular shape, with striking spiral stairway rising onto second level and the rooftop terrace. Large windows throughout and especially second level offer fine ocean views and one can only imagine what the property once looked like when lawn and garden were no doubt meticulously taken care of.

For the history buffs, the story of Manuel Noriega’s house begins along the Interamericana, where small road turns to the coast, paralleling the runway, to the Decameron Resort. Here on both sides of the highway is a small runway, now in part used by small plane owners living or vacationing in this part of Pacific coast. Once a key runway used by Noriega forces, it has an interesting history. It once belonged to the Panama Defense Forces and this strip and surrounding compounds were known as Rio Hato Army Base. There were barracks, an armory and near the end of a 3km road was Noriega’s beach home. On December 20, 1989, two F-117A stealth fighters swooped undetected out of the night sky and dropped two 2000 lb bombs near the Rio Hato PDF barracks, an action that marked the beginning of the US invasion of Panama. Interestingly enough, the very stealth bombing was the first time that the most sophisticated fighter plane was used in combat. The US secretary of defense said at the time that the planes performed their missions flawlessly, precisely hitting their intended targets after flying all night from their base in Nevada. Later, however, the Pentagon admitted that the pilots had confused their targets, hitting one out of sequence and badly missing the second. Rio Hato was also where the US Army suffered its highest concentration of casualties during the invasion although most were not the result of combat. Moments after the bombs exploded, a 850-man contingent of army rangers parachuted onto the runway, however, because they jumped from an altitude of only 150m and landed on pavement, many of them sustained serious injuries. More than two dozen members of the elite force were incapacitated by broken legs, torn knee ligaments and other injuries.

One of the most interesting things about all this is not the army’s errors in planning the jump but that the US military acted with great humanity in its bombing. Strange as that may sound the targets the stealth bombers were ordered to hit were empty fields near barracks filled with young Panamanian soldiers, not the barracks themselves. By dropping bombs near the barracks, the US military hoped to scare the soldiers into surrendering and thus avoid unnecessary bloodshed, which they accomplished as hundreds of Panamanian soldiers at Rio Hato did surrender immediately. For all the criticism leveled at the US during and after the invasion, there were many such instances of restrain that went unmentioned.

Finally, there’s an interesting little war story attached to Noriega’s residence. One of the reasons US President George Bush Senior ordered the invasion as noted above was to arrest Noriega and bring him to trial on drug-trafficking charges. A big story on the third day of the invasion was a US General Maxwell Thurman’s announcement that US soldiers had found more than 50kg of cocaine in Noriega’s beach house. It was not until a month later, after persistent questioning from reporters, that the Pentagon admitted that the suspicious substance was actually a flour-like powder used to make tamales.

If you’re planning to visit Coiba Island, Panama’s largest island and premiere national park, a home of astounding marine life that includes some two dozen species of dolphin, humpback whales as well as variety of species of crocodiles, turtles, lizards, snakes and scarlet mecaws, you will likely come to Santa Catalina to hire a boat to get there. While there is an assortment of oceanside surf hotels to choose from in Santa Catalina, a place that stands out among them all is ”Surfer’s Paradise Camp.”  The hotel, guest house or camp, pick what you wish to call it, it’s not for its architecture that this place will remain in your memory. What is lacks in amenities is easily made up by the hospitality of its Brazilian owner and proprietor, Italo, and the million dollar view one can have from the deck while swinging in a hammock and the ambiance that goes with it. Of course, the surfing here, and that’s THE wave right up there in the view, is on the surfer’s world map, but that’s another story…

To arrange your trip to Santa Catalina, Surfer’s Paradise or Coiba Island, whether you wish to surf, scuba or roam this pristine corner of Panama, click here!

Tiger’s Storefront

Nata is a sleepy town about half an hour from Penonome, Cocle Province capital. It’s main attraction is its church. A classic Spanish colonial church with a fine colonial facade and a remarkable interior. Completed in 1522, it’s one of the oldest in Panama. Its intricately carved altars, namely the altar of the Virgin with sculpted fruit, leaves and serpents, the influence of its Indian artisans, were not finished until 1751. The church was extensively renovated in the late 1990s. The rough original columns that support the church’s roof are made of nispero, a hardwood found in Bocas del Toro Province. The smooth columns are new and also made of nispero. The entire ceiling was replaced in 1995 and is made of pine and cedar.

Notice also the Holy Trinity painting on the wall to the right of the altar. Created in 1758 by the Ecuadorian artist Jose Samaniego, the painting was for many years kept from public view because it represents the Trinity as three people who all look like Christ, which is not in conformity with Church canon.

The belfry contains four bells, all less than hundred years old as the original bells were made of solid gold and stolen years ago.

Under a reign of an Indian chief named Nata, Nata was indeed once rich in gold and that was also the reason for its demise. In 1515 an Indian chief, whose territory covered much of what would later become northern Code Province, informed the Spanish conquistadors Alonso Perez de la Rua and Gonzalo de Badajoz of the wealth of his neighbor to the southwest. Naturally, the conquistadors went after Nata’s gold, especially since he was said to have few soldiers to protect the gold. The story goes Perez and his 30 men arrived first; Badajoz and his 130 men were not far behind. Perhaps a bit overanxious, Perez and his party soon found themselves amid a large Indian settlement. Retreat was impossible, but Perez grabbed the Indian chief and threatened to kill him, and thus forced Nata to tell his warriors to back off. Then Badajoz and his well-armed soldiers showed up, and Nata was forced to surrender a large quantity of gold. The Christians remained for two months in the village named after the chief before they headed south and plundered more villages. Two years later, the Spaniards, led by Caspar de Espinosa, returned to Nata and established one of the earliest European settlements on the isthmus.The Indians, meanwhile, were enslaved. As an incentive to settle in Nata, the ruthless Spanish governor Pedro Arias de Avila divided the village and its Indians among 60 soldiers who agreed to start a pueblo there, of which eventually grew Nata of today.