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Portobelo
Isla Grande
Fort San Lorenzo
The Free Zone
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Colon is all the tropic ports of Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham. Rightly so. Every street corner and bar here knows ten thousand tales as exuberant or as melancholy or as cockeyed or as ironic as any those two travellers spun.

Colon is a strange town which has relished bonanzas and endured depressions throughout its history. The town was born around the time when California-bound Fortyniners added gold fever to the other fevers that Colon endured in those days of trying to find its landfill footing on the mangrove island that had been declared the Atlantic terminal of the Western Hemisphere’s first transcontinental railroad.

Canal construction followed and Colon and its adjacent port Cristobal, flourished as the waterway’s terminal as well.

Colon then became one of the world’s busiest cruise ports as passengers from scheduled liners frolicked down gangplanks to shop on fabled Front Street.

After this boom in the nineteen fifties, Colon languished in an economic limbo until the last decade of the century, despite the Colon Free Zone which grew year by year and which now generates $10 billion per year in imports and exports.

Colon now seems poised for another boom. The railroad which had ground to a halt has been re-built. Four new ports, the biggest (Manzanillo International Terminal) which alone is bigger than Miami, are converting Colon into a giant transhipment center.

Colon is now experiencing a renaissance of the cruise ship business. The new cruise port, Colon 2000 and Pier 6 in Cristobal are receiving an increasing number of ships.

Portobelo

It is about an hour and 20 minutes unless you stop off for a swim at the black sand Maria Chiquita beach which has changing facilities or the white sand Playa Langosta beach.

From its commercial demise when the isthmus became independent from Spain in 1821, until a few years ago, Portobelo, the Spanish Main’s richest treasure port, mouldered, a roadless fishing village with an annual flicker of life for the Black Christ celebration (still held each year on October 21 in the ancient Portobelo Cathedral).

The ruins of Portobelo–an easy drive from Colon, with beaches and restaurants along the way.

Now, approached by an excellent highway, the Spanish Main, albeit time-weary, is there for all to capture single-handed... or in alliance with a tourist cab driver.

Isla Grande

After Portobelo the scenery becomes even more beautiful.
Isla Grande, another 30 minutes down the road, boasts two hotels and a number of cabin-style hostelries. The Isla Grande Diving Center offers diving and snorkeling. The surfing here is good. Isla Grande has been host to various international surf competitions. It is a beautiful island. A walk up to the lighthouse is definitely worth the time.

One of the most elegant resorts in Panama is Bananas Village, a small beach hotel on a coconut plantation on the very private seaward side of Isla Grande.

Fort San Lorenzo

Fort San Lorenzo is about an hour’s drive unless you have to make way for a container ship. The road crosses atop the Gatun lock gates. The locks and the spillway on Gatun Dam make a spectacular sight-seeing stop, in any case.

This bastion is near the canal at the mouth of the Chagres River, once the highly strategic and believed impregnable key to the route across the isthmus. Pirate Henry Morgan sorted out its secrets after his own pragmatic fashion, enroute to Panama City.

The Free Zone

Express, air-conditioned buses leave Panama City for Colon from the national bus terminal in Albrook (in Colon the terminal is on 13 St and Bolivar Avenue) every half hour. Costs $2.00 each way. The journey is approx 1 hour. Regular buses leave from the same area, cost $1.25 each way but are not so comfortable and take a little longer.

Another option is the recently inaugurated railroad. The train leaves the terminal in Corozal at 7.15 a.m. and arrives in Colon at 8:15 a.m.. It returns from Colon at 5:15 p.m., arriving in Panama City at 6:15 p.m. A return ticket costs $35, a one way ticket costs $20.

For those who wish to stay overnight or longer, Colon offers several categories of hotel from the lakeside Hotel Meliá or the comfortable old colonial Hotel Washington on the harbour front to more modest hostelries.

Note that goods purchased in the Colon Free Zone cannot be taken out by the purchaser but are sent in-bond from the Colon Free Zone to Tocumen Airport, where they are delivered to departing passengers. Normally companies can send goods for a flight the following day. On the day of your departure, leave plenty of time to get your purchases out of the customs area on the lower level of the airport before you check in for your flight.