Portobelo 6th to the 9th April

After the beautiful San Blas Islands we sailed towards Portobelo. On the way we stopped for a couple of nights at Linton Island, as it has a very good anchorage. This island is inhabited by a few little monkeys only. They are quite used to people, as this island used to have a research station on it. We went and had a look at them and they came straight up on to to our dinghy to grab a plastic bag with some bananas we brought over for them. How they knew they were in the plastic bag? Must have a good sense of smell.

 Island exploring

After Linton Island we went to Portobelo (means beautiful bay, which it is!) Portobelo is a very historical town, going back to the 17th century. It was then a major port for Spain, becoming a very important world trade center. All the riches, like gold and silver where transported out of there. Apparently, every ship that left had values in the millions of pesos on them. Of course, other people wanted to take over, so Portobelo was often attached by pirates like the famous Henry Morgan and of course the english and french (Sir Francis Drake died in Portobelo). I think it is pretty cool, to be in a town, where all these pirate fights we know from the movies actually happened!! Through the centuries the spanish built several forts to defend the town. Below some photos of the last forts they built in 1700. The museum in Portobelo was very interesting with the history very well explained. So this day we had no normal school but a history excursion!

  

 Portobelo view from the fort