Page 150 - The Rough Guide to Panama (Travel Guide)

148 Central Panama Western CoClé
your room carefully. The on-site restaurant has a vast menu Escobar T997 4437. This long-standing central hotel
to suit most tastes (mains $9–12) and lunchtime family offers cheap beds for shoestring travellers. Choose between
meal deals. $44 a basic double with fan, cold water and local TV, or, for $17
Hotel Sarita Behind Super Carnes on Av Alejandro T. extra, one with a/c, hot water and cable TV. $18
Parque Arqueológico El Caño
18km north of Aguadulce, just off the Interamericana • Tues–Sat 8am–3.30pm • $1 • T228 6231 (not working while the museum’s
closed for restoration) • Buses between Aguadulce and Penonomé can drop you on the Interamericana at the entrance to the village of
El Caño, from where it’s a further 3km walk to the site – a taxi from Natá ($7) might be easier
Parque Arqueológico El Caño is one of Panama’s most significant pre-Columbian
archeological sites, which narrowly escaped bulldozing in the 1970s. Sadly, a
combination of plunder, vandalism and neglect means there is relatively little for the
lay visitor to appreciate, while the park’s floodplain location makes it a mosquito-
infested quagmire in the rainy season. Even so, the well-preserved skeletons are quite
3 impressive and definitely worth a look if you’re in the area.
An important ceremonial site from 500 to about 1200 AD, El Caño later became a
cemetery, and was still in use as such after the Conquest. One of the most fascinating
finds was a set of more than a hundred basalt statues that formed what was described as
the “Temple of the Thousand Idols”. These were illegally decapitated by an American
Indiana Jones-style adventurer in the early twentieth century, and the best of their
zoomorphic and anthropomorphic heads are now scattered in museums in the US,
with a few in Panama City’s anthropological museum. Only the stone pedestals
remain. There are also funeral mounds, two of which have been excavated, displaying
fairly complete skeletons. One, presumed to be a chief’s burial mound, has thrown
up a number of gold and emerald items, which are currently being examined by
archeologists, so are not yet on display. Many more burial sites are thought to lie
under the nearby sugar cane fields, likely to contain more gold items.
A small museum displays ceramics and lesser stone statues found on the site, though
its reopening following restoration has been delayed due to funding shortages.

Natá
It’s hard to picture NATÁ, a quiet backwater 11km north of Aguadulce, as the major
Spanish settlement it once was, until you arrive at the plaza to be confronted with
the dazzling white Baroque facade of the expansive Basílica Menor Santiago Apóstol.
Possibly the oldest church in the Americas still in use, and recently fully restored to
its former glory, the church bears testament to the town’s historical importance.
Founded in 1522 by Gaspar de Espinosa (whose bust surveys the church from the
square) and named after the local indigenous chief, the town supposedly gained its
subsequent full name, Santiago de Natá de los Caballeros, from a hundred knights
(caballeros) – hand-picked by King Charles V of Spain – who were sent to subjugate
the local population and spread the Catholic Word. The surrounding fertile plains
made Natá a perfect base for confronting the main indigenous resistance forces under
Cacique Urracá, who relentlessly attacked the site (see box, p.292), and for providing
supplies to the now long-abandoned gold mines on the Caribbean coast.

Basílica Menor Santiago Apóstol
Plaza 19 de Octubre • Daily 8am–6pm • Free
Apart from the splendid belltower, the main attractions of the Basílica Menor Santiago
Apóstol are the ornately carved wooden altars framed by exquisite columns laden with
vines, flowers and angels, which adorn an otherwise simple wooden interior. Though
the least elaborate, the main altar importantly contains images of the patron saint,
Santiago el Menor (James the Lesser), and the co-patron, San Juan de Díos, who are

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