A Trip to San Lorenzo National Park
San Lorenzo isn’t just a tourist destination, it’s a living testament to the rise and fall of colonial power in Panama. In addition to the fort, the national park offers opportunities for hiking, camping, kayaking, or simply birdwatching. There’s a story around every corner, and every visit reveals something new in the jungle, the rocks, and the sea.
Texts and Photos: Javier A. Pinzón
It’s early morning when we leave home for San Lorenzo National Park. The sun has barely risen and we’re ready, backpacks on our shoulders, to explore a route filled with history and nature. The trip from Panama City takes approximately an hour and a half by car. Arriving in Colón, we take the modern Tercer Puente bridge over the Panama Canal. This bridge was inaugurated in 2019 to connect the city with the Costa Abajo region. The road winds through former Canal Zone lands, bordering dense jungles and former military installations that bear silent witness to a more recent history.
Starting in 1519, the Spanish protected the mouths of the Chagres River to prevent their enemies from penetrating Parama and reaching the Pacific Ocean.
We continue on, past old Fort Sherman, a former U.S. military base that is now part of the park. It’s a great place to birdwatch, with trails through a forest rich in biodiversity. We decide to hike one of the trails over to the fort. The air is crisp, the vegetation abundant, and the birdsong envelops us in a multi-sensory experience.
The trail leads us to San Lorenzo Castle, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ruins feature thick stone walls, brick sentry boxes, and cannons still pointing out to sea.
The region was of strategic importance to the Spanish Empire. In the late 16th century, the Crown ordered a fortress be built at the mouth of the Cha-gres River to protect the river route that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The first version of the fort was designed by engineer Bautista Antonelli between 1595 and 1610. It consisted of a platform built on a reef, with batteries of cannons at sea level.
Exposed to the elements and unmaintained, the structure deteriorated over time. In the 1650s, a sec-ond, higher structure was built on a towering rock. It was destroyed by privateer Henry Morgan in 1671, during his assault on Panama City. In 1672, construction of the third structure (the castle) began, directed by Antonio Fernández de Córdoba. It was later reinforced during the 18th-century Bourbon reforms, using bastions, moats, hornworks, and a closed wall adapted to the modern artillery of the time.
The Parque Nacional San Lorenzo protects diferent ecosystems and between them more than five species of forests.
As we walk along, we can’t help imagining what the place was like centuries ago, when, in January 1671, Henry Morgan landed with four hundred men at a port near by. Instead of attacking by sea, he came by land, knowing that the elevated position of San Lorenzo made it almost impregnable from the coast. After destroying the fort, Morgan sailed up the Chagres River and sacked old Panama City in one of the most infamous episodes of Caribbean piracy.
We walk across the castle’s dry moat to the parade ground and visit a small exhibition of key moments in the fort’s history. This fort also served as a state prison during the colonial period; its dungeons imprisoned figures such as Pedro José de Guzmán-Dávalos, former governor of the Kingdom of Tierra Firme, and the Peruvian hero Francisco Antonio de Zela.
Archeologists have yet to finish discovering the history of San Lorenzo del Chagres. new findings revealing details if the forts third restoration were recently announced.
Recent excavations have revealed new layers of history. Panamanian archaeologists are working with international institutions to identify the remains of the third structure and the ancient Chagres settlement. This settlement, founded under the protection of the fort and inhabited primarily by Afro-descendants and soldiers’ families, was relocated several times before finally being evacuated in 1916, when the Canal Zone expanded and – its residents were moved to Nuevo Chagres.
Very close to the Fort is the 0.3 is the mile access to Playa Tortuguilla, another of San Lorenzo Parks big attractions.
After touring the fort, we head to a small nearby beach where the Caribbean Sea offers up her calm, clear waters. It’s the perfect place to cool off after our walk. Here, on the coast where the Empire’s gold was once defended, families now relax surrounded by history and nature.
San Lorenzo isn’t just a tourist destination, it’s a living testament to the rise and fall of colonial power in Panama. In addition to the fort, the national park offers opportunities for hiking, camping, kayaking, or simply birdwatching. There’s a story around every corner, and every visit reveals something new in the jungle, the rocks, and the sea.
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