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With a spectacular setting on a promontory above the Caribbean overlooking the mouth of the Rio Chagres, Fort San Lorenzo is the most impressive Spanish fortification still standing in Panama. Until the construction of the railway, the Chagres was the main cargo route across the isthmus to Panama City, and thus of enormous strategic importance to Spain. The first fortifications to protect the entrance to the river were built here in 1595, but the fort was taken by Francis Drake in 1596 and, though heavily reinforced, fell again to Henry Morgan's pirates in December 1670. Morgan then proceeded up the Chagres and across the isthmus to sack Panama City. Further fortifications were insufficient to prevent English Admiral Edward Vernon from taking the fort again in 1740, but those that remain today, built during 1760-67, were never seriously tested, as by the time they were completed the era of the freebooters was coming to an end. The fort is well preserved, with a moat surrounding stout stone walls and great cannons looking out from the embrasures. It's an isolated place, surrounded by pristine rainforest, while the fort's view of the mouth of the Chagres and of the Costa Abajo can hardly have changed since the days of Drake and Morgan. Fort San Lorenzo can only be reached by private car or taxi - you can rent one in Colon for about US$6 an hour. It's a drive of about forty minutes or so from Gatun Locks, passing through dense rainforest and the former US jungle training base of Fort Sherman , once home to the infamous School of the Americas, where military officers from all over Latin America received training before returning to their countries to commit appalling human rights abuses. Part of Fort Sherman has now been converted into the Sol Melia Panama Canal (tel 470 1100, fax 470 1200, melia.panama.canal@solmelia.com ; US$80-100), a luxury hotel aimed primarily at people doing business in the Colon Free Zone.
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