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Some 25km west of Penonome on the Interamericana, the Parque Arqueologico El Cano (Tues-Sat 9am-4pm, Sun 9am-1pm; US$1) is the most impressive pre-Columbian site in Panama - though that's not saying very much, and compared to the Maya wonders elsewhere in Central America there's very little to see. An important ceremonial site from 500 to about 1200 AD, El Cano later became a cemetery that was still in use after the Conquest - horse remains have been found in some of the tombs - but the hundreds of stone statues that formed what was described as the "Temple of the Thousand Idols" were illegally decapitated by US archeologist Hyatt Verril in the early twentieth century, and the best of their zoomorphic and anthropomorphic heads are now in New York. Set amid cornfields and plagued by mosquitoes, the site consists of several funeral mounds, one of which is excavated and open to view, and lines of decapitated standing stones whose significance can only be speculated - some believe they were part of an astronomical observatory. A small museum displays ceramics and lesser stone statues, but otherwise there's nothing to delay you for more than half an hour. To reach the site from the marked turn-off on the Interamericana, walk ten minutes to the village of El Cano, beyond which it's another 25 minutes' walk. A few kilometres beyond El Cano, NATA DE CABALLEROS was founded by Gaspar de Espinoza in 1522 and acted as the forward base for the Spanish conquest of what was then known as Veragua, facing continuous attack from the indigenous forces led by Urraca. Resistance was finally overcome in 1556, and Nata became an agricultural centre supplying the now long-abandoned gold mines on the Atlantic coast. Today Nata is a quiet backwater, notable only for the Church of Santiago Apostol , built in 1522 and possibly the oldest church on the American mainland still in use. Set on the main square about five minutes' walk from the highway it boasts a fine Baroque facade and an intricately carved colonial altar.
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