Isla Taboga

OVERVIEW

A small island in the Gulf of Panama, an hour's ferry from the city, settled in 1524 by Hernando de Luque; its church of San Pedro is claimed as one of the oldest in the hemisphere. Pizarro and Almagro sailed from here for Peru. The French canal company built a sanatorium on the island in the 1880s — Paul Gauguin convalesced there in 1887 — and the United States kept a base here in the Second World War.

HISTORY

A quarantine and convalescent station in the canal years, when yellow fever and malaria killed thousands on the isthmus; later a fishing and holiday town.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

El Tiempo's regional survey (2024) records the island's lore: a creature half woman and half fish in the bay, lights on the water at night, and ghostly figures in the chapel, attributed to the quarantine dead. The traditions are told on the island; none is documented beyond the telling, and the entry keeps them at that.

VISITING

Ferries from the Amador causeway; the town, beaches and church are a short walk from the pier.