The Camino Real, a path used in the 17th and 18th centuries by Spaniards to transfer silver, gold and other treasures from Peru to Spain, was the first thoroughfare that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and marked the beginning of Panama as a crossroads of the world. Today the route is hardly discernible, with large sections of it burried under the urban sprawl of Panama City; 

Traverse the Santa Fe National Park encompassing both Pacific and Atlantic slopes of Panama’s Cordillera Central. This expedition takes you through four magnificent and very distinct life zones, (Pacific pre montane forests, tropical cloud forests, elfin forest, and Caribbean lowland rainforest), up and over the continental divide from the town of Santa Fe de Veraguas, and ending at Belen, where Christopher
Columbus attempted the first mainland settlement in 1503.