Inside a mangrove swamp near Nombre de Dios
Giant toad
Research on the ground
No sooner had I decided upon the story than I wanted to go to Panama and experience the place for myself. I am passionate about 'being there' – engaging with the location as much as possible - tasting it and smelling it, enjoying it and enduring it.
The Drake Exploration Society
Sir Francis Drake
Panamá la vieja
My early research was given a tremendous boost by adventurer and author Michael Turner, founder of the Drake Exploration Society, who has made it his life's mission to visit, investigate and chart the exact geographic course of all Drake's voyages where they touched land. I could only hope to savour a fraction of the relevant places that Michael has explored. But he was able to show me exactly where to go. Effectively, he had done the preliminary homework for me! With his book In Drake's Wake as my guide, I was able to see almost every site that was significant to the story, and get a feel for the rest from other places.
El Camino Real
The Royal Road
My husband and my guide
Mule prints worn by constant traffic
The Royal Road was the first focus of my interest. This was the route by which the treasure from South America was carried from the Pacific to the Caribbean. I wanted to experience what it was like to journey along this road over steep hills covered in dense forest, fording torrents, passing hidden drops, at times precipitous, often dangerous, to fight off the insects and feel the enervation of coping with almost a hundred per cent humidity.
In places along the well-preserved Las Cruces Trail it is possible to see stones worn to the exact shape of a hoof by the passage of countless mule-trains over the centuries. This is tangible history, and I love it.
Along the Las Cruces Trail – an extension of the Camino Real
The San Blas Archipelago
Beach in San Blas
Kuna fishermen
Panama seashore
These are the islands where Drake hid his ships - the coral atoll once known as the 'Cativas' by the English, and now forming the remote region of Kuna Yala. With the exception of the sand flies, this might approximate to paradise, but the mosquitoes still carry the yellow fever that in all probability killed over a third of Drake's men.
Island at San Blas
Ellyn might well have been left on such an island. With characters in mind, it's good to tread the ground over which they would have walked, observe the views that would have been familiar to them, and hear the natural sounds that would have been part of their experience - whether it's the booming of howler monkeys at dusk, or the crash of thunder over the sea…
The inspiration of place
It was the sight of the 'Southern Sea', the Pacific as we now know it, that determined Drake to sail upon it one day, a determination that he saw through in his later famous circumnavigation of the globe.
From a high point on the Isthmus looking north towards the Caribbean and the Atlantic
From the same point looking south towards the Pacific
Nombre de Dios
The Rio Nombre de Dios just before it flows into the sea
The site of old Nombre de Dios was largely buried under earth and vegetation when I saw it, and the geology of the bay has changed dramatically since Drake's attack in 1572. But it is still possible to see a place like this and imagine how it might have been, then think back to events over four hundred years before, on a night when the moon was up and storm clouds were rising…
This is the real joy of breathing life into a story – overlaying the first-hand accounts with the experience of place. When the magic takes hold the characters begin to talk, move, act – and suddenly the story is telling itself.
Near Nombre de Dios at sunset
Almost night
