"In Portobelo, a lush village on Panama's Caribbean coastline where the line between history and myth can feel faint, Sandra Eleta is known as the Great Witch. A wry and regal 83-year-old whose striking photos of the town's Afro-Panamanian community have made her one of the country's most celebrated artists, she has lived for over 50 years in an eclectic compound teeming with folkloric murals, feathered masks, and mirrored canvases."
"Traveling with me is a friend, the photographer Rose Marie Cromwell, who once studied under Eleta in Portobelo and whose tales of past trips through Panama's less-trodden regions inspired our zigzagging itinerary. While many visitors hole up in a resort town like Bocas del Toro or pass through on a cruise, our drive to Portobelo from Panama City provided an initial taste of the pleasures of exploring a famously narrow country by car."
Road trips between Panama's Pacific and Caribbean coasts reveal secret villages, untouched isles, and new-wave retreats. Portobelo is a lush Caribbean village where Sandra Eleta, known as the Great Witch, has lived for over 50 years in an eclectic compound filled with folkloric murals, feathered masks, and mirrored canvases. Eleta's striking photographs document the town's Afro-Panamanian community and express reverence for descendants of enslaved Africans from the Congo brought to Panama by Spanish colonialists in the 1500s. La Morada de la Bruja operates as an informal artists' residency and hotel. Driving from Panama City to Portobelo crosses from the Pacific to the Atlantic in under two hours, trading the capital's skyline for candy-colored, drowsy seaside streets.
Read at Conde Nast Traveler
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