Our last visit in Panama and in Portobelo last November had been marked by rainy weather and so we had spent too little time wandering around the town. Although it is an economically rather deprived town, numerous paintings and drawings on the walls of sometimes dilapidated houses and building give it a certain appeal...

 Portobelo hosts two famous festivals every year. The Festival de Congos y Diablos takes place every two years in March with smaller celebrations leading up to Carnaval.  Yesterday's ritual dances in the street were probably linked to that Festival... which we  missed as its final ceremony was to take place at the end of March.  Nevertheless, there were young artists of Portobelo at work preparing huge masks for the event.
                                     

The inhabitants of Portobelo are referred to as Congo because a large proportion of its inhabitants were escaped slaves known as cimarrons.  In the festival Diablos Y Congos, they mock the Spanish Court wearing extravagant costumes, painting their faces, wearing outlandish clothes worn inside out and decorated with dolls, teddy bears, and other objects (Lutz observing one of the dancers thought that his dolls and bears were reminiscent of voodoo practices...).  In many of the rituals characterisez by chants and dances, "prisonners" are taken and released for ransom - this explains why some of us were drawn in the dance circle yesterday night!!! Usually, a few coins or a beer can buy their freedom back!