Winding through the hills, the surrounding forest enclosed the road in a verdant canopy, with roadside kiosks sprouting out of it to sell empanadas (meat and potato-filled fried pastries), mofongo (mashed plantains filled with meat and vegetables, served in savoury sauce) and beach towels bearing graphics of bikini-clad women.
The woodcutters and gold prospectors may be long gone, but travellers can still relive this fascinating historic era through a series of forest walking trails that evoke the vanished world of the woodcutters, winding beneath the canopy along rust-coloured streams dappled with sun and shadow.