Buenaventura Valle del Cauca Colombia

Pizarro had left Panama on March 10, 1526, after all preparations were ready, with two ships carrying one hundred and sixty men and several horses, reaching as far as the Colombian San Juan River.

The party separates Ssoon after arriving, with Pizarro staying to explore the new and often perilous territory off the swampy Colombian coasts, while the expedition's co-commander, Almagro, is sent back to Panama for reinforcements.

Pizarro's Piloto Mayor (main pilot), Bartolomé Ruiz, continues sailing south and, after crossing the equator, finds and captures a balsa (raft) under sail, with natives from Tumbes.

To everyone's surprise, these carry a load of textiles, ceramic objects, and some much-desired pieces of gold, silver, and emeralds, making Ruiz's findings the central focus of this second expedition, which only serves to pique the conquistadors' interests for more gold and land.

Some of the natives are also taken aboard Ruiz's ship to serve later as interpreters.

He then sets sail north for the San Juan River, arriving to find Pizarro and his men exhausted from the serious difficulties they had faced exploring the new territory.

Soon Almagro also sails into the port with his vessel laden with supplies, and a considerable reinforcement of at least eighty recruited men who had arrived at Panama from Spain with the same expeditionary spirit.

The findings and excellent news from Ruiz along with Almagro's new reinforcements cheers Pizarro and his tired followers.

They now decide to sail back to the territory already explored by Ruiz and, after a difficult voyage due to strong winds and currents, reach Atacames on the Ecuadorian coast.

Here, they find a very large native population recently brought under Inca rule.

Unfortunately for the conquistadores, the warlike spirit of the people they have just encountered seems so defiant and dangerous in numbers that the Spanish decide not to enter the land.

Pizarro and Almagro decide, after much wrangling, that Pizarro will stay at a safer place, the Isla de Gallo, near the coast, while Almagro will return yet again to Panama with Luque for more reinforcements—this time with proof of the gold they had just found and the news of the discovery of an obvious wealthy land they had just explored.

The new governor of Panama, Pedro de los Ríos, has learned of the mishaps of Pizarro's expeditions and the deaths of various settlers who had gone with him.

Fearing an unsuccessful outcome, he outright rejects Almagro's application for continued resources.

In addition, he orders two ships commanded by Juan Tafur to be sent immediately with the intention of bringing Pizarro and everyone back to Panama.

The leader of the expedition has no intention of returning, and when Tafur arrives at the now famous Isla de Gallo, Pizarro draws a line in the sand, saying: "There lies Peru with its riches; Here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south.”

The Spanish had settled along the north coast of today's Colombia as early as the 1500s, but their first permanent settlement, at Santa Marta, was not established until 1525.

The Spaniards in what is today western Colombia establish Buenaventura, a port city on Cascajal Island in the Pacific Ocean’s Buenaventura Bay, in 1540.

The city will remain relatively unimportant until the 1930s because of the warm, humid climate and poor transportation.

Today, however, Buenaventura is Colombia's main Pacific port, handling much of the nation's coffee, as well as sugar and cotton from the fertile upper basin of the Cauca River valley, sawn wood from coastal forests of southwestern Colombia, and most of the gold and platinum of the Chocó region to the north.