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In 1698, the Kingdom of Scotland attempted to found its first foreign outpost at Puerto Escocés in what is now Panama.

Within two years of the 1698 founding of the Scottish colony at Puerto Escocés, more than half of the colonists died from fever and starvation.

English pirate Lionel Wafer, who was stranded with the Guna people for four months shortly before 1698, wrote in a published account that the area of Puerto Escocés is a 'very wet country'.

Among the Guna people, chichas, which are female puberty ceremonies, are major events that require weeks of preparation and can last for days.

As of September 2026, the Guna people have been building a road through the jungle in Panama for 13 years.

The bay in Panama known as Puerto Suggunyaa Inabiginya was formerly called Puerto Escocés, or Scottish Harbor.

During Guna chicha ceremonies, celebrants consume inna, a sugarcane-based beverage that is fermented in clay pots.

Rodelick Valdes Richards has authored multiple articles in the Panamanian press about the Interconexión project.

The author and his companion boarded a 27-year-old, six-seater Cessna plane to travel from Panama City to Gunayala.

A spokesman for Panama’s energy ministry stated that the government sees the Guna road project as an opportunity to settle a historic debt with disconnected communities.

Panama's energy secretary, Rodrigo Rodríguez, stated that the country's 2027 budget includes funding for the Guna people's road project.

In 2013, Guna work crews began building a road from Mulatupu to Mordí using machetes.

Guna leaders stated they have requested support from Panama's government for a modern two-lane highway they would design, with an estimated cost of over $100 million.

In the 1970s, an offshoot of the Pan-American Highway first penetrated the edge of the Guna people's reserve in Panama, connecting it with Panama City.

The Guna community of Mulatupu, which for decades had an airstrip connecting it to Panama City, lost its air service in the years leading up to 2026, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sasardi Muladub, a Guna farming and fishing community near the Colombian border, has a population of roughly 2,000.

A 19-mile dirt road offshoot of the Pan-American Highway into the Guna reserve in Panama was paved in 2011.

A technician filmed a February 2026 meeting between the author and a Guna commission, and pictures of it were posted on tribal social media.

In the early 2000s, residents of the Panamanian village of Mordí would hike for days to reach Mulatupu to attend school or trade goods like smoked iguana for rice and sugar.

Simón Herrera, a Guna commission member, attended college, including a semester at Tulane, is married to a non-Guna person, and lives in Panama City.