 Rodrigo de Bastidas, sailing westward from Venezuela in 1501 in search of gold, was the first European to explore the Isthmus of Panama.10 years later, Vasco Núñez de Balboa visited the Isthmus and established a short-lived settlement in the Darién.Vasco Núñez de Balboa's torturous trek from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1513 demonstrated that the Isthmus was, indeed, the path between the seas, and Panama quickly became the crossroads and marketplace of Spain's empire in the New World.