Although I packed my bags the night before, I didn't managed to leave before 10.30 AM. I woke up with sunrise, but indetermination kept me glued to the bed. Last night in a way of farewell, I drank one balboa too many with Lard, Bart and Ronald. 3 dutch cyclist I met a few days before, around the peninsula de Azuero. we had travelled together until panama city. It was the end of their 6 week touring of central America.
In the bar was also a group of Portuguese fisherman. They were always there, waiting for a new job to came up and embark. The bar was also frequented by a Indian business man and a insane-looking black American who spent all the time talking to himself. He was looking for a job as a truck driver and claimed that the USA security services had placed a chip in his body and had tracked him down to Panama. Looking after all of us were the gorgeous Panamanian barmaids, Zoraida e Monica.
I already knew all of them.
The 5 days I spent preparing for the crossing, the bar of the Ideal hotel was the meeting point after any activity of the day. It was like if I searched in my new friends the answers to my doubts and uncertainties.
"So, Nuno, when are you going to the jungle?" Asked me the Portuguese every time they saw me.
-Tomorrow, I would reply.
The following day the same questions with the same answers.
Each day I would buy a new piece of equipment to give myself straight. It was like if I was preparing for a new cycling trip for the first time. I bought cartographic maps of the Darien region in the national geographic institute, that although were the best maps available in the country, did not show any trails beyond Yaviza - but they exist! I also bought a better compass then the one I had and 20 meters of rope. And other things that I though it would be necessary for the crossing.
I sharpened my rusty machete, that I found earlier in a deserted beach in northwest panama, and bought (for the first time in all my trips) malaria tablets.
Apparently the Darien region is one of the most malaria-infected areas of central America.
The dutches finished their trip here and gave me loads of packed food that they brought from Europe and didn't use. It was highly energetic and enough for almost a week. I had everything. All but a decision. Was it worth the risk of such journey?
I leave the hotel open to any option and decided to move on the way I did since the beginning of this trip 14 months ago: one day at the time.
I didn't want to admit it, but deep down I have made a decision. I have dreamt with the crossing of the Darien gap since the beginning of the planing of this journey on the pan American highway.
I betrayed my own plans and felt like a Coward. A Judas on two wheels.
I leave the "casco viejo", the old town, and followed the waterfront entering the "American" part of the city. A modern town of skyscrapers(many of them belonging to international banks, where money laundering takes place with little or no interference from the Panamanian government), shopping malls, Japanese and Italian restaurants, fashion shops, American schools. An almost perfect clone of a typical American city set in the tropics. The result of many decades of American
"occupation" during the time they were owners of the panama canal.
I continue towards the international airport and soon found myself again on the Pan-American highway that continues East until it reaches its final stop in the town of Yaviza, some 250 km away. The end of the roads in the northern part of the continent.
The road was flat and relatively monotonous crossing agriculture fields. The traffic was much lighter then on the west side of the city.
I arrive in Chepo mid-afternoon. Dark clouds were forming and a thunderstorm has just started. I should not go any further today. I found a place to stay for 5 balboas in a family-run guesthouse, just outside of the local hospital.
Chepo was only 60 km east of panama city but it seemed a world away from the chaotic capital. A small and sleepy town of about 5000 inhabitants, mainly black.
Throughout Latin America iron bar around windows and doors are a common feature, but in this small town it was "de rigour". The atmosphere was not the friendliest I have found in panama, but I just wanted to spend the night there.
Tomorrow I will leave the Pan American highway at el Llano and follow a gravel road directly north to the hamlet of Carti on the Caribbean coast. This is the only terrestrial link with the autonomous province of the Kuna Yala on the Atlantic coast, where I expect to found some transportation to puerto obaldia on the Colombian border.
The Kuna Yala tribe lives along the coast between Provenir and the Colombian border. With their own political leaders, laws and decision making, the Kuna are the indigenous group with the greatest autonomy in all of Latin America. They live in their ancestor land and still preserve their culture and traditions.
I have abandoned the idea of going to Yaviza, but the chosen route is not less uncertain.
DAY 2 From Chepo to somewhere in the rain forest (km 22 Llano-Carti road)
Before leaving Mi Ranchito guesthouse I went for breakfast at the Chinese restaurant (they seem to be everywhere in panama) just across the hospital. Chicken with fried rice and coffee. I continued to the town center to buy a few last groceries, raisins, cookies, cigarettes and 5 liters of water ( 7 in total with 2 that I already had) and then had a second breakfast, meat stew with rice and another coffee.
In panama there is not much difference between breakfast and lunch.
The owner of the pharmacy next door pulls in a conversation and tells me that in 2 years he lives there I was the second touring cyclist he sees (sure many others have passed through). The other one was a Japanese some time ago.
I leave Chepo and cycle east. The road was empty. The traffic was minimal, some local pick up trucks and the occasional bus. A man on the side of the road discretely takes me a photo with a dischargeble camera. I salute him, with a smile. It was 18 km of good and flat road to the turn off of el Llano.
I hit the gravel and started the countless ups and downs that continued all the way to the Caribbean coast 40 km to the north.
Soon the ups and downs became More accentuated with grades of 15% and 20%. The road didn't made any effort to avoid hills, climbing unnecessarily for a few hundred meters to descent almost immediately. The landscape alternated between forest and pasture land with the occasional hut on the top of a mount. The only traffic was some pick ups (5 or 6 all day) loaded with merchandises and Kuna Indians. They would stop next to me and offered a lift - for a price, of course. 10 Dollars. I refused. But it was good to know that if I could not go any further then Carti, I always could came back on a pick up. I would have done it. The road was becoming more and more difficult, and it seemed unnecessary to me, to do the same road twice at an average speed of 5 km/h.
The road climbed up to 500 meters and offered a panoramic view of the jungle with its
mist and the Caribbean sea to the north. The noises of the jungle were intense. I recognized one a few. One of them, the unmistakable sound of the howler monkey that resembles the roar of a feline. Howler monkeys are named and known for the loud, guttural howls that they routinely use at the beginning and end of the day. They are the loudest animal in the New World and the sounds can travel for 5 km through dense forest.
Good place to camp but I decide to move on.
2 km further I see an open mount on the side of the road and decided to climb it. the views were even more fantastic. I push the bike to the top with effort and set up camp. The rain that have been dropping softly during the day, intensified. I prepare one of the energetic food packs the dutches gave me. 1000 calories per portion. I put 2. I fell asleep with the sounds of the jungle around me and the constant lightning that illuminated the waters of the Atlantic in the distance.
The place was just perfect to camp. I had made only 42 km and it had been a very hard day, but I was happy. Perhaps I`ve took the option with less adventure, but the most sensible one for sure. But the most importantly, I was finally on my way to Colombia!
DAY 3 From the jungle to the island of Carti Suitupo, 13 km.
Yesterday I slept really badly. The constant lightning of the storm somewhere in the ocean had haunted (or illuminated) my tent all night. The sound of an animal in the jungle with a irritating and repetitive noise entered my hears like a untuned church bell, waking me up all the time.
I wake up with the first tones of light. The sky was dark and full of clouds. I prepare breakfast and a coffee and stare for a long while at the beautiful surroundings.
Apart from the gravel road down below, not a single vestige of human presence, a pasture, a hut or a house or a electrical pole on the gravel road. To the north, the Atlantic ocean and the over-populated islands of the Kuna Yala. At that distance they were no more then mere black dots on the vast ocean.
In all this peace and tranquility I hear the sound of an helicopter approaching. It comes closer and flies in circles around my camp. It flies low enough to perceive that it wasn't a military helicopter. There were foreigners inside. Rich tourist, I thought. They flew lower and I could See the pilot and the passengers making signal with their hands. At first I could not understand if they were trying to tell me that they were going to land or to fall. The movements were violent.
The mount where I was didn't have more then 100 square meters. They signal me to lie down on the dirt. They were going to land. The strong wind created by the helicopter`s wings rises my tent - with my equipment inside - into the air and falls into a small ravine spreading all my equipment all over the place.
"- I`m sorry, it was an emergency", said one of the passengers when they came out. They were 4 English crew working for Discovery channel, doing a "survivors show" in the middle of the Kuna Yala territory.
They didn't seemed too worried that my equipment was all over the place and after a short conversation, walked downhill in search of their working spot.
I put my coffee pot on the stove and prepare a coffee to the pilot.
"- Its exactly this that I needed", he says with a smile.
The pilot, an Austrian living and working in Panama, told me that "my" camping spot was the only spot where he could land in all that vast wilderness, and that in panama city they gave him the wrong coordinates and he spent far too long looking for that spot, 8 miles from here. He didn't have enough fuel to go back to panama.
I grab my machete and start to make my way through the vegetation in search of my stuff. It took me a good hour to collect everything. The poles of my tent broke, and even now, I don't really know what`s missing.
I load my "burra" and face the cruel climbs once again. I thought it would be an easier day. I was at the highest point of the road and from there it should be mostly downhill. How deceptive I was!
The road worsens and now the grades are so accentuated that I have to dismount on almost every climb. None of them with less the 15% or 20%, and some with probably 25% plus.
I make only 13 km to the river but it took me 4 hours. It was really hard, but from now on, I would travel on the horizontal!
Some Kuna Indians took me on a dugout canoe carved from one single enormous tree to the island of Carti Suitupo, through yet more river jungle, an indigenous village and a short hop to the island.
This 45 minute journey carried me to a different world. The world of the Kuna Yala. A fascinating group of indigenous people that still live in the land of their ancestors and still preserve a great deal of their traditions. I look for a place to sleep. A man takes me to the Porras family house, where I spent the night sleeping in a hammock, in the main room of the bamboo hut. The entire family moved to the kitchen to give some privacy. But privacy, in this part of the world has a different meaning. The island is so overpopulated that it hardly has any spare place for vegetation. The trails sometimes are so narrow that my loaded bike couldn't go trough.
I went for a walk around this island of about 800 meters long for 600 meters width. In this tiny space lived more the 2000 people. I bump into Juan again and he shows me the way to the docks. A Kuna merchant boat has just docked for the night and would leave in the morning for Istupo. Another island somewhere along the coast between here and Puerto obaldia, near the Colombian border, and my eventual next destination. The captain said they would leave around 8 Am.
I was in luck, Could move on already next day, and the 2 day journey would cost me only a mere 9 dollars. In Istupo I would have to arrange for another boat to
Obaldia, go through costumes, and then found another boat to Acandi, already in Colombia, and yet another boat from there to turbo, where the road begins again. That was the plan. A several days boat "hitch-hike", with probably several days of waiting in transit in some islands along the way.
I had 9 days to reach Cartagena before the arrival of my friend veronica that comes for 3 weeks touring in Colombia. It should be enough, I thought.
I return to my hosts house. The island was in complete darkness apart from the moon light and the many candles inside the houses. The generator that usually provides electricity, has been broken for a while. The atmosphere looked like if it was taken from a movie of the discovery of the Americas.
I lie down in the hammock and blow off the candle that the lady Porras left for me. I felt a sleep with the voices of a strange language coming from everywhere. the kitchen, the path, the neighbours house. The huts where built so close together that one could listen everybodys conversations. It was like if the island was part of one single gigantic family.
In the next few days it will follow the second part of the crossing.
Nuno Brilhante
In lorica, Colombia.
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