Passage To Panama, Part II

First look at Puerto Obladia, Panama

The second boat trip was nothing like the previous one.  The craft itself was smaller and sleeker, and when we motored out into the open Caribbean it was obvious from the first that it was in expert hands.  

When the green ridges of water came sweeping in again, I grasped the seat in near panic, harking back to a few days earlier.  But a rhythm under way was soon established.  As a wave loomed in on us our coxswain would gun the engine, taking us up, up, up, up...through a burst of spray at the crest, then he´d ease us down, down, down.....  

Hey, I lightened after a while, this is the way it´s supposed to be -- kind of fun.

Eventually the spray worked within the neck of my poncho and trickled down my shirt, but even that wasn´t bad -- nice, warm water and with the salt pleasant tasting on the lips.

When we swung in toward Puerto Obladia after an hour-and-a-half, I was grinning ear-to-ear and feeling like a sailor again.  But this was soon tempered as we idled down and tossed in toward the ramshackle dock -- a Panamanian soldier in camo fatigues, automatic weapon on the slung, sauntered out as a sort of greeting committee.

Disembarking at Puerto Obladia -- Santiago and Juan Pablo gather up their packs

Which leads me to another of my mistakes, of which there had already been several this week -- not realizing how serious the situation was there.

En route we had crossed the international border into Panama.  Puerto Obladia and other small ports along this coast border the infamous Darien jungles, lair of guerrillas, terrorists, smugglers, drug traffickers and hordes and hordes of mosquitoes.  Where we were about to land then, was somewhat of an armed camp, an outpost on the edge of this dangerous wilderness.  The Army keeps bunkers, manned and ready, at each end of town and on the hill overlooking it.

Furthermore, Colombia and Panama don´t get along well as the Panamanian government blames a lot of the insurrection in the Darien on forces within its southern neighbor.  And here we were, coming in wet, dumb and happy from that very direction.

At the little customs station, the officials were all frowns and made me take everything out of my duffel and lay it out.  "Everything? I asked to make sure.  "Todo," came the stern reply...Yes everything, in other words.

We finally cleared that hurdle, got our passports stamped and stepped lively toward the center of the little town.  It was about 0830 and the first flight out to Panama City was about 1000.  We wanted to ticket up and be at the airstrip in plenty of time for this one.

However, the best laid plans of mice and backpackers...One flight already had been canceled and the other was sold out, fully boo-ked, as they say here.  The next possible flight out was Sunday, four days hence.  We looked around with our mouths open, then back at each other -- four days, in this place? 

The Darien essentially isolates these pockets of people along the coast and makes them accessible only by boat or airplane.  Unless one wants to risk a long hike through that jungle with the risk of kidnapping and malaria only too prevalent, that is.

As an alternative, we would be in sort of a house or town arrest, confined to this dull and scrungy "safe zone" by the military.  But what choice did we have, return to Colombia?  The boat back had already left.  Eventually we succumbed to our fate and sought out the only hotel in town -- Pension Cande.

Your humble correspondent in front of Pension Cande

The place reminded me of a large chicken coop we had at one time back on the farm.  In some rooms, you could see daylight between boards in the walls.  Electricity was only available six hours a day, 1800 to midnight, more or less.  Water was available, often brownish-colored, much of the time anyhow.

We took a room with three bunks and an interior of concrete, more of a cell really, thinking that the solid walls would limit mosquitoes.  How naive we were. 

Its owner was an old lady with no teeth, at least half crazed, with one knee blown out and wrapped around with duct tape.  The joint actually bent inward when she walked.  We found out later that she locked herself away when her tv was powered up, so there was no help or services available after dark.

No mosquito nets were set up in our cell, so the first night we did without, thinking that we could cover ourselves with sheets and thus fend them off.  Yet one more mistake.  I didn´t realize it in the dim lighting, but my sheets were so thin that you could read a book through them.

I woke up in the morning with two dozen or so welts on my back and sides where they had bitten right through.  Santiago and Juan Pablo didn´t suffer nearly so much as their sheets were thicker.

The second night we were sitting in the courtyard and heard a tremendous racket up on the tin roofing.  As we stood, peering toward the source, we were startled to make out a pack of rats racing back and forth.  And I mean racing, as if they were trying to determine the swiftest of the lot for some kind of prize.  These were not your typical urban rats of the U.S., you understand, but their larger cousins, the jungle rats.

Cola sipping gecko -- one of our few amusements 

 

I had just hung some out when three huge buzzards swooped in to a tremendous AGGGGHHHHing racket, sending laundry flying and tearing at each other with great hooked beaks.

What a spectacle, with the feathers flying and wings flapping and all of them making that blood-curdling cry only a few meters away.  They reminded me of turkey buzzards back in Penna., only much more vile and awful-looking, with the blackish heads and beaks.  Eventually one of them dominated and it ascended to perch atop a nearby roof while the others were sent packing.

While this provided some entertainment, the reality was that we were still marooned along the Darien coast, and it was getting to us after only one day.  I couldn´t even fall back on my old stand-by, hiking, with the military restricting us so.  Of all the things in travel, boredom is one of the worst, I have found.  Perhaps it wouldn´t have been so bad if I could´ve trekked the jungle and seen the bird-life and such.

Nonetheless, I was determined to turn the whole thing into something productive and worthwhile, and I proceeded to do just that.

MORE TO FOLLOW

The main drag -- with Pension Cande in green in the background

For days Puerto Obladia was an airstrip with no planes, streets with no cars

Passage To Panama

Ominous forecast at ferry terminal in Turbo -- which I failed to heed

It was a jinx trip right from the start.  About 0830 we left the harbor at Turbo, Colombia, in a panga boat or "ferry" jammed with about thirty people.  Twenty minutes out into the bay, through a drenching downpour, we looped back around to the terminal due to some mechanical problem.

This was bad enough because I wanted in the worst way to be out of that place.  After visiting seven cities and pueblos in Colombia through the previous five weeks, Turbo came as a shock to me.  The people who live there and along the coast are called "castañas" or those with dark brown or chestnut skin.  They´re a different lot than those inland, in Medellin and so on, to put it mildly.

Of African roots, the castañas generally are much coarser, crasser of speech and, seemingly, just plain sloppy.  Particularly irritating to me, they flick litter wherever they happen to be -- sidewalk, balcony, boat, etc. -- with no consideration or care for Mother Earth.

You can see this particularly in the harbor, which is kind of a cross between a garbage dump and a septic tank.  The surface is kind of a sudsy green, interspersed with trash, which roil with black oil swirls when the boats rev up.  On a stifling day, what an odor! 

Plus the town is boom-box central.  Huge speakers blasted tunes in Spanish from restaurants and vendor stands that seemed in competition for the loudest, most obnoxious racket, a racket these people seem to thrive on.

I spent a restless night in a place called Residencia Florida and went to use the ATM next morning.  The streets and sidewalks were lined with squeezed-out orange skins, where juice vendors had just tossed them aside by the scores -- and vandals had picked them up.  The door to the ATM was spattered, the ATM buttons themselves had been gooed up, and so on.   The whole town seemed of garbage and grime and coarse, unfriendly people.

Anyhow, you get the picture.  After the sophistication and gentle mannerisms of Colombianos of the interior, and the cleanliness, Turbo came as a shock.  As did the castañas.  And now here I was being returned to the place in that crowded panga.

.

Piss on it! -- urinating directly into the harbor at Turbo

Two hours or so passed until the boat was repaired.  Over a large tv monitor at the terminal the forecast was for another storm incoming and a continuation of the monsoon that had been afflicting Colombia.  For my part, I had seen much rain the previous weeks, lots of landslides, but not anything that I would call drastic as far as storms or flooding. Which, I´m afraid to say, was about to change.

Our panga loaded up and once again we departed that sewer-hole harbor.  I was headed north to the town of Capurgana, which I was told was a nice place to visit.  A small port, it´s one hop north as you´re making your way up the coast and into Panama.  

The first hop involved that over-loaded, over-sized rowboat down in Colombia.  Being one of the last to board I was seated in the front row -- which I knew was a bad spot but what could I do?  It was the only space left.

After about an hour underway we reached wide-open bay -- and open expanses for waves to sweep on in from the stormy Caribbean.  And sweep in they did -- great, gaping walls of green water, crashing in on that scow and giving it, and us, a savage pounding.

The bow was so high in the air, and piled up with luggage, all of it enclosed in black plastic bags to keep dry, that I couldn´t see to prepare myself for the seas piling in and took perhaps the worst of it.  The effect became like a crash dummy in a car hitting a barricade.  I was flung against the sides, the front...My spine was slammed repeatedly down against the seat.  People were crying -- and crying out in pain.  With me being one of them.  It was no longer fun, this traveling thing.  I got seasick, the first time in my life, and spewed over the side time after time.

I shook my fist back at the coxswain (driver) and shot him dirty looks -- all he had to do is cut the throttle, I figured, and slow us a little.  But to no avail.

The violence was so bad that the board forming the back of my seat was ejected skyward from its slots.  I cowered in fetal position on the floor upon life jackets spread out.  Every time a wave slammed us I gave out a pitiful groan as the impact shuddered through me, but at least I wouldn´t blow out a disc in my spine is the way I figured it.

At one point the warm Caribbean gushed over the side...I fingered the straps on my life jacket and wondered what it would be like to have to swim for it.  Soon after, with me laying there in the water and puke, the ride calmed as we made into Capurgana at last.

None of this did I see as I had to helped up out by kind and caring hands and was laid out on the dock to cries of "medico!  medico!"  The ordeal was finally over, or at least that one was, to be followed by another -- taking stock of my injuries.

Pier at Capurgana -- where I was laid out like a slab of meat

At the first, El Delphín (the dolphin) I met Ron from New York City who had been on the same panga.  Yet he was calmly sitting there, finishing stripping a fish bare to the head and skeleton and chewing it up as nice as you please.  Go figure.  He had been seated better and didn´t suffer nearly as much.  There was no room at the inn at El Delpín, it turned out; so my guide/porter shouldered my duffel again and led me onward.

We sloshed to a hostel called La Pesquera where a bunk in the corner of the dorm beckoned and I plopped there...basically for two days.  During which time the rains were so ferocious that the streets ran with water that at one point seeped beneath the doors.  Good god, I thought -- first I get thrashed at sea and now I`m about to get flooded out.

As I laid there those hours, drops flailing the tin roof, I performed a rough assessment of myself:  both knees battered black and blue, my back so sore I ached to get out of bed, muscles painfully strained in my right chest, right side of my head swollen and sore...

Wow, no rain in Capurgana

To top it off, Capurgana was another town populated with castañas and they seemed to have even more boom boxes per capita than in Turbo!  In addition, the hostel and its crowded neighborhood was barking dogs, squalling kids, crowing roosters...Good god, I lamented, first one wretched place and now another.  How I wanted to find that guy who talked me into coming to this coast in the first place. 

As they say though, God provides...For hours two Colombian women sat silently in the dorm weaving jewelry and wristbands on their bunks, and their presence was calming, even healing, amid the din.

In addition, Ron from NYC and I shared dinners and drinks together a few times.  A Canadian by birth, Ron escapes the pressures of Wall St. by traveling through back regions of Colombia, regions often controlled by FARC, an anti-government, guerrilla faction there.  He´s even been captured by FARC and used his wit, and political acumen, to be set free.  These conversations were bordering on therapeutic and meeting him was almost worth that god-awful bashing.

I soon fell in with two fellow trekkers in the dorm -- Santiago from Argentina and Juan Pablo from Italy -- who were soon to be heading up along coast to catch a plane to Panama City.  Pain in my back or no pain in my back, about then that sounded good to me.  After only a few days, I had had enough of that coast altogether.

The only thing was, to get up to the airstrip involved crossing a touchy international border -- as well as another of those boat rides....

TO BE CONTINUED

Beach scenes near Capurgana

 

Into The Cloud Forest



 Fabien from France and Kelly from South Korea

In many ways it was the same ol´ story.  Yet another natural wonder beckoning, with a long and hazardous trek to explore it.  And me bouncing into town earlier on a bus and half green about the gills from the journey.

By and large the seven-hour ride from Medellin wasn´t too bad; with nice scenery through the coffee country -- green rolling hills shrouded in mist, cut by brown, roiling rivers.  I could at least eat lunch at the break half-way.  A chorizzo or sausage nonetheless.  I was proud of myself.

However, coiled and waiting that last thirty minutes leading up to Salento, my destination, was my old nemesis -- switchbacks and more switchbacks -- which pushed me over the edge. 

Naturally we´re crammed in like frijoles in a can, naturally the driver is a wild man.  And naturally everyone else is gabbing away gaily in Spanish...except me, who´s wishing in the worst way by now that he hadn´t had that chorizzo.



Taking the reigns in front of Tra-la-la

We reach the town square just in time.  I extract myself from the seat, stagger off and look around...

My brain reels.  My duffel is sopping from a leaky baggage compartment.  I don't know anyone.  I don´t know where to eat, even if I could, and most of all I need a place to shower and rest.  You would think that I´d be concerned, wouldn´t you? 

I am not for at least two reasons:  First, I am armed with some knowledge of español, which allows communication with the natives.  And second, I have a card for a good hostel a block off the square.

In this case, it´s called the Tra-la-la, run by a Dutchman named Hemmo with purry black cat.  Hemmo opened just this summer and was recommended by various trekkers days before, back in Medellin.  The place is spotless and trimmed in bright orange, the national color of his native Holland.

Within minutes of stepping off that bus then, I am wheeling my duffel in and plopping onto a bunk with clean sheets.  I have hot showers, maps and information about the area...for about $10 U.S. per night.   More importantly though, I am around other trekkers, some of them who had also come in solo and were also wanting to see the sights.

The path was a muck. Kelly and Sara pick their way.

I´ve done this in many different countries now.  It´s more than just happenstance.  It´s a spontaneous, free wheeling way to travel, and the hostel system, the trekkers´ or backpackers´ trail, makes it possible.



The scenic highlight, the natural wonder in this particular area is a place called Valle de Corcora, a national park in Colombia.  It's a forty-minute ride out of town, followed by the long and muddy trek to get a good look at the place.  It´s over moss-coated boulders, log bridges and steep mountain paths -- not something I wanted to do alone, probably not something that anyone should do alone.

 

Anything I have learned in my travels, never fear at the hostel.  Wait a while and things will start to happen.  Sure enough, within a few days at Tra-la-la had formed an international excursion team, I'll call it.

First up was the amiable Sara from Canada, who had just banged in on buses herself and also wanted to see the valley.  Then came the suave Fabian from France, who was likewise on both counts.  Throw in myself, of course, and presto you have a team.

One fine morning we set off, the three of us, and while bouncing up to the valley in the back of a Jeep, we add Kelly from South Korea.  This was a good thing, it turned out, because she was outfitted better than Hillary making for the summit of Everest and shared everything from hats to umbrellas to packages of vanilla wafers with the rest of us.

 One of several such crossings within the valley

The trek itself was grueling, mucky and good.  About six hours all told.  One of the highlights was ascending the trail to a small-farm-like station high in the rain forest.  That last few hundred meters was a struggle, our lungs and legs burning, through lush vegetation and the air everywhere thick with water droplets.  By now we were actually in the clouds.

Accomplishing this finca at last, we plopped at picnic tables and were greeted by a smiley campesino and his roundish wife, who manned this high outpost.  They served us hot chocolate in bowls and arapas or corn pancakes and cheese.  As we ate and rested, a squadron of hummingbirds, eight or ten, flitted in and out of bowls of sugar water only a few meters away.  I think everyone got decent pics except me.  They move so fast and all.  After about a dozen attempts I gave up.

As for the Valle de Corcora itself, it ranks as one of the most beautiful and enchanting places I´ve ever seen.  Certainly in my top ten.  With the low clouds and swirling mists the hike had a dream-like quality, where breath-taking views were first offered, then taken away.  Followed by long trudges with visibility limited to the likes of hanging mosses and water dripping off of waxy leaves.

Despite the exertion and the mud, the whole thing was truly magical and I shall treasure it, and the people who came along, for a long time.  And it all was made possible because of the hostel trail -- places such as Tra-la-la and the good people who run them.





The team pauses for a few pics

 

Palmas de Cera

Coffee Country, Part II

Two types of beans grown -- Arabica and Colombian

It took a while but I finally tracked him down -- Juan Valdez, that is.  Appropriately enough, he was on a small coffee farm in the misty highlands of central Colombia.  Una finca del café, as they call them here.  And like seemingly everyone else these days, he was waiting out the rain.

"Sie, sie.  Me llama Señor Valdez," he laughed.  Evidently having heard the joke many times before.  In reality his name is Fredy and he´s the administrator of an organic farm outside the town of Salento, in the heart of the coffee country.  One of his jobs is to conduct tours of the place.

I was accompanied by Sara, a trekker from Canada who I hooked up with at the Tra-la-la, a hostel in Salento.  Wearing rubber barn boots, we slid and sloshed about a km. down a muddy trail, to the little operation just outside of town.

Separating the husks from the actual beans

The tour is offered in Spanish one day and English the next.  Our day happened to be in Spanish.  Fortunately Sara speaks it better than I do and she filled in the gaps when I was struggling to understand Fredy's explanations.

More just than an education of coffee production, it was a view of life in the highlands, complete with Collies nuzzling at our knees, pussy cats jumping onto our laps, cups of coffee, about as fresh as you can get, and farmhands offering of marijuana, also about as fresh as you can get.

Despite the fact that I've never been much of a coffee drinker, I found it all fascinating. Especially since, compared to the larger, more commercial operations, this finca had such a down-home atmosphere.  

And the coffee was alright, too.  Sara appreciated it more than I did, being a long-time consumer.  

When first on the tongue, it was on the bitter-ish side, which I´m told is typical of this region.  All in all though, it was satisfying and fulfilling as it worked its way down to my innards.  To really appreciate it, I´d say, you have to first taste and then swallow to get the full effect.

Maybe that's the way all coffee is, I don´t know.  But that was just the raw taste, the physical part.  What I took away from this was much more.  As we clomped back into town I had a new awareness, an enlightenment even -- of  la cultura de café, as they call it here.  The culture of coffee, which is so much of life in Colombia. 

You can see it at the many cafes in Salento -- campesinos, the country folk, sitting around in straw hats and ponchos and wearing barn boots, which seemingly everyone wears here during the rainy season -- sipping the local product and exuding of...well, of something good, I know that much.  

How can I explain?  They're smiling and chatting and nodding buenos dias to everyone who walks in, including wayward trekkers from Pennsylvania.  Kind of a Starbucks where everyone extends a happy face (and there's no wi-fi).

There´s an intangible then, to this las cultura.  An emanation of good will and sociability and camaraderie that I just wanted to go and join in.  Heck, I didn't even drink the coffee in the one place, off the corner of the square in Salento.  I'd sit in there sipping Coke or chocolate just to sit in there and grin along with them.


Speaking of chocolate -- hot chocolate, that is.  The kind maybe you´re drinking back in cold weather country now, with marshmallows on top and all that.  They serve it down here in bowls, soup bowls.  Often you get it as part of breakfast, you know, with eggs, corn bread and such.  You pick up the bowl with both hands and slurp it on down -- seemingly in defiance of the good manners that mother used to teach.  But that´s how Colombianos do it

It´s weaker than the hot chocolate back in the States, watery even, but tasty in its own way nonetheless. 

At any rate, being a farm boy and all that, I tend toward the agriculture-type places on these trips.  I´ve been to coconut plantations in the Philippines, rubber and palm oil plantations in Malaysia, rice noodle factories in Vietnam, banana and mango farms in Indonesia, fish and snake farms in Thailand...and now the fincas in Colombia. 

Of all of these, I have to say, this is the first one where I wish I could take home not just some of the product, but some of what goes along with it.

Sara and Fredy at la finca del café 

Even the streams are coffee-colored here