Darien II

We managed to catch the boat leaving from La Palma to Garachiné and headed down the rest of the estuary. The estuary continued to open and soon we couldn't see the far shore as we hugged the southern shore. The entire coastline was pure jungle except for one small village and a lodge located in the Punta Patiño Reserve located on point sticking out into the sea. The last part of the trip was spent crossing open water and the wind picked up the boat's spray and blew it over the passengers. Luckily it was hot enough that I didn't mind the soaking as long as my bag was safely stowed away in the front of the boat. Of all the passengers in the boat probably the most miserable was a rooster somebody had brought along. He occasionally crowed his displeasure even though it was the afternoon, nowhere near dawn. Finally, after about a 2-3 hour boat trip we pulled into the town of Garachiné and now we had to figure out how to get to the nearby Sambú. It was only 20km away and the people on the boat told us that there was a road connecting the two communities. We managed to find somebody in town who would drive us down the very poor road to Sambú. Arriving in Sambú we were immediately spotted by an army officer who took down our information. He gave us a name of the community's tourist organizer and mentioned that she could arranged all of our guides and boat that we needed to get up the river.

We got a good look at the community as we walked. It was actually two separate communities on each side of the river connected by a bridge. The one we arrived at was Sambú and it had was more of a latino village with more concrete houses as well as the town airport. On the other side of the river, accessible only by a pedestrian bridge, was Puerto Indio. This community was mostly and Indian village and had the traditional Indian houses, bamboo huts which were perched high off the ground to avoid flooding in the wet season. Many of the older Indians wore the traditional colorful clothing and had their entire torso covered in jagua tattoos, where the skin is temporarily stained blue by a type of fruit called jagua. We easily found the woman we were looking for because everybody knew where she lived. She was a very friendly, young Indian who assured us that she would arrange everything we would need for our trip. She also invited us to spend the night in the building next to hers which was being used as a classroom. We each had hammocks so it was no problem to string up our hammocks between a couple of bamboo poles in the hut. After settling in we tried to arrange a way out of Sambú on Friday. First we went to the airline where we knew there was a flight out on Fridays but they said that was no domestic flights this Friday because it was Good Friday. We then learned that there was no boats out on Friday for the same reason. At this point we had no choice but to plan to return on the Wednesday by plane. This did not leave us much time to explore the river. Luckily, as we returned to our hammocks we ran into our host and a friend. He was headed back to La Palma on Thursday and offered to take us, which we gladly agreed.

The next day we set off in a piragua, a shallow dugout canoe with a motor. We had two guides go with us up the river. The guy in the back handled the motor and the guy in the front had a long bamboo pole that he used to pole the boat through parts of the river that were too shallow to use a motor. The two communicated silently with signals as the man in front would point out the shallow parts and any floating debris. It was only about 50 km as the crow flies but the winding river and the shallow parts meant the upriver trip took 6 hours. We passed four or five Indian villages but the rest of the trip was through pure jungle. Often we would jump out to help drag the piragua through a particularly shallow current. At one point we passed a group of Indians fishing and we picked up a couple of catfish-like fish that we would eat later that night for supper. Eventually we arrived at our destination, the village of Pavarandó, the last village on the river where further boat travel was impossible. After Pavarandó there was another 60 km of untouched mountainous jungle to the Colombian border. Our guide said that it would take months just to walk to Colombia.

We arrived in the village and were setup in a hut that was reserved for visitors. We set up our hammocks and we watched as they picked fresh coconuts and bananas and brought them to us to eat. We talked with the community representative and he arranged our food preparation and some other things to do in the town. After having our supper of fish it was arranged that we would get jagua tattoos from the local artist. Our presence attracted interest from the entire town, especially the children, and our hut was soon full. The jagua paste went on very light and it was difficult to see the tattoos. After waiting for it to dry we washed it off in the river and it was so faded that it seemed like it didn't work. However the next morning my skin was stained bright blue and it stayed stained for at least a week after. Our plan the next morning was to hike in the jungle. The community had arranged a guide for us and his dog tagged along as well. We followed a trail that led up a nearby mountain and was contructed to maintain a pipe of water that led down from a spring high up on the mountain. The jungle was extremely thick and we managed to see a Geoffrey's Tamarind, a tiny monkey that only lives in Panama. The guide's dog also scared a gray fox, a cat-like fox that lives in trees, off a tree, giving me a good view of the animal. At one point we veered off the trail and the guide hacked his way through the jungle with a machete until we reached a small stream where there was a refreshing swimming pool. We didn't have time to climb the entire mountain so we headed back to catch our boat ride back down the river. We had another meal of fish and said goodbye to the villagers. The trip back downriver was two hours quicker and the river's current did most of the work in the shallow areas.

Arriving back at Puerto Indio in the late afternoon we learned the bad news that our ride had left due to an emergency and we were now stuck without transportation until Monday. On Thursday our host tried to arrange for us to go back with a government official who had arrived to give out the monthly money to the students for school supplies. Unfortunately he did not plan on returning to La Palma but said he would take us if we paid for the gas there and back. This was not a cheap way because gas was $5 a gallon and it was a big boat but we didn't have any other option. The boat was extremely fast and we sped out of Rio Sambu back into the Pacific. We made it to La Palma in only two hours. In La Palma we again had trouble arranging a boat in the holidays but eventually we made it back to the mainland and Meteti. We spent the night in Meteti and caught a bus to Panama City at 4am. The bus was nearly empty as few people were travelling but the trip was bonejarringly rough and it was almost impossible to get any sleep.

Back in the city we tried to get a hostel in Casco Antiguo again but it was full again. However we managed to find another really nice hostel called Moon's Castle with a great view of the Panamanian skyline. It was brand new, it didn't even exist the last time I was in Panama, but it was packed. There was plenty of interesting people there and the next door neighbor was an extremely rich mansion that was owned by the same man who owned the ports in Panama as well as many in Asia. They were hosting a dinner party that night and we watched the guests arrive and eat out on their huge outdoor balcony from our tiny balcony in the hostal. We stayed a couple of nights in the city and saw some of the sites before making our way back the 20+ hour trip to Bagaces.