Richard's jaunt

Friday, January 14, 2005

Entering Panama

Its amazing what 24 hours does. Im running around town making arrangements, getting things done. The pace of the city spurs me on. Gone are the slow paced shuffling towns, here people stride. Its great to be running through busy traffic again. Scruffy and ugly it maybe, but the city has vibrancy. It has gun shops (hmmm not so good). Check the map, get cash, food, plane ticket home, more junk food, pick up my clothes from the laundry, where to go, what to do. Wing it to the bus station, get conflicting information, but end up walking almost straight into the side of the anonymous bus, parked no where in particular. By chance I overhear the place name I want and jump on the big pink bus and it leaves.

Its a joy, jungle green scenery unfolds, banana and pineapple plantation, waterfalls and bright blue streams. Its sunny I leave the grey clouds behind, the wind comes pouring through the bus window. Im on the road again.

Bang! I run into a apocalyptic scene. It is not obvious at first, I am not familiar with this landscape, but something does not seem right. The blue bags placed over the banana crops are missing, they´re strewn all over the bushes and trees. As we make progress it´s quite apparent I am traveling into a full scale disaster zone. I pull back the window to its full extent to view the scene unfolding. There are cars at odd angles, wooden houses out of kilter, trees uprooted. The usual disaster movie stuff. It was the next thing that took me back. Some things you expect as permanent, immovable, what ever happens they are a constant. Except miles of modern highway had just been blasted over the countryside. This was no third world road. Broad, white lined, kerb stones, no different than at home.

A massive flood had hit this Caribbean coast. The locals were shovelling red mud from their houses, hanging their now orange tinted clothes out to dry. On higher ground their furniture was lined up in sun to dry out. Sections of asphalt, as if like giant discarded bathroom towels were scattered along the way side. One significant section of highway had rotated a full 45 degrees.

The bus driver was amazing. This was almost certainly the first bus here. The roads were chocked with emergency vehicles, Red Cross and aid trucks. Where the crumbling highway existed, even though it was heavily under cut from flood water, it was barely wide enough for the bus. Many times it had gone completely. Forcing the driver to drive down embankments and weave round piles of wreckage. A bull dozed tortuous path enabled us to just make passage. At one stage the road was a shale beach and I expected the journey to end, stuck out there.

But all the time, as we passed through, i saw smiling and waving kids and people confidently getting on with clearing up. Some bright sparks were even selling Wellington boots by the way side.

With other priorities the border crossing was mercifully brief.

To enable the bus to cross to Panama it drove onto the railway line. Over the swollen river via a narrow rickety wooden rail bridge by lining itself up a few planks lain end to end to aid its crossing.

The fun did not end there. We were well behind time. A simple journey had taken all day and the sun was low and I was aiming for the ferry before dark. There was little chance of finding somewhere to stay here. The bus stopped in the first town across the border and no ferry was going anywhere. I hook up with another guy in the same predicament and split a taxi to the next town to catch the last boat.

Never do this in central america, unless you are mad. Our driver takes this as a personal challenge, we hurtle along, wheels screeching in the corners, wrong side on the racing line, blind bends, the jungle blurring. We have obstacles as well. The rain on the steep hillsides have resulted in many landslips pouring tons of debris onto road. In a detached "what the hell" way Im enjoying this, random wind in your hair adventure.

In to town, to the jetty, we bounce over the railway line, two minutes to spare. We pay him over the odds and run to the boat.

Our ´ferry´is a souped up speed boat. The big black guy falls onto me, as literally we jump on to the boat. Straight on full power, blatting out 40 knots, our wake washing over palm covered islands and swamping local dug out canoes. Environmental impact maybe, but big grins definitely and as we dock the lilac sun just fizzes out into the Caribbean sea.

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