Panama City in early April is not its rainy season but Panama doesn’t seem to know that. Tim, Jon and I were hunkered down under a row of closed buildings on Good Friday watching the streets turn to abrupt rivers within 10 minutes. This was bad news.
The German ship the Stahlratte was moored in Carti, a small service town opening to the San Blas Islands. To access Carti and therefore our arranged ship we were to ride 40kms of unknown dirt road. Although confident our bikes could manage anything the road would throw at us, I was warned of a river crossing to reach the township. If it rained in the jungle mountains, the tributaries would flood the river and our plans would be thrown into an uncertain demise.
After half an hour of watching the skies teeming onto the streets of Panama and entertaining ourselves watching a scooter ably negotiate foot deep surface water (tip: the yellow line is the high ground), I make a phone call to a supplied contact Archimedes, a Kuna man who organises transport to the islands. He reassures me that the tropical downpour is not in the hills… yet. I scrabble in my bag and find wet weather gear and we set off.
It is a strange sensation to ride in rain again. We have ridden through rain once in Costa Rica at several thousand metres and twice in Mexico in the mountains of the south so it is a foreign experience again and I am reminded of my first tentative bike rides 12 long months ago. I no longer have an easy familiarity with the traction of my tire and the riding is slow yet steady. After 10 minutes the rains peters out but Panama City is still obscured in a heavy grey blanket. We make for the Darien, a highway into one of the world’s dangerous places, notorious for guerrillas, contraband runners and many people involved somewhere in between. Although a chance to explore as far as the road goes would be a once in a life experience we can’t risk missing the boat today.
We reach the beginning of the dirt road and it becomes apparent that Tim’s BMW will be too heavy for the road. Although graded, there is little gravel on the road and it is evident this will soon turn exclusively to mud. He has arranged to fly his bike to Ecuador and this is our last farewell with a new friend. Our chapter with Tim closes and he moves onto a new stage of his trip. In the nostalgia it hits me that we have now reached the end of Central America. From here south lies just three countries in Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil but much longer distances and much more challenging heat.
Jon and I start down the track and the riding is elementary for the bikes. The rain stays away and we make good time. The jungle, landscape and people are all fascinating and it would have been great to spend longer in this part of Panama. The heat and humidity is impressive and the jungle has a heavy sense of life surrounding the road.
However as with many chapters on our journey, incident strikes. I am riding fast and lean over too far on a corner in a dip with mud at the bottom. I lose traction and then the tire grips but I am too heavy on the throttle and the bike tightens its line as it races for the bushes. I can not see how I can avoid going off the road but there appears to be nothing ahead of me that can cause my bike damage so I brake as heavily as possible and essentially roll into a small ditch and long grass. After a moment of assessing what has happened and that the bike seems okay I haul it out and try to ride up the rise from standstill. The stupid well-meaning engineers at Kawasaki have got something into my electrics meaning I can only start the engine in neutral so as soon as I fire up the engine I slide backwards and drop the bike in the mud. The smart option dawns on me to coast the bike downhill and turn around at the bottom. Up the rise and Jon is waiting for me and has a reason he hasn’t come back to check up. He has a puncture in his front tire.
No problem, we pull to the side of the road and Jon gets his tire irons. We have spare tubes for situations where time is of the essence and I lay it down next to the bike when some good Samaritans career up in a four wheel drive and grind to a halt next to us. Jon is struggling with the cotter pin to open up the nut on the front axle when they jump in and before you know it they are hauling the tire off the bike. I feel uncomfortable with this but hold my tongue. I feel strongly that Jon should be changing the tire and therefore know exactly what is happening with his bike but my simple boy-scout attitude to breakdowns has caused arguments in the past. In this case it was a mistake. The boys throw in the spare tube and I pump up the tire. The tube partially inflates but won’t gain any pressure. The Panamanians ask me if the pump is broken and tell me I’m doing it wrong. At this stage I’m getting keen to do this myself and work out the issue but there is no saying no to friendly help in this case and after playing with the pump they decide that the tube is bad. I find my spare and know for a fact it is good. I suspect the Panamanian has pinched the tube and I put the tire on in part myself before they jump in and complete the job. They pump up the tire and declare success before warning us not to be in the jungle at night telling of rampant snakes and jaguars to my dubious ears. I am more worried about malaria mosquitoes.
The tire has a nail in it. The most stupid but easy thing to forget in a tube change is to check the tire wall for foreign objects. We could blame the Panama lads but really the responsibility lies with us. I’m angry at Jon but it is as much fault mine as his.
As darkness falls the moths gather to supervise our tube patching and buzz their disapproval all around at our attempts. I have quality patches but they just don’t seem to be holding pressure. A friend with two neon green eyes buzzes up to my shoulder to check out the scene. Eventually Jon uses a different patch and this holds on his tube. We put the tire back on the bike as thunderclaps begin and lightning can be seen in the distance.
A passing truck advises us that the river crossing is only 10 minutes drive ahead and the town only 5 minutes past that. We can’t cross the river at night but there may be a way to cross and inform the Stahlratte where we are. We ride slowly under the jungle canopy and many eyes look down on us from the trees, presumably bats. There’s a sense of peace in the jungle despite our tired mindset and I am reminded of bush walks at home.
We reach the river without incident and are surprised to see heavy machinery and diggers – they are reconstructing the bridge which ran to the village until it was swept away 3 years ago. The water level is low but still above knee height. There is a local Kuna man whose job is to look after the equipment and he sleeps in a tent under and open air palapa hut of coconut fronds and shares his space with us. We are grateful for his kindness as the rain is torrential all night. I scrabble in my bag to give him a beer and we retire for the night.
We rise before 7am and the river has changed. What was 2 feet of gently flowing water is now a gushing 8 feet and the surrounding dirt has changed to thick clay. Fording the river is not an option. The man guarding the construction site calls to some men with a large kioko primitive canoe and we are to ford the river in this. I don’t like it but we have no contact with the ship and they are leaving today. I carefully assess the boat and discuss with Jon. Jon doesn’t like it either but is happy to go with this crossing if my bike goes first. The boat can certainly bear the weight of the bike, I am just concerned about tipping. I agree but just before bringing the bike, a four wheel drive coated in mud rolls up. The driver is Alexis and he is transporting passengers onto the Stahlratte from Panama City. He explains that they are bringing a motor boat along and it is larger. I sigh with relief and 10 minutes later I meet Ludwig the friendly and laidback German captain who’ll take us to Colombia. We rally the other backpackers who are thankfully willing to help manhandle the bikes into the motorboat and we make our way to the ship, drenched muddy and tired. A trip down the estuary of the river looks like a chapter of National Geographic, people living in primitive homes and paddling basic canoes out to the nearby islands in the San Blas archipelago.
We could have flown the bikes and stayed clean, stayed dry, even watched a movie on the flight over. But ahead of us now is a ship full of young travellers, two days on Caribbean Islands and our passage to Colombia. Sometimes in travelling you land on your feet no matter what the pitfalls.
Photos :
http://www.locokiwi.com/picture-gallery/?lzkfile=11+Panama+crossing%2F
Well, we´re in Colombia.