Everyone who came to visit us wanted to see the jungle, so we created a short, half mile makeshift trail through a section of the primary growth jungle behind Neddy and Augustina's place. It took the hiker through thick primary growth jungle, then by the place where Mark and I caught the barba amarilla (so I could stop and tell the story), and then over a small gully on a giant dead tree that formed a bridge over the gully. From there it went through an area where we usually saw spider monkeys in the trees, and then completed the loop back to where we started. The entire walk would take a couple of hours because of the frequent stops to quietly watch different animals we spied from the trail.
When my mother, and two of my sisters, came to visit we took them for a walk on this trail. It was when we were first trying to create the trail, and the path was still not well defined. It was easy to lose your bearings when walking through primary growth jungle. After walking for a while, and marking trees as we went, we finally came back across a previous tree mark. We had been going in a circle. Not a very impressive display of navigational skill for "jungle boy" in front of his family.
My mother is neither very tall nor athletic, and was an inexperienced hiker. I remember having to boost her up onto the tree bridge, an old fallen tree that ran over the gully. I gave her a long stick to help her with her balance. She had a handful of flowers, which she had picked along the trail and refused to put down, in one hand and the long stick in the other hand. A few moments later we all heard a splat. Mom had fallen off the log and face down into the mud. No one ran to help her right away; everyone was too busy laughing and taking pictures of our mother caked with mud. My mom was a real trooper during the walk, and never uttered a single complaint. She has always had such a zest for life. I figured that if she could make it around this little adventure trail, anyone who we brought out could as well.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Army Is Coming
Life in the Darien was slow-moving and peaceful. There always seemed to be something that needed doing around the house, and we always were working on dreaming up the “next project.” Visitors to our house were frequent, whether it was Chocó coming down the river from one of the Indian villages, or people coming out to the house by foot from town. We were definitely a curiosity to everyone.
One morning Diego burst into the house, waking everyone up in a passionate rush, screaming that we had to leave. He kept shouting "the army is coming." When we didn't understand he took us to the door and pointed across the cleared out area between the side of the house and the gully. The army he spoke of was ants. They were advancing in a huge hoard, marching in a straight horizontal line that was at least 100 feet across, and that went back as far as the back of the cleared area, all the way to the gully and the Mercadeo. There had to be many millions (maybe billions) of them covering the ground like a rippling blanket. You could see numerous insects and small rodents running for their lives just in front of the advancing hoard. We quickly gathered a few things together and immediately left the house by dugout canoe and went into town for a few hours.
When we got back, the ants were all gone, and the house was spotless - easily the cleanest that it had been since being newly built! Every crumb, every scrap, every little dead insect or piece of anything not nailed down was gone! We decided to have them in once a month to clean the house, but they never came back.
When I first went down to Darien, it was all about the animals. Whenever someone came across something interesting, they would bring it to us. We had a young Toucan brought to us (you know, the Fruit Loops bird) that had a very distinctive personality. We let it roam free around the main house, and it hopped around, following all of us everywhere like a puppy. It made a cute little clicking noise with its beak when petted behind the ears (birds have ears?) in the same manner that a cat purrs. It lived with us, loose in the house, for well over a year.
We also had a pair of baby 'gato solo' (translation: lone cat) or as we refer to them, coati mundi. They were very cute and cuddly and roamed freely around the house. The toucan was a curiosity to them, but basically they left each other alone. They look like little racoons with a long snout. They were curious about everything, just like a raccoon. They lived with us at least a couple of years and we nicknamed them the Little Bears. The Bread Girls would sit for hours playing with the two gato solo.
In the kitchen we always had a bunch or two of hanging bananas. There were three kinds of bananas, and they got sweeter as they got smaller. The platano is the largest, big and mealy. Platano is eaten at every meal and it is debatable whether it is a fruit or a vegetable. The second is the 'guineo' or what we refer to as a regular banana that you buy in the local grocery store. The third is the finger banana, which never gets more than a few inches long (the length of one of your fingers) and is very sweet. We also always had a large stack of platanos on the floor in the kitchen. These were on our primary menu and they were also on the menu for the animals.
In addition to the platanos and hanging bananas we always had sacks of whatever was in season (papayas, mangos, avocados, etc.). The kids would pick them growing wild and bring them to us. We generally paid one dollar per 100. Yeah, you heard me right, fresh picked mangos and avocados for 1 cent apiece.
There are numerous different kinds of mangos, and each has a different taste and consistency. Some varieties are mealy, some are stringy, some have the consistency of a peach and some a harder texture like that of a pineapple. They have named the varieties after the fruit that tastes like that particular mango; for example mango de papaya, mango de guava, and mango de pina.
Unfortunately the fruit in the house also brought unwanted animals. The most frequent visitors were bats (vile, ugly creatures) which would come into the house at night to eat our fruit. There are two kinds of bats living in the Darien; fruit bats and vampire bats. The vampire bats feed entirely on blood, and generally take advantage of sleeping cattle and horses, but they are reputed to feed on humans as well. They do not cause any immediate harm to their victims when feeding, but they carry numerous diseases that can be very dangerous.
I remember one night, when the bats became so numerous flying around the house, that we took drastic measures. We set up a mist net, the same kind we used to trap parrots, across the kitchen. We caught a lot of bats but didn't completely solve the problem. We finally solved the bat dilemma by screening over every hole around the bottom of the roof of the house.
One morning Diego burst into the house, waking everyone up in a passionate rush, screaming that we had to leave. He kept shouting "the army is coming." When we didn't understand he took us to the door and pointed across the cleared out area between the side of the house and the gully. The army he spoke of was ants. They were advancing in a huge hoard, marching in a straight horizontal line that was at least 100 feet across, and that went back as far as the back of the cleared area, all the way to the gully and the Mercadeo. There had to be many millions (maybe billions) of them covering the ground like a rippling blanket. You could see numerous insects and small rodents running for their lives just in front of the advancing hoard. We quickly gathered a few things together and immediately left the house by dugout canoe and went into town for a few hours.
When we got back, the ants were all gone, and the house was spotless - easily the cleanest that it had been since being newly built! Every crumb, every scrap, every little dead insect or piece of anything not nailed down was gone! We decided to have them in once a month to clean the house, but they never came back.
When I first went down to Darien, it was all about the animals. Whenever someone came across something interesting, they would bring it to us. We had a young Toucan brought to us (you know, the Fruit Loops bird) that had a very distinctive personality. We let it roam free around the main house, and it hopped around, following all of us everywhere like a puppy. It made a cute little clicking noise with its beak when petted behind the ears (birds have ears?) in the same manner that a cat purrs. It lived with us, loose in the house, for well over a year.
We also had a pair of baby 'gato solo' (translation: lone cat) or as we refer to them, coati mundi. They were very cute and cuddly and roamed freely around the house. The toucan was a curiosity to them, but basically they left each other alone. They look like little racoons with a long snout. They were curious about everything, just like a raccoon. They lived with us at least a couple of years and we nicknamed them the Little Bears. The Bread Girls would sit for hours playing with the two gato solo.
In the kitchen we always had a bunch or two of hanging bananas. There were three kinds of bananas, and they got sweeter as they got smaller. The platano is the largest, big and mealy. Platano is eaten at every meal and it is debatable whether it is a fruit or a vegetable. The second is the 'guineo' or what we refer to as a regular banana that you buy in the local grocery store. The third is the finger banana, which never gets more than a few inches long (the length of one of your fingers) and is very sweet. We also always had a large stack of platanos on the floor in the kitchen. These were on our primary menu and they were also on the menu for the animals.
In addition to the platanos and hanging bananas we always had sacks of whatever was in season (papayas, mangos, avocados, etc.). The kids would pick them growing wild and bring them to us. We generally paid one dollar per 100. Yeah, you heard me right, fresh picked mangos and avocados for 1 cent apiece.
There are numerous different kinds of mangos, and each has a different taste and consistency. Some varieties are mealy, some are stringy, some have the consistency of a peach and some a harder texture like that of a pineapple. They have named the varieties after the fruit that tastes like that particular mango; for example mango de papaya, mango de guava, and mango de pina.
Unfortunately the fruit in the house also brought unwanted animals. The most frequent visitors were bats (vile, ugly creatures) which would come into the house at night to eat our fruit. There are two kinds of bats living in the Darien; fruit bats and vampire bats. The vampire bats feed entirely on blood, and generally take advantage of sleeping cattle and horses, but they are reputed to feed on humans as well. They do not cause any immediate harm to their victims when feeding, but they carry numerous diseases that can be very dangerous.
I remember one night, when the bats became so numerous flying around the house, that we took drastic measures. We set up a mist net, the same kind we used to trap parrots, across the kitchen. We caught a lot of bats but didn't completely solve the problem. We finally solved the bat dilemma by screening over every hole around the bottom of the roof of the house.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Chicha de Mais
One day Augustina, my neighbor across the river, paddled across the river in her tippy little canoe, and she had with her a one-gallon glass jug. Any drink that they made was called 'chicha.' They would make chicha de mango, chicha de papaya, chicha be guanabana, and when they made Kool Aid they called it chicha de kool aid. On this day she had worked hard to make me a special treat. She came up to the house and handed me her gift. The jug was cloudy and had little bits of things floating in it. I asked her what it was and she replied that it was "chicha de mais" (translation: corn drink). She then insisted that I taste it, which I dutifully did. I could not imagine anything as nasty to make a drink out of as corn. It was truly awful! It tasted dreadfully sour and the little corn kernels got stuck in my teeth. I gathered all my fortitude, smiled, and said, "It is wonderful Augustina, and I love it, simply delicious." As Augustina walked off toward town with the knowledge that she had pleased the Gringo with her gift, I handed the jug of chicha to Diego and told him to get rid of it.
A few weeks went by and one morning when Augustina came across the river she stopped to talk, rather than simply call out. She asked me how I liked the chicha de mais, and, of course I told her how much I had enjoyed drinking it. At that moment Diego burst out of the house with the jug, it was bone dry. He handed it to Augustina and said that Gary loved it, and wanted her to make some more. Diego got a very dirty look from me. She took the empty jug and contentedly paddled back home. I was confused at first but said nothing.
A few weeks later the entire scene repeated itself. Augustina came across with the jug of the chicha de mais and made me take a drink. The second batch tasted more sour and rancid than the first one. Again I told her it was wonderful, and again I passed the jug onto Diego to get rid of. The first time this was amusing, but after the second time I got upset with Diego. I never really knew what was going on at the time, but I told Diego that if I ever had to taste that rancid drink again that I would get very angry.
Months later I was up one of the smaller rivers visiting with the Chocó Indians. The men worked in the communal fields during the day while the women and children stayed in the village. I came into this village around mid day, and had sent word in advance that I would be coming with another Indian who was traveling to that village a couple of days before us. All the men came back into town from their farms for the meeting. Their houses were raised on long log poles and the floor of the house was about 8 - 10 feet off the ground. This was because of the flooding that constantly occurred, as well as for protection against wild animals. The houses had thatched roofs and no side walls.
When I first came to Panama I spoke very little Spanish. I learned to speak Spanish by living down there, and having to try to speak the language in order to survive. The Chocó Indians have no written language, and their spoken language is nothing like Spanish. Most of the Chocó men spoke some Spanish, and many were fluent in the language. I learned some Chocó words while I lived in Darien, but spoke exclusively Spanish in meetings with the Chocó men. My Spanish is strictly verbal, with a lot of street vernacular and slang as opposed to a more educated version, as I learned it by having to speak the language to be able to survive living in the Darien. I finally realized that I was fluent in the Spanish language when I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that I had been dreaming in Spanish.
We were all seated in an oversized community house in a large circle; there must have been at least 20 men seated on the floor with me. I spoke with them about what we wanted to do with the animals, and specifically the birds and the snakes. They were always interested in how much money they could make for the different kinds of animals. But, the talks always came around to their fascination with snakes. It was important to educate everyone on how to identify a poisonous snake. I stressed leaving them alone, as well as the basic steps of what to do in the case of a poisonous snake bite.
While I was speaking with this group of Chocó men I became aware of a five gallon white plastic bucket that had been set in the center of our large circle. One Indian, with a small cup, would dip the cup in the bucket and take the cup and hand it to one of the Indians seated in the circle. They would take a drink and then hand him back the cup. The Indian would then go back to the bucket, refill the cup, and take it to the next Indian sitting next to the one that had just drunk. Little by little, as I spoke to the group, the cup made its way around the circle and was finally handed to me.
Who knows where the water came from, or if it was safe to drink. But given the circumstances, you don't ask questions, you drink, so drink I did! The sip nearly knocked me on my back. I had just sampled a stout liquor. I asked what the drink was called and they told me, 'chicha fuerte' (which translates literally as: 'strong drink'). I did, however notice a strangely familiar after taste to the drink. I asked if the drink went by any other name. They told me yes, when the drink is new, and not ready to drink, they call it 'chicha de mais.'
In that moment seated over a days' journey from our house in El Real with twenty Chocó Indians, I realized that I had been had by Diego. I drank the nasty 'chicha de mais' to please Augustina, and Diego partied weeks later with the ‘chicha fuerte’ after it had a chance to ferment!
A few weeks went by and one morning when Augustina came across the river she stopped to talk, rather than simply call out. She asked me how I liked the chicha de mais, and, of course I told her how much I had enjoyed drinking it. At that moment Diego burst out of the house with the jug, it was bone dry. He handed it to Augustina and said that Gary loved it, and wanted her to make some more. Diego got a very dirty look from me. She took the empty jug and contentedly paddled back home. I was confused at first but said nothing.
A few weeks later the entire scene repeated itself. Augustina came across with the jug of the chicha de mais and made me take a drink. The second batch tasted more sour and rancid than the first one. Again I told her it was wonderful, and again I passed the jug onto Diego to get rid of. The first time this was amusing, but after the second time I got upset with Diego. I never really knew what was going on at the time, but I told Diego that if I ever had to taste that rancid drink again that I would get very angry.
Months later I was up one of the smaller rivers visiting with the Chocó Indians. The men worked in the communal fields during the day while the women and children stayed in the village. I came into this village around mid day, and had sent word in advance that I would be coming with another Indian who was traveling to that village a couple of days before us. All the men came back into town from their farms for the meeting. Their houses were raised on long log poles and the floor of the house was about 8 - 10 feet off the ground. This was because of the flooding that constantly occurred, as well as for protection against wild animals. The houses had thatched roofs and no side walls.
When I first came to Panama I spoke very little Spanish. I learned to speak Spanish by living down there, and having to try to speak the language in order to survive. The Chocó Indians have no written language, and their spoken language is nothing like Spanish. Most of the Chocó men spoke some Spanish, and many were fluent in the language. I learned some Chocó words while I lived in Darien, but spoke exclusively Spanish in meetings with the Chocó men. My Spanish is strictly verbal, with a lot of street vernacular and slang as opposed to a more educated version, as I learned it by having to speak the language to be able to survive living in the Darien. I finally realized that I was fluent in the Spanish language when I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that I had been dreaming in Spanish.
We were all seated in an oversized community house in a large circle; there must have been at least 20 men seated on the floor with me. I spoke with them about what we wanted to do with the animals, and specifically the birds and the snakes. They were always interested in how much money they could make for the different kinds of animals. But, the talks always came around to their fascination with snakes. It was important to educate everyone on how to identify a poisonous snake. I stressed leaving them alone, as well as the basic steps of what to do in the case of a poisonous snake bite.
While I was speaking with this group of Chocó men I became aware of a five gallon white plastic bucket that had been set in the center of our large circle. One Indian, with a small cup, would dip the cup in the bucket and take the cup and hand it to one of the Indians seated in the circle. They would take a drink and then hand him back the cup. The Indian would then go back to the bucket, refill the cup, and take it to the next Indian sitting next to the one that had just drunk. Little by little, as I spoke to the group, the cup made its way around the circle and was finally handed to me.
Who knows where the water came from, or if it was safe to drink. But given the circumstances, you don't ask questions, you drink, so drink I did! The sip nearly knocked me on my back. I had just sampled a stout liquor. I asked what the drink was called and they told me, 'chicha fuerte' (which translates literally as: 'strong drink'). I did, however notice a strangely familiar after taste to the drink. I asked if the drink went by any other name. They told me yes, when the drink is new, and not ready to drink, they call it 'chicha de mais.'
In that moment seated over a days' journey from our house in El Real with twenty Chocó Indians, I realized that I had been had by Diego. I drank the nasty 'chicha de mais' to please Augustina, and Diego partied weeks later with the ‘chicha fuerte’ after it had a chance to ferment!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The House
The Darien is purported to have one of the highest incidences of earthquakes in the world. It is here that the North and South American plates converge, as well as the Atlantic and Pacific plates. The movement from the four plates causes regular seismic activity. We had noticeable quakes about once a month, and every few months something would hit us that was like a land wave. The earthquakes from my childhood in Southern California were nothing like this. This was an actual visible wave going across the land. You could see it coming from a distance, and when it hit, it was like being hit by a wave, a large jolt and loud boom, and then you would watch as it would head off in the opposite direction that it came from. It was especially noticeable when the wave moved across a river as you could see the water rolling as it was being pushed by the earth.
We cleared out a good-sized area (approximately an acre) and built a main house out of wood about five feet off the ground on stilts. The house had a screened front porch which overlooked the river. Built into the far side of the porch was a wooden picnic bench-style table. From the porch you walked into the living room which had the kitchen off to the left side. A small bathroom, with only a toilet, came off the living room on the side opposite from the kitchen. There was no shower or sink, as we had no running water. We flushed the toilet with a bucket of river water poured directly into the toilet bowl. All waste flowed into a septic tank we had dug and enclosed in cement. A hallway ran from the living room to the back door, and on both sides of the hallway were bedrooms. The beds were all single beds and had mosquito nets draped over them. All of the interior walls were built from peeled cana blanca (white cane). The structure was built for its practical functionality, not for elegance.
About 15 feet behind the main house was the animal house, also raised about 5 feet. This structure was built with cana blanca walls, and had a thatched roof. Inside were large flight cages for birds and a small front room for wooden reptile cages. The floors of the flight cages were made from wire mesh. The bird droppings would fall right through to the ground below. We never had to clean up after them because the mess would be washed away with the high tides. A wooden bridge ran the fifteen feet from the back door of the main house to the front door of the animal house.
After we got Juan on board we let him choose who else would be hired to build the house. He also directed all of the construction and arranged for the purchase of the construction materials. Politically, this assured that we were connected with the right people in the El Real area, and that we were spending our money at the right places.
We also hired on Diego, a light skinned Colombian from Cali, who lived at the house and took care of the animals. He also taught us the ropes, and helped us to learn the correct way to do things in the Darien. He had lived in El Real a good portion of his adult life, but I must stress that his knowledge only extended to the etiquette involved in living with the Mestizos. Like the majority of the Mestizo inhabitants of the Darien he did not know much about the lives of the Chocó, nor did he care to learn anything about the Chocó as a people or their culture.
We were young and inexperienced and really were making everything up as we went along. For example, the materials we used to construct the animal house seemed like a good idea. They were lightweight, sturdy, allowed good ventilation, and cheap. There was only one minor problem; we found out the hard way that birds "eat" cana blanca! This problem reared its head when most of the first load of our birds escaped by eating through the cane.
The early days were difficult, as we had no running water and bathed in the muddy waters of the Rio Tuira. Even though we were well inland the river was still tidal. The river water rose and fell about eight feet each day in front of our house. On the Pacific Ocean, the tides can have up to a 17 foot difference from high tide to low tide. At low tide you could see sand bars, rocks and old tree stumps emerge in various places in the river. At high tide the water would come almost up to the base of the main house. At high tide during the rainy season, the water came up under the house and you tied the dugout canoe right up to the front porch.
There were two kinds of "good eating" fish that we would catch in the river in front of the house. The first were large catfish, and the second (my favorite) were fresh-water sharks. The shark meat was more like a steak than a filet, and was soft and flaky and had no "fishy" smell or taste.
Bathing in the river was always an adventure in itself. The water was so muddy with tidal silt that you couldn't see your hand when you held it just under the surface of the water. The river had many other animals in it besides us. When two of my sisters visited, and bathed in the river, a local boy pulled a small alligator out of the river right near where they were bathing. One of my sisters told me that when she got back to a "real hotel" in Panama City after visiting the Darien, the first thing she did when she went into her hotel room, was to go into the bathroom and kiss the sink!
There are two seasons in the Darien, the rainy season and the dry season. The difference between the two is that during the dry season (December to April) it rained almost every afternoon for a couple of hours. During the rainy season it rained all the time. During the rainy season there was so much moisture in the air that nothing ever seemed to heal. Cuts and minor abrasions never quite seemed to form a solid scab. We ended up getting a special ointment that promoted the drying up and healing process.
The rain would fall in sheets, and the sound in the main house, with the tin roof, would be so deafening that you could not be heard by a person sitting next to you. Then, the rain would stop as suddenly as it had appeared, and when you went outside it was if life had been renewed. Everything was fresh; the air, the trees and the birds singing all around you.
The rivers were easier to navigate during the rainy season because they always had a lot of water and were more easily passable. You didn't have the problems with logs, rocks and sand banks that you had in the dry season. There were smaller side rivers that you couldn't pass in the dry season, but were easily passable in the rainy season.
We had no electrical power at the house. Think about that! No air conditioning in the middle of a very hot and humid jungle, no refrigeration, no lights, no television, etc. When I recount the story to people this is where they find it all so hard to relate.
I became accustomed to a way of life where these modern conveniences were of no necessity. I went to bed every night shortly after the sun went down to a soft, quiet symphony with the background sounds of insects and night birds. I woke up every morning as the sun cast its first rays, to the music of parrots, softly cackling while they fed in the platano fields across the river, a woodpecker working on a close by tree, and the smaller birds chirping and singing; all welcoming the new morning.
We cleared out a good-sized area (approximately an acre) and built a main house out of wood about five feet off the ground on stilts. The house had a screened front porch which overlooked the river. Built into the far side of the porch was a wooden picnic bench-style table. From the porch you walked into the living room which had the kitchen off to the left side. A small bathroom, with only a toilet, came off the living room on the side opposite from the kitchen. There was no shower or sink, as we had no running water. We flushed the toilet with a bucket of river water poured directly into the toilet bowl. All waste flowed into a septic tank we had dug and enclosed in cement. A hallway ran from the living room to the back door, and on both sides of the hallway were bedrooms. The beds were all single beds and had mosquito nets draped over them. All of the interior walls were built from peeled cana blanca (white cane). The structure was built for its practical functionality, not for elegance.
About 15 feet behind the main house was the animal house, also raised about 5 feet. This structure was built with cana blanca walls, and had a thatched roof. Inside were large flight cages for birds and a small front room for wooden reptile cages. The floors of the flight cages were made from wire mesh. The bird droppings would fall right through to the ground below. We never had to clean up after them because the mess would be washed away with the high tides. A wooden bridge ran the fifteen feet from the back door of the main house to the front door of the animal house.
After we got Juan on board we let him choose who else would be hired to build the house. He also directed all of the construction and arranged for the purchase of the construction materials. Politically, this assured that we were connected with the right people in the El Real area, and that we were spending our money at the right places.
We also hired on Diego, a light skinned Colombian from Cali, who lived at the house and took care of the animals. He also taught us the ropes, and helped us to learn the correct way to do things in the Darien. He had lived in El Real a good portion of his adult life, but I must stress that his knowledge only extended to the etiquette involved in living with the Mestizos. Like the majority of the Mestizo inhabitants of the Darien he did not know much about the lives of the Chocó, nor did he care to learn anything about the Chocó as a people or their culture.
We were young and inexperienced and really were making everything up as we went along. For example, the materials we used to construct the animal house seemed like a good idea. They were lightweight, sturdy, allowed good ventilation, and cheap. There was only one minor problem; we found out the hard way that birds "eat" cana blanca! This problem reared its head when most of the first load of our birds escaped by eating through the cane.
The early days were difficult, as we had no running water and bathed in the muddy waters of the Rio Tuira. Even though we were well inland the river was still tidal. The river water rose and fell about eight feet each day in front of our house. On the Pacific Ocean, the tides can have up to a 17 foot difference from high tide to low tide. At low tide you could see sand bars, rocks and old tree stumps emerge in various places in the river. At high tide the water would come almost up to the base of the main house. At high tide during the rainy season, the water came up under the house and you tied the dugout canoe right up to the front porch.
There were two kinds of "good eating" fish that we would catch in the river in front of the house. The first were large catfish, and the second (my favorite) were fresh-water sharks. The shark meat was more like a steak than a filet, and was soft and flaky and had no "fishy" smell or taste.
Bathing in the river was always an adventure in itself. The water was so muddy with tidal silt that you couldn't see your hand when you held it just under the surface of the water. The river had many other animals in it besides us. When two of my sisters visited, and bathed in the river, a local boy pulled a small alligator out of the river right near where they were bathing. One of my sisters told me that when she got back to a "real hotel" in Panama City after visiting the Darien, the first thing she did when she went into her hotel room, was to go into the bathroom and kiss the sink!
There are two seasons in the Darien, the rainy season and the dry season. The difference between the two is that during the dry season (December to April) it rained almost every afternoon for a couple of hours. During the rainy season it rained all the time. During the rainy season there was so much moisture in the air that nothing ever seemed to heal. Cuts and minor abrasions never quite seemed to form a solid scab. We ended up getting a special ointment that promoted the drying up and healing process.
The rain would fall in sheets, and the sound in the main house, with the tin roof, would be so deafening that you could not be heard by a person sitting next to you. Then, the rain would stop as suddenly as it had appeared, and when you went outside it was if life had been renewed. Everything was fresh; the air, the trees and the birds singing all around you.
The rivers were easier to navigate during the rainy season because they always had a lot of water and were more easily passable. You didn't have the problems with logs, rocks and sand banks that you had in the dry season. There were smaller side rivers that you couldn't pass in the dry season, but were easily passable in the rainy season.
We had no electrical power at the house. Think about that! No air conditioning in the middle of a very hot and humid jungle, no refrigeration, no lights, no television, etc. When I recount the story to people this is where they find it all so hard to relate.
I became accustomed to a way of life where these modern conveniences were of no necessity. I went to bed every night shortly after the sun went down to a soft, quiet symphony with the background sounds of insects and night birds. I woke up every morning as the sun cast its first rays, to the music of parrots, softly cackling while they fed in the platano fields across the river, a woodpecker working on a close by tree, and the smaller birds chirping and singing; all welcoming the new morning.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Organizing El Real
I'll never forget my first trip into El Real. My business partner was named George Mahoney. I had met him a couple of years before in Michigan through a mutual friend and when the idea came up to establish a facility in Central America, he didn't hesitate to get involved. He came down to Darien for several weeks at a time over the first couple of years to help get things going. George and I faced a dilemma; neither of us spoke much Spanish. We found a Peruvian student in Panama City named Jamie, whom we coerced into accompanying us to act as a translator.
The three of us arrived in El Real about mid-day. After settling into the hotel, and having a great meal at Mama's, we went out to talk to the men of the town. Although there was one of almost every basic business in El Real, there were three cantinas. This is where you would almost always find the men. Their main drink is called Seco Herrerano (hereafter referred to as Seco). They say it is a kind of rum but I suspect it is really recycled paint remover. Believe it or not you can eventually develop a taste for something like that, especially when there is little else to drink. They always drank it straight, no ice (there was never any ice), and no mixers. They occasionally had Panamanian beer of which there are two kinds -- Panama and Balboa -- though it is more accurate to call them 'near' beer; I think the alcohol content was about 2.7%, and it was never cold.
The cantinas were the social and political meeting place for the men of the villages. You rarely ever saw women there. The cantinas were of wooden construction and you would sit on wooden benches or old wooden chairs around small wooden tables. There was always one of the old-style, record-playing, juke boxes blaring salsa music. Most of the salsa we listened to was from Colombia. They played it so loud that you would have to almost scream to be heard. Most of the men had the salsa music flowing through their veins, and when they got to a certain level of inebriation they would stand up and salsa dance right beside where they were seated. The bars were an escape from the everyday life and an integral part of the daily life of the men.
We arranged to have a meeting with all of the men of El Real that evening after dinner. The meeting was held outside in front of the hotel, which faced on the center town square. All the men in town were there. As the meeting drew on, the men seemed to be getting more and more agitated. We didn't really understand what was going on as Jamie was translating everything in both directions. We were trying to explain to them that we wanted to move down here, hire a crew, and build a house and an animal quarantine facility.
The townspeople were skeptical because we were telling them that we were going to ‘buy’ birds and reptiles. The Mestizos were terrified of snakes. Up until our arrival the only thing they ever did when they encountered a snake was to machete it into little pieces. The whole idea that we would be ‘buying’ snakes immediately classified us as “Crazy Gringos” in their minds. If we never accomplished another thing in our years in Darien, at least we instilled in everyone that all animal life (even snakes) had a value, and that no animal should ever be killed indiscriminately.
Jamie said they were getting upset because other 'Gringos' had come in the past, made a lot of promises, and ended up doing nothing of any benefit for any of them. It was starting to get dark and there seemed to be a lot of shouting and yelling going on. It was when several of the townspeople drew their machetes and started waving them in the air over their heads that we decided the meeting was over.
The three of us slept with one eye open that night. You had to anyway to be able to dodge 10" cockroaches (no exaggeration!) and rats the size of small dogs (a little exaggerated). We left the next morning on the plane, a little shaken up over the experience and happy to have gotten out in one piece.
Once out of El Real the plane made another stop that day in La Palma. La Palma is set near the Pacific Ocean, and is just inland from the Gulf of San Miguel. It sits on a large bay. La Palma is the capitol of Darien, and has a population about half again bigger than El Real. The La Palma air strip is much nicer than El Real. It is a dirt field right next to the city -- no cows or trees to dodge and no long walk to get to the city.
The pilot came up to us and said we would not be able to go back to Panama City because the landing gear was broken. We looked down at the wheel on one side of the plane and it was just hanging there; it had almost fallen off during the landing. We watched a man with a roll of a heavy wire twine wrapping the crippled wheel, to try and somehow hold it onto the metal piece that came down from the plane. He wrapped the wire around and around and around the wheel brace piece. He must have made 30 loops. He went over that with duct tape and finally declared "That ought to hold it."
George ran for his camera excitedly exclaiming, "I have to get a picture of this." The pilot immediately became upset saying that if anyone took any pictures we would not take off. He was afraid that he might get in trouble. George put his camera away. The last thing we wanted was to spend another night down here.
We got onto the plane and started down the dirt runway to take off. George was sitting on the side with the bad wheel and I was sitting beside him.
As the plane began to get up speed down the runway to take off, I kept bugging him asking, "How is the wheel holding?"
We got half way down the runway and he turned away from staring out the window at the wheel, and looked directly at me. His face had turned a ghostly pale white color; he was gasping for air, unable to speak, and pointing out the window.
I leaned over him and looked to watch the twine breaking, one strand after another, ping, and ping, ping!
When the plane finally lifted off there were exactly two strands of twine left holding on our wheel.
We sweated it out all the way back to the city, with the anxiety building every moment we thought of landing on a wheel that was not secured to the plane. Amazingly, as soon as the pilot hit the runway to land he slammed on the brakes, coming to a complete stop within a few feet of where we had first touched down. We all quickly climbed out of the plane, leaving it right there in the middle of the runway.
Our second trip back to El Real went much better. The first failure at establishing a business in the Darien did not deter us. Once back in Panama City we discussed our first experience at length and actually devised a plan for the second trip. During the first trip we had met Juan, the town elder statesman and a well respected slightly built man in his sixties, whose principle trade was that of a carpenter. On our second trip we arrived in town, walked into the main cantina, immediately hired Juan as the construction crew chief, and bought a round of Seco for everyone. Now we had friends. When the people realized that we were serious about coming to live in Darien, hiring the local people, paying a fair wage, and building the quarantine facility, their attitude toward us changed.
The three of us arrived in El Real about mid-day. After settling into the hotel, and having a great meal at Mama's, we went out to talk to the men of the town. Although there was one of almost every basic business in El Real, there were three cantinas. This is where you would almost always find the men. Their main drink is called Seco Herrerano (hereafter referred to as Seco). They say it is a kind of rum but I suspect it is really recycled paint remover. Believe it or not you can eventually develop a taste for something like that, especially when there is little else to drink. They always drank it straight, no ice (there was never any ice), and no mixers. They occasionally had Panamanian beer of which there are two kinds -- Panama and Balboa -- though it is more accurate to call them 'near' beer; I think the alcohol content was about 2.7%, and it was never cold.
The cantinas were the social and political meeting place for the men of the villages. You rarely ever saw women there. The cantinas were of wooden construction and you would sit on wooden benches or old wooden chairs around small wooden tables. There was always one of the old-style, record-playing, juke boxes blaring salsa music. Most of the salsa we listened to was from Colombia. They played it so loud that you would have to almost scream to be heard. Most of the men had the salsa music flowing through their veins, and when they got to a certain level of inebriation they would stand up and salsa dance right beside where they were seated. The bars were an escape from the everyday life and an integral part of the daily life of the men.
We arranged to have a meeting with all of the men of El Real that evening after dinner. The meeting was held outside in front of the hotel, which faced on the center town square. All the men in town were there. As the meeting drew on, the men seemed to be getting more and more agitated. We didn't really understand what was going on as Jamie was translating everything in both directions. We were trying to explain to them that we wanted to move down here, hire a crew, and build a house and an animal quarantine facility.
The townspeople were skeptical because we were telling them that we were going to ‘buy’ birds and reptiles. The Mestizos were terrified of snakes. Up until our arrival the only thing they ever did when they encountered a snake was to machete it into little pieces. The whole idea that we would be ‘buying’ snakes immediately classified us as “Crazy Gringos” in their minds. If we never accomplished another thing in our years in Darien, at least we instilled in everyone that all animal life (even snakes) had a value, and that no animal should ever be killed indiscriminately.
Jamie said they were getting upset because other 'Gringos' had come in the past, made a lot of promises, and ended up doing nothing of any benefit for any of them. It was starting to get dark and there seemed to be a lot of shouting and yelling going on. It was when several of the townspeople drew their machetes and started waving them in the air over their heads that we decided the meeting was over.
The three of us slept with one eye open that night. You had to anyway to be able to dodge 10" cockroaches (no exaggeration!) and rats the size of small dogs (a little exaggerated). We left the next morning on the plane, a little shaken up over the experience and happy to have gotten out in one piece.
Once out of El Real the plane made another stop that day in La Palma. La Palma is set near the Pacific Ocean, and is just inland from the Gulf of San Miguel. It sits on a large bay. La Palma is the capitol of Darien, and has a population about half again bigger than El Real. The La Palma air strip is much nicer than El Real. It is a dirt field right next to the city -- no cows or trees to dodge and no long walk to get to the city.
The pilot came up to us and said we would not be able to go back to Panama City because the landing gear was broken. We looked down at the wheel on one side of the plane and it was just hanging there; it had almost fallen off during the landing. We watched a man with a roll of a heavy wire twine wrapping the crippled wheel, to try and somehow hold it onto the metal piece that came down from the plane. He wrapped the wire around and around and around the wheel brace piece. He must have made 30 loops. He went over that with duct tape and finally declared "That ought to hold it."
George ran for his camera excitedly exclaiming, "I have to get a picture of this." The pilot immediately became upset saying that if anyone took any pictures we would not take off. He was afraid that he might get in trouble. George put his camera away. The last thing we wanted was to spend another night down here.
We got onto the plane and started down the dirt runway to take off. George was sitting on the side with the bad wheel and I was sitting beside him.
As the plane began to get up speed down the runway to take off, I kept bugging him asking, "How is the wheel holding?"
We got half way down the runway and he turned away from staring out the window at the wheel, and looked directly at me. His face had turned a ghostly pale white color; he was gasping for air, unable to speak, and pointing out the window.
I leaned over him and looked to watch the twine breaking, one strand after another, ping, and ping, ping!
When the plane finally lifted off there were exactly two strands of twine left holding on our wheel.
We sweated it out all the way back to the city, with the anxiety building every moment we thought of landing on a wheel that was not secured to the plane. Amazingly, as soon as the pilot hit the runway to land he slammed on the brakes, coming to a complete stop within a few feet of where we had first touched down. We all quickly climbed out of the plane, leaving it right there in the middle of the runway.
Our second trip back to El Real went much better. The first failure at establishing a business in the Darien did not deter us. Once back in Panama City we discussed our first experience at length and actually devised a plan for the second trip. During the first trip we had met Juan, the town elder statesman and a well respected slightly built man in his sixties, whose principle trade was that of a carpenter. On our second trip we arrived in town, walked into the main cantina, immediately hired Juan as the construction crew chief, and bought a round of Seco for everyone. Now we had friends. When the people realized that we were serious about coming to live in Darien, hiring the local people, paying a fair wage, and building the quarantine facility, their attitude toward us changed.
Monday, February 7, 2011
El Real
El Real had a population of 500 Mestizos, or fewer, and it sits directly in the center of the Province, about a half mile inland from the mouth of the two major Darien rivers, the Tuira and the Chucunaque (called the 'Boca' - translation: mouth). The city is less than an hour walk to the base of Mount Pirre.
I have seen it written that the first permanent settlement in the New World was Santa Maria la Antigua del Darien. It was established in 1510; only 18 scant years after Columbus first discovered the Americas. I believe that this settlement may have been El Real. The true name of the city is El Real de Santa Maria Del Darien, named after the patron saint of the city. Its central location made it an ideal spot to create a first settlement.
The crumbling brick foundation remains of an old Spanish fort can be seen near the dock where you tie up your dugout. El Real was a Spanish stronghold in the 1500's and 1600's, used as a holding location for gold coming from the mines at Cana. When they had amassed a sufficient quantity, they would then take the gold by boat to Panama City for eventual transport to Spain.
El Real has one general store: “Rico's Place” where we could get the bare necessities, one restaurant which we affectionately named “Mama's Place,” and one hotel, a vacant old wooden house where, for a small fee, they would let us crash on the floor for the night. Mama's Place was just what you would expect, one large table that seated about ten people in the front room of Mama's house. Whatever Mama cooked was what you were eating that day; there was no such thing as a menu. The food was palatable only because one of the table staples was hot sauce (picante). Once you acquired a taste for the hot sauce you could either disguise, or add flavor to, almost any kind of food.
The village had been formed in the old Spanish style with a central courtyard in front of the old block traditional Spanish church. In the middle of the grassy courtyard was a Spanish cannon, a memorial to the ghosts of the conquistadors who once controlled this region. The houses were of wooden construction. About half the roofs were made of tin and about half were thatched using palm fronds. This style of construction was typical to all three Mestizo cities; El Real, La Palma and Yaviza.
I have seen it written that the first permanent settlement in the New World was Santa Maria la Antigua del Darien. It was established in 1510; only 18 scant years after Columbus first discovered the Americas. I believe that this settlement may have been El Real. The true name of the city is El Real de Santa Maria Del Darien, named after the patron saint of the city. Its central location made it an ideal spot to create a first settlement.
The crumbling brick foundation remains of an old Spanish fort can be seen near the dock where you tie up your dugout. El Real was a Spanish stronghold in the 1500's and 1600's, used as a holding location for gold coming from the mines at Cana. When they had amassed a sufficient quantity, they would then take the gold by boat to Panama City for eventual transport to Spain.
El Real has one general store: “Rico's Place” where we could get the bare necessities, one restaurant which we affectionately named “Mama's Place,” and one hotel, a vacant old wooden house where, for a small fee, they would let us crash on the floor for the night. Mama's Place was just what you would expect, one large table that seated about ten people in the front room of Mama's house. Whatever Mama cooked was what you were eating that day; there was no such thing as a menu. The food was palatable only because one of the table staples was hot sauce (picante). Once you acquired a taste for the hot sauce you could either disguise, or add flavor to, almost any kind of food.
The village had been formed in the old Spanish style with a central courtyard in front of the old block traditional Spanish church. In the middle of the grassy courtyard was a Spanish cannon, a memorial to the ghosts of the conquistadors who once controlled this region. The houses were of wooden construction. About half the roofs were made of tin and about half were thatched using palm fronds. This style of construction was typical to all three Mestizo cities; El Real, La Palma and Yaviza.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Mancha
One day I was in a small Indian village named Lahablanca. It is upriver on the Chucunaque about two hours north of Yaviza, near the point where the Tupisa River flows into the Chucunaque. Manene is the first of three Chocó villages on the Tupisa. As I stood with the tourists talking with the Chocó women, a commotion arose in the direction of the edge of the village. One of the men, who had just arrived back to the village, had killed a jaguar while hunting. When he reached the animal it was still alive and breathing and he noticed a movement in the stomach. He cut her open with his machete and pulled out a cub that was about to be born.
The Indian came into town and stuck this newborn animal in my arms; the cub was less than two hours old and still wet from the birth.
That is how I acquired my jaguar, Mancha (the name sounds like a beautiful romantic name for such a majestic animal. Translation: Spot). Mancha lived with us for several years, until the time that I left Panama. Of all of our exotic pets she was by far the best. What an attraction: a tame jaguar that a tourist could pet while having their photograph taken.
When I had Lil' Critters in Michigan I traded a Macaw to a zoo for a seven day old female African Lion (I named her Tasha). I have always had an affinity for large cats, and grew up in a house where our pet Siamese cat 'Ming Toy' had well over 100 kittens during my childhood, eight to ten at a time. Tasha lived with me for over two years in the basement of the farm house on North Territorial Road, during which time she grew to become a 350 pound African Lion. She made a great pet, and needless to say, you don't own a lion for two years during college and not have some stories to tell about the experience.
I found the lion to be very predictable, and in all the time I had her she never scratched, or bit, or drew blood from anyone, even though Tasha was around people all the time. The lion ate 18 pounds of food a day, a mixture of Science Diet and Zu-Preem, with vitamins and minerals mixed in. She grew from a baby cub into a 350 pound lion over the span of a couple of years. This created a hefty food bill for a college kid to have to pay each week to be able to care for this large cat. So, I would rent Tasha out for corporate promotions at a rate of $250.00 per half hour. Because of this Tasha became accustomed to being around large groups of people.
The Jaguar was much more unpredictable, very much of a one owner kind of animal (actually two owners, Diego and me). I am sure that a large part of the jaguar's attitude was that she was still essentially living in her own native environment, while the lion lived in a farm house far away from her natural habitat. Because of this we did not allow anyone around her unless either Diego or I were present.
Both of these large cats were very young when I got them, and they both went through that playful kitten stage that a normal house cat goes through. Even though the lion was much larger she never used her claws or teeth while playing. The Jaguar played as well, but much rougher, and it was not uncommon to come out of a play session with her with a few scratches and some teeth marks. I never felt that her attitude was malicious or that Mancha ever intended to hurt us, but rather she did not know her own strength in relation to us. The lion had a much better sense as to just how rough it could get with us while playing.
Initially Mancha drank milk from a baby bottle, but as she grew her feeding became a real challenge. The resources didn’t exist in the Darien that I had available to me for Tasha in Ann Arbor. We brought canned dog food from the Canal Zone Commissary, and would also buy up all of the meat scraps whenever they slaughtered a cow in the Mercadeo, for the sale of beef in El Real. She also ate small fish that Diego would fish out of the river in front of our house.
Security for Mancha was very important, not only protecting her from other people, but also protecting other people and animals (especially small dogs) from her. The Jaguar had a thick collar, attached to a long chain link leash, that was attached to a sliding ring and then to a stout metal cable that ran from a large tree beside the main house, to the front edge of the animal house. The total distance of the run was about fifty feet. We then fenced in this entire area with a low wooden fence. It gave her the freedom to move about over a large area, but still provided some security for her, as well as protected other small animals and children that might have happened by. I feel that we were very fortunate that in the years we had her we never had an incident.
The Indian came into town and stuck this newborn animal in my arms; the cub was less than two hours old and still wet from the birth.
That is how I acquired my jaguar, Mancha (the name sounds like a beautiful romantic name for such a majestic animal. Translation: Spot). Mancha lived with us for several years, until the time that I left Panama. Of all of our exotic pets she was by far the best. What an attraction: a tame jaguar that a tourist could pet while having their photograph taken.
When I had Lil' Critters in Michigan I traded a Macaw to a zoo for a seven day old female African Lion (I named her Tasha). I have always had an affinity for large cats, and grew up in a house where our pet Siamese cat 'Ming Toy' had well over 100 kittens during my childhood, eight to ten at a time. Tasha lived with me for over two years in the basement of the farm house on North Territorial Road, during which time she grew to become a 350 pound African Lion. She made a great pet, and needless to say, you don't own a lion for two years during college and not have some stories to tell about the experience.
I found the lion to be very predictable, and in all the time I had her she never scratched, or bit, or drew blood from anyone, even though Tasha was around people all the time. The lion ate 18 pounds of food a day, a mixture of Science Diet and Zu-Preem, with vitamins and minerals mixed in. She grew from a baby cub into a 350 pound lion over the span of a couple of years. This created a hefty food bill for a college kid to have to pay each week to be able to care for this large cat. So, I would rent Tasha out for corporate promotions at a rate of $250.00 per half hour. Because of this Tasha became accustomed to being around large groups of people.
The Jaguar was much more unpredictable, very much of a one owner kind of animal (actually two owners, Diego and me). I am sure that a large part of the jaguar's attitude was that she was still essentially living in her own native environment, while the lion lived in a farm house far away from her natural habitat. Because of this we did not allow anyone around her unless either Diego or I were present.
Both of these large cats were very young when I got them, and they both went through that playful kitten stage that a normal house cat goes through. Even though the lion was much larger she never used her claws or teeth while playing. The Jaguar played as well, but much rougher, and it was not uncommon to come out of a play session with her with a few scratches and some teeth marks. I never felt that her attitude was malicious or that Mancha ever intended to hurt us, but rather she did not know her own strength in relation to us. The lion had a much better sense as to just how rough it could get with us while playing.
Initially Mancha drank milk from a baby bottle, but as she grew her feeding became a real challenge. The resources didn’t exist in the Darien that I had available to me for Tasha in Ann Arbor. We brought canned dog food from the Canal Zone Commissary, and would also buy up all of the meat scraps whenever they slaughtered a cow in the Mercadeo, for the sale of beef in El Real. She also ate small fish that Diego would fish out of the river in front of our house.
Security for Mancha was very important, not only protecting her from other people, but also protecting other people and animals (especially small dogs) from her. The Jaguar had a thick collar, attached to a long chain link leash, that was attached to a sliding ring and then to a stout metal cable that ran from a large tree beside the main house, to the front edge of the animal house. The total distance of the run was about fifty feet. We then fenced in this entire area with a low wooden fence. It gave her the freedom to move about over a large area, but still provided some security for her, as well as protected other small animals and children that might have happened by. I feel that we were very fortunate that in the years we had her we never had an incident.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Darien
The Pan American Highway begins in Alaska, travels south through the Americas across great plains, rivers, swamps and jungles to its end at Tierra del Fuego on the bottom tip of Chile in South America. The only wilderness that has been too savage to be conquered by the highway, and man, is a 200 kilometer stretch through the virgin jungles of Darien; it is called the Darien Gap. Here you will find the greatest variety of ecosystems anywhere in tropical America. There are 56 species of animals that live in the Darien that are endangered everywhere else in the Americas. If you want to take your car to South America you have to ship it from Panama to Colombia because there is no through road.
The northern 100 kilometers of the Gap is the Darien Jungle of Southern Panama, some say the wildest jungles in the Americas. The southern 100 kilometers of the Gap is the Orinoco Swamps of Northern Colombia. It is said that you can submerge a twenty story office building into the swamps and it would disappear.
Construction of the road to bridge the Gap is highly controversial. The Gap has served as an impassable geographical boundary to keep diseases (like hoof and mouth which affects cattle and pigs) in South America, and out of Central and North America. I don't think there is anyone who wants to see the road built, with the exception of possibly the Colombian government. They believe that the completion of the road will help open new markets for Colombian products, and that they will be able to get goods to the north faster. There have been several ecological studies done on how the road will affect the animal life of the Darien, as well as the Chocó Indians. I know the Panamanian government was not too keen on the construction of the road because of the initial cost as well as the expense of the ongoing maintenance of the highway.
As a result of pressure from the Colombian and United States governments, the Panamanian government tried to build the road from Panama City to Yaviza, Darien while I was there. I think the Panamanian government also thought that a road through to Yaviza could possibly help develop the primitive Darien, one third of the land mass of the entire country, which supported only about one percent of the population of the country. This was a brilliant effort on the part of the Panamanian government. They divided the road into three segments, and contracted out the first two segments that were the closest to Panama City.
The company that had segment number two completed their section of the road.
The company that had segment number one (the segment that abutted Panama City) went bankrupt.
So they had this beautifully manicured gravel road cut through the dense jungle that went “from nowhere to nowhere!”
When I went back and saw the road several years later, the jungle had already come back to reclaim its own. There were many parts of that second segment of road that were virtually impassable due to the growth of dense foliage.
When my doctor heard that I was going into the Panamanian jungles he told me that I would need a 'few' shots. I think that it took about a month of weekly visits to the clinic to receive all of the 'few' shots he spoke about, before leaving Michigan. I think that he inoculated me against everything known to mankind. I was sick for several weeks following the barrage of needles.
One of the first stops in the preparation process was at an Army Surplus store. We purchased rain ponchos, hammocks that were enclosed with mosquito screen, a portable gas stove, and so many more supplies that we thought we would be needing for the adventure. Five years later the rain ponchos and the hammocks were still godsends in helping us to survive the rugged conditions of the Darien jungle.
When I left Michigan I was determined to stay healthy, so I brought malaria pills, and a powder that we would dissolve in your drinking water to make it safe to drink. That attitude lasted only about a month. The malaria pills gave me nausea, and the powder made the water virtually undrinkable. I finally resolved that if I were going to live in the jungle, I would take life as it came. Caution had never been a strong suit of mine, and if I were going to truly enjoy this unique experience this was certainly not the time to start being cautious. Besides, if it was good enough for the indigenous people to eat and drink, I figured that it was certainly good enough for me.
There is only one flight into and out of the Darien a day. If you miss it, good luck until tomorrow. The planes are called Islanders, seat eight people including the pilot, and have a small storage space in back for the luggage. The planes were very rustic and it was not unusual to have a live chicken under your seat during one of these flights. These planes fly out of a small airstrip about five miles outside of Panama City called Patilla Airport. The plane generally flies into El Real and La Palma, two of the three biggest cities in the Darien. The third largest city is Yaviza, but there doesn't seem to be much air travel there, as stops there are infrequent, and the tall primary growth jungle canopy trees at the end of the runway make landing and taking off a little scary. The flight takes about an hour, barring any unforeseen difficulties.
The bush pilots who fly these planes have incredible flying skills. I remember one time we were flying into El Real and the cloud cover was so thick that you couldn't see ground anywhere. I happened to be seated in the front seat beside the pilot, Valderama, who I grew to know very well. As we circled near where he thought the airport was, we both saw it at the same time - a small patch of the clouds had momentarily parted and you could see a tiny patch of what looked like brown river water through the small hole in the clouds.
Valderama put the plane immediately into a nosedive; we went through the hole in the clouds and came up about five feet above the surface of the river water. If there had been a Banana Boat coming down the river we would have flown right into it.
The plane wound its way up the river, just above the surface of the water and just below the low cloud cover. We came to the Boca, the mouth of two major rivers, the Tuira and the Chucunaque, which is very close to the entrance to El Real. Here the pilot hopped the plane back up into clouds just over the tops of the trees of the jungle canopy. Flying through dense cloud cover from memory he put the plane right back down out of the clouds and onto the airstrip at El Real.
The airstrip at El Real was always an adventure. It was a grass field carved out of the secondary growth rain forest. On one side it butted up against an area that was used for grazing cows. Once in a while you could not land until they cleared the cows off of the strip. There was a small shelter at the field, a block house with a thatched roof to protect passengers from the rain while they were waiting for the plane. There were always children waiting at the strip in El Real when the plane landed. For a quarter they would carry anything the half mile walk to city of El Real. You didn't wait for a taxi to come by to pick you up.
If the airstrip in El Real was an adventure, the strip in Yaviza was an example of a disaster waiting to happen. At one end of the strip there were many very tall (approximately 100+ feet) trees of the jungle canopy, and the other end of the strip butted up to the river embankment of the Chucunaque River. While coming in for a landing the wheels of the plane would clear the tops of the tall trees by only a few feet. As soon as we were clear of the canopy trees the pilot would stall the plane and it would drop almost straight down. Your heart would plummet into your shoes. At what seemed like the last moment before we flew into the ground, the pilot would level out and then slam on the brakes, hoping that the plane would stop before it went over the embankment and into the muddy waters of the Chucunaque.
The take off was the same heart attack in reverse. You would back up to the edge of the tall trees, rev the engine up to maximum, and hope you got up enough speed to be able to lift off before you went over the cliff and into the Chucunaque River at the far end of the runway.
The population of the Tuira/Chucunaque Basin of the Darien is split roughly in thirds. There are approximately equal numbers of Panamanian, Colombian, and Chocó Indian. The racial mixtures are interesting. You could almost tell where someone came from by the way they looked. The Colombians from the south of Colombia (like Cali) were very light skinned. The Colombians from the north (like Bogota) were dark skinned. The Panamanians had more of the Spanish and Indian influence in their backgrounds and had a light chocolate-colored skin. There were many Panamanians of direct Spanish decent who also had very light skin.
The Colombians and Panamanians were referred to as Mestizos (mixed), and their towns were separate from the Choco, void of any Indian inhabitants. The Mestizos looked down on the Indians and called them “Cholos and Cholas.” These words were spoken as a derogatory term to belittle the Chocó. The Chocó did not like to be referred to in this manner, and preferred to be described as “Chocó.” I have, however, heard the term “Cholita” used in an endearing fashion. So, it seems to depend some on the usage as to the exact meaning. In any case, a caring person would never use any of these terms around the Chocó Indians. After learning the true Darien meaning of these words, I became very sensitive to them, and forbade my employees from using them in my presence.
I realized very early on that the key to getting the cooperation of the Choco Indians was “showing respect.” I went out of my way to treat all Choco with respect whether male or female, and demanded the same from all of my Mestizo employees. When visiting a Choco village, I always paid a visit to the house of the elder of the village, simply to say “hi” and show my respect and thank him for allowing us to come into his village.
The Mestizos, on the other hand, seemed to have no racial, cultural or class barriers among themselves. All Mestizos were thought of as equals with all other Mestizos, regardless of where they came from or their racial or cultural background. The Darien is definitely split into these two distinctly different class groups; Mestizos and Chocó.
The main cities in Darien are La Palma, El Real and Yaviza, and they are populated by the Panamanians and Columbians. The Chocó Indians live in small villages, based around their family lineages, located on the banks of the various Darien Rivers. Each Chocó village is a walk of several hours to the next village or about an hour and a half to two hours by piragua, a motorized dugout canoe.
The city of Yaviza is about a little over an hour ride from El Real, up the Chucunaque River from the Boca. The Chucunaque basin begins at Yaviza and continues upriver with three smaller rivers branching from the main Chucunaque. The first branches off a short distance upriver from Yaviza and is called the Rio Chico. The other two small river branches are the Tuquesa and the Tupisa, with the mouth of the Tupisa about three hours upriver from Yaviza by piragua. Each of these three smaller rivers has three Chocó Indian villages on them.
Probably the most remote Chocó village that I saw while in Darien was the third, and last, village up the Rio Tupisa. The village was very small, approximately 10 huts, and set against a picturesque backdrop of the Serrania Del Darien. If we left our house at the crack of dawn, we would arrive at this village in darkness. By the reaction of the children in this village to us, I believe that they had never been exposed to a “Gringo” before. Seeing how the children were either afraid of us, or wanted to come up to us and touch our skin or hair, I imagined how the original Europeans, encountering these people for the first time, must have felt.
The northern 100 kilometers of the Gap is the Darien Jungle of Southern Panama, some say the wildest jungles in the Americas. The southern 100 kilometers of the Gap is the Orinoco Swamps of Northern Colombia. It is said that you can submerge a twenty story office building into the swamps and it would disappear.
Construction of the road to bridge the Gap is highly controversial. The Gap has served as an impassable geographical boundary to keep diseases (like hoof and mouth which affects cattle and pigs) in South America, and out of Central and North America. I don't think there is anyone who wants to see the road built, with the exception of possibly the Colombian government. They believe that the completion of the road will help open new markets for Colombian products, and that they will be able to get goods to the north faster. There have been several ecological studies done on how the road will affect the animal life of the Darien, as well as the Chocó Indians. I know the Panamanian government was not too keen on the construction of the road because of the initial cost as well as the expense of the ongoing maintenance of the highway.
As a result of pressure from the Colombian and United States governments, the Panamanian government tried to build the road from Panama City to Yaviza, Darien while I was there. I think the Panamanian government also thought that a road through to Yaviza could possibly help develop the primitive Darien, one third of the land mass of the entire country, which supported only about one percent of the population of the country. This was a brilliant effort on the part of the Panamanian government. They divided the road into three segments, and contracted out the first two segments that were the closest to Panama City.
The company that had segment number two completed their section of the road.
The company that had segment number one (the segment that abutted Panama City) went bankrupt.
So they had this beautifully manicured gravel road cut through the dense jungle that went “from nowhere to nowhere!”
When I went back and saw the road several years later, the jungle had already come back to reclaim its own. There were many parts of that second segment of road that were virtually impassable due to the growth of dense foliage.
When my doctor heard that I was going into the Panamanian jungles he told me that I would need a 'few' shots. I think that it took about a month of weekly visits to the clinic to receive all of the 'few' shots he spoke about, before leaving Michigan. I think that he inoculated me against everything known to mankind. I was sick for several weeks following the barrage of needles.
One of the first stops in the preparation process was at an Army Surplus store. We purchased rain ponchos, hammocks that were enclosed with mosquito screen, a portable gas stove, and so many more supplies that we thought we would be needing for the adventure. Five years later the rain ponchos and the hammocks were still godsends in helping us to survive the rugged conditions of the Darien jungle.
When I left Michigan I was determined to stay healthy, so I brought malaria pills, and a powder that we would dissolve in your drinking water to make it safe to drink. That attitude lasted only about a month. The malaria pills gave me nausea, and the powder made the water virtually undrinkable. I finally resolved that if I were going to live in the jungle, I would take life as it came. Caution had never been a strong suit of mine, and if I were going to truly enjoy this unique experience this was certainly not the time to start being cautious. Besides, if it was good enough for the indigenous people to eat and drink, I figured that it was certainly good enough for me.
There is only one flight into and out of the Darien a day. If you miss it, good luck until tomorrow. The planes are called Islanders, seat eight people including the pilot, and have a small storage space in back for the luggage. The planes were very rustic and it was not unusual to have a live chicken under your seat during one of these flights. These planes fly out of a small airstrip about five miles outside of Panama City called Patilla Airport. The plane generally flies into El Real and La Palma, two of the three biggest cities in the Darien. The third largest city is Yaviza, but there doesn't seem to be much air travel there, as stops there are infrequent, and the tall primary growth jungle canopy trees at the end of the runway make landing and taking off a little scary. The flight takes about an hour, barring any unforeseen difficulties.
The bush pilots who fly these planes have incredible flying skills. I remember one time we were flying into El Real and the cloud cover was so thick that you couldn't see ground anywhere. I happened to be seated in the front seat beside the pilot, Valderama, who I grew to know very well. As we circled near where he thought the airport was, we both saw it at the same time - a small patch of the clouds had momentarily parted and you could see a tiny patch of what looked like brown river water through the small hole in the clouds.
Valderama put the plane immediately into a nosedive; we went through the hole in the clouds and came up about five feet above the surface of the river water. If there had been a Banana Boat coming down the river we would have flown right into it.
The plane wound its way up the river, just above the surface of the water and just below the low cloud cover. We came to the Boca, the mouth of two major rivers, the Tuira and the Chucunaque, which is very close to the entrance to El Real. Here the pilot hopped the plane back up into clouds just over the tops of the trees of the jungle canopy. Flying through dense cloud cover from memory he put the plane right back down out of the clouds and onto the airstrip at El Real.
The airstrip at El Real was always an adventure. It was a grass field carved out of the secondary growth rain forest. On one side it butted up against an area that was used for grazing cows. Once in a while you could not land until they cleared the cows off of the strip. There was a small shelter at the field, a block house with a thatched roof to protect passengers from the rain while they were waiting for the plane. There were always children waiting at the strip in El Real when the plane landed. For a quarter they would carry anything the half mile walk to city of El Real. You didn't wait for a taxi to come by to pick you up.
If the airstrip in El Real was an adventure, the strip in Yaviza was an example of a disaster waiting to happen. At one end of the strip there were many very tall (approximately 100+ feet) trees of the jungle canopy, and the other end of the strip butted up to the river embankment of the Chucunaque River. While coming in for a landing the wheels of the plane would clear the tops of the tall trees by only a few feet. As soon as we were clear of the canopy trees the pilot would stall the plane and it would drop almost straight down. Your heart would plummet into your shoes. At what seemed like the last moment before we flew into the ground, the pilot would level out and then slam on the brakes, hoping that the plane would stop before it went over the embankment and into the muddy waters of the Chucunaque.
The take off was the same heart attack in reverse. You would back up to the edge of the tall trees, rev the engine up to maximum, and hope you got up enough speed to be able to lift off before you went over the cliff and into the Chucunaque River at the far end of the runway.
The population of the Tuira/Chucunaque Basin of the Darien is split roughly in thirds. There are approximately equal numbers of Panamanian, Colombian, and Chocó Indian. The racial mixtures are interesting. You could almost tell where someone came from by the way they looked. The Colombians from the south of Colombia (like Cali) were very light skinned. The Colombians from the north (like Bogota) were dark skinned. The Panamanians had more of the Spanish and Indian influence in their backgrounds and had a light chocolate-colored skin. There were many Panamanians of direct Spanish decent who also had very light skin.
The Colombians and Panamanians were referred to as Mestizos (mixed), and their towns were separate from the Choco, void of any Indian inhabitants. The Mestizos looked down on the Indians and called them “Cholos and Cholas.” These words were spoken as a derogatory term to belittle the Chocó. The Chocó did not like to be referred to in this manner, and preferred to be described as “Chocó.” I have, however, heard the term “Cholita” used in an endearing fashion. So, it seems to depend some on the usage as to the exact meaning. In any case, a caring person would never use any of these terms around the Chocó Indians. After learning the true Darien meaning of these words, I became very sensitive to them, and forbade my employees from using them in my presence.
I realized very early on that the key to getting the cooperation of the Choco Indians was “showing respect.” I went out of my way to treat all Choco with respect whether male or female, and demanded the same from all of my Mestizo employees. When visiting a Choco village, I always paid a visit to the house of the elder of the village, simply to say “hi” and show my respect and thank him for allowing us to come into his village.
The Mestizos, on the other hand, seemed to have no racial, cultural or class barriers among themselves. All Mestizos were thought of as equals with all other Mestizos, regardless of where they came from or their racial or cultural background. The Darien is definitely split into these two distinctly different class groups; Mestizos and Chocó.
The main cities in Darien are La Palma, El Real and Yaviza, and they are populated by the Panamanians and Columbians. The Chocó Indians live in small villages, based around their family lineages, located on the banks of the various Darien Rivers. Each Chocó village is a walk of several hours to the next village or about an hour and a half to two hours by piragua, a motorized dugout canoe.
The city of Yaviza is about a little over an hour ride from El Real, up the Chucunaque River from the Boca. The Chucunaque basin begins at Yaviza and continues upriver with three smaller rivers branching from the main Chucunaque. The first branches off a short distance upriver from Yaviza and is called the Rio Chico. The other two small river branches are the Tuquesa and the Tupisa, with the mouth of the Tupisa about three hours upriver from Yaviza by piragua. Each of these three smaller rivers has three Chocó Indian villages on them.
Probably the most remote Chocó village that I saw while in Darien was the third, and last, village up the Rio Tupisa. The village was very small, approximately 10 huts, and set against a picturesque backdrop of the Serrania Del Darien. If we left our house at the crack of dawn, we would arrive at this village in darkness. By the reaction of the children in this village to us, I believe that they had never been exposed to a “Gringo” before. Seeing how the children were either afraid of us, or wanted to come up to us and touch our skin or hair, I imagined how the original Europeans, encountering these people for the first time, must have felt.
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