I would go out with the fishermen and get in the mud to fish with them at least once every other tide. I found it fun and it demonstrated to everyone that I would never ask them to do something that I was not willing to do myself. If there were 20 fishermen going out to work one of the large nets (eventually we constructed a second bayao) they would go to the net placements in pairs, each fisherman in his own personal small dugout canoe. They would sit by one of the marked poles as the tide went down, until they were both sitting on top of the mud. We had ten groups of two who were all arranged in this manner. Once the water was gone you would get out of the dugout into the almost thigh deep mud. In each group each fisherman would head off in opposite directions, pushing the small dugout on top of the mud and collecting the shrimp that was up against the net as they went along. Each fisherman would eventually be met by someone coming in opposite direction. A typical span that required collection was about the length of a football field, and it took a couple of hours to cover each assigned segment of the mud flat after the tide receded, and before the new tide rolled back in.
On one particular night I could tell that it was a good night because of the large number of shrimp that had been caught behind the nets. I was standing in thigh deep mud and had with me a small dugout canoe that I would use to toss the shrimp into. I pushed as the canoe glided along the top of the mud as I worked my way down the line of nets. The quantity of bugs is unimaginable, as there is a constant din buzzing around, the kind of noise that is not made by a few bugs but by zillions of them. Fortunately, the diesel does keep the flying insects off of your body. I had an old Seco bottle filled with kerosene and an old rag stuffed in the open end of the bottle, and lit on fire, for light. The nets, which were still up and couldn’t be put back down until the tide returned, formed a solid black wall in the darkness about ten feet high and almost a mile long.
As I progressed, suddenly the entire span of the net shook as if it had been hit by a bus. I was shocked, and a little frightened, as I had never encountered anything like this before. I continued to collect the shrimp and pushed my small boat forward in the direction of the light that approached in the distance. I knew the light was Felipe's and on this night I was looking forward to meeting up with him. Suddenly the entire net shook again. This shaking of the net continued to occur periodically during the entire time I was moving along my segment of the net line.
As a fisherman works his way along the net he encounters a couple of areas on each segment that never quite dry completely. The water flows to the lowest point and these pools are constantly fed, as the tide retreats, by small inland streams. I finally came upon one of these pools and there I discovered the cause of the net's movements.
We had caught a 700 pound hammerhead shark that was swimming around in a three-foot deep, twelve foot wide pool of water. Every once in a while it would ram into the net. The force from this huge shark shook the entire line of nets.
I screamed out, in the still clear night air, in the direction of the light in the distance, "Felipe, we have caught a giant shark here in this pool."
Felipe screamed back at me, "Leave it alone, Gringo."
Every time the shark swam to the side of the pool where I stood in the mud just a few feet from the edge of the pool, several shrimp would jump out of the pool trying to get away from the shark. I would collect up these fugitive shrimp and toss them into the canoe. I calculated that there had to be a lot of shrimp in the pool, and to retrieve the shrimp I had to somehow either make friends with the shark, or kill it.
The next time the shark came back over to my side of the pool, I took my very large hard wood mahogany paddle, waved it over my head, and brought it down squarely on top of the shark's head, wham!
Bad idea!
It was like hitting solid cement. It cracked my “unbreakable” paddle and hurt my hand.
And, I think I heard the shark laughing at me!
It was then that I remembered that a shark has to keep moving or it dies. It’s funny when you are in these situations what you are able to remember from your years of schooling. This shark was moving constantly and still occasionally ramming itself into the nets. So I slowly made my way through the mud around the pool and up the side of the stream that was keeping the pool filled. There I started to stack the mud trying to dam up the small stream. The idea worked as the stream water was diverted and started to run out along the sides of the mud flats and away from the shark’s pool. The rest of the water ran out of the pool, the pool dried up, and the shark died.
I then took my small canoe over to this monster dead shark and tied him and the canoe together. The shark was at least half again bigger than the canoe. I will never forget the looks on the guy's faces when I paddled back up to the main rancho as the tide came back in, with this giant hammerhead tied to the side of my little dugout canoe. I was exhausted and my body was completely caked in mud, but I had earned a new level of respect from the fishermen. The guys cut out the jaws and gave them to me, and I still have those jaws to this day. Those shark jaws are one of my most treasured possessions.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Loco
One of our Marineros was named 'Loco' (translation: Loco) and if you had ever met him you would know that the name was appropriate. He was a Panamanian, about 16 years old, five feet tall and weighed next to nothing, but could he climb! He was never afraid of anything. One day while headed up the river with two boats-full of tourists, he spotted a very large, six foot iguana sunning itself on a large branch that hung out over the river. The branch was at least 50 feet above the river. "Iguana!" he screamed. This was a good reason to stop the show, and we pulled over immediately to the bank.
Loco went up the tree so fast that if the tourists weren't paying attention to it they missed it. Loco got up to the tree limb with the iguana and he started inching out onto the branch. The iguana sat there, sunning itself, like nothing was happening. Suddenly the iguana looked up and saw Loco coming out onto his branch, who by now he was just a couple of feet away and inching toward the beast. This surprised the iguana, I am sure he had never seen anything like Loco before on his branch.
So the iguana jumped straight off the branch and floated down through the air toward the river.
It was like the whole event happened in slow motion.
As soon as the iguana jumped, Loco jumped!
He floated down toward the river just a few feet in the air behind the iguana. Both were gliding through the air at the same time. Loco hit the water right on top of the spot where the iguana had hit the water only a moment earlier. When he came up he thrust the iguana into the air, held above his head in both of his hands. All the tourists broke out in applause, as if this had been planned.
Iguana is a delicacy in the Darien. Everybody loves to eat it, and there is a surprisingly large amount of meat on a six foot iguana. Everyone says that it tastes like chicken (they say the same thing about snake meat). The real treat is finding a nest with eggs. The eggs have a soft shell that is a little leathery. They are just a little bit smaller than a chicken egg. You boil the eggs for about five minutes then let them cool. Then you take the egg and bite a little hole in the end of it. When you squeeze the other end of the egg the contents just pop right into your mouth. It is delicious. That night, of course, all the tourists ate iguana, compliments of Loco.
Loco went up the tree so fast that if the tourists weren't paying attention to it they missed it. Loco got up to the tree limb with the iguana and he started inching out onto the branch. The iguana sat there, sunning itself, like nothing was happening. Suddenly the iguana looked up and saw Loco coming out onto his branch, who by now he was just a couple of feet away and inching toward the beast. This surprised the iguana, I am sure he had never seen anything like Loco before on his branch.
So the iguana jumped straight off the branch and floated down through the air toward the river.
It was like the whole event happened in slow motion.
As soon as the iguana jumped, Loco jumped!
He floated down toward the river just a few feet in the air behind the iguana. Both were gliding through the air at the same time. Loco hit the water right on top of the spot where the iguana had hit the water only a moment earlier. When he came up he thrust the iguana into the air, held above his head in both of his hands. All the tourists broke out in applause, as if this had been planned.
Iguana is a delicacy in the Darien. Everybody loves to eat it, and there is a surprisingly large amount of meat on a six foot iguana. Everyone says that it tastes like chicken (they say the same thing about snake meat). The real treat is finding a nest with eggs. The eggs have a soft shell that is a little leathery. They are just a little bit smaller than a chicken egg. You boil the eggs for about five minutes then let them cool. Then you take the egg and bite a little hole in the end of it. When you squeeze the other end of the egg the contents just pop right into your mouth. It is delicious. That night, of course, all the tourists ate iguana, compliments of Loco.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
The Cuna Indians
As I have stated, the Cuna have only two settlements in the Darien; Pucuru and Paya. All of the other Indian villages in the Darien are Chocó. The Cuna principally live on the San Blas Islands on the Atlantic side of the country separated from the Darien by a mountain range: the Serrania Del Darien. I took a trip to an island resort there for a short vacation, and the islands were beautiful, with white sand beaches, palm trees and crystal clear water. It was a great place to go and relax and forget about everything for a few days.
It is said that the Cuna migrated into the Darien basin from Southern Colombia. The banks of the rivers throughout the Darien were already populated by the Choco when the Cuna arrived. Since they came from a colder climate they began to settle along the Serrania del Darien, the mountain range that separates the Darien from the Atlantic Ocean. Over time the Cuna migrated over the mountain range and into the San Blas Islands.
From Boca de Cope, the last village upriver on the Tuira, the trip is about a three hour walk through very thick primary growth jungle, to get to Pucuru. The walk is almost entirely uphill as you are beginning to climb the mountains that separate Panama from Colombia as well as the Darien basin from the Atlantic coast. This hike is one of the most interesting and entertaining that you encounter in the Darien. This trail is so remote that there is seldom any foot traffic, and the animal life is always abundant.
The Cuna Indians live in houses built right on the ground with split cane walls, dirt floors and thatched roofs. Pucuru and Paya are in a higher altitude region that never floods.
The Cunas are famous for their molas, a reverse appliqué that is made by cutting and sewing some very colorful materials. The molas are very popular and you frequently see them for sale in Panama City, and in the tourist trade. The Cuna of Pucuru also made the traditional molas, which they would sew together and use for shirts and blouses, much in the same manner as their ancestors did for centuries. The Cuna of Pucuru did sell some molas to the tourists, on the occasions when we took groups into their village. They charged much less than half the price of what a tourist could buy them for in Panama City.
The other distinctive feature of the Cuna Indians, other than the molas, was their silver nose rings that were worn by both the men and the women. They also wore silver earrings that were frequently made of old coins in the same manner as the Chocó.
The personality of the Cuna Indians is very different from that of the Chocó. They are strong, aggressive people with a good business sense. They were also a very guarded people. They would keep to themselves when we set up camp in their village, and only visit with us and be hospitable when they were selling their molas. By contrast the Chocó would visit with us during the evening after we set up camp, and the Chocó children would always be around us and very eager to help whenever they could during the set up of the camp site. The Cuna of Pucuru and Paya did not move about the Darien the way the Chocó did. There would always be some Chocó in any of the cities like La Palma or El Real. The Cuna never came down to those cities. Actually, a traveler would rarely see the Cuna in Panama City as well, and it was even rarer to see the Chocó in the City.
The Cuna villages of the Darien were very isolated, and the only visitors who passed through them were headed over the gap into Colombia on foot; there was no access by river. Paya was the last vestige of human life located at the edge of the wild frontier leading to Colombia. There was a Guardia outpost there manned by a single soldier.
There was a river that ran by Pucuru, but it was so small and shallow that it was not navigable by dugout canoe. There was a nice wooden house built right on the outskirts of the village of Pucuru, similar to the house we first built when we arrived to the Darien. This house was built by European missionaries, and a couple lived there with the Cuna; they had lived in that house for several years when we met them. I respected these people. They were not phonies like most of the missionaries that I met, and had committed their lives to living, working and educating the Cuna Indians of this village while maintaining the tribe’s culture and traditions.
We took groups of tourists into this village on only about half a dozen occasions, most of who were bird watchers. Since this area was mountainous, unlike the rest of the Darien basin which was flat, the species here varied from what they had seen all day on the way upriver. One of the most common birds we saw were wild Macaws, both the blue and gold, and the scarlet varieties. These birds have a six foot wing span, are brightly colored, and a majestic beauty when we saw them in flight. They lived in the very top of the mountain jungle canopy, and it was common to spot them on the hike from Boca de Cupe to Pucuru.
It is said that the Cuna migrated into the Darien basin from Southern Colombia. The banks of the rivers throughout the Darien were already populated by the Choco when the Cuna arrived. Since they came from a colder climate they began to settle along the Serrania del Darien, the mountain range that separates the Darien from the Atlantic Ocean. Over time the Cuna migrated over the mountain range and into the San Blas Islands.
From Boca de Cope, the last village upriver on the Tuira, the trip is about a three hour walk through very thick primary growth jungle, to get to Pucuru. The walk is almost entirely uphill as you are beginning to climb the mountains that separate Panama from Colombia as well as the Darien basin from the Atlantic coast. This hike is one of the most interesting and entertaining that you encounter in the Darien. This trail is so remote that there is seldom any foot traffic, and the animal life is always abundant.
The Cuna Indians live in houses built right on the ground with split cane walls, dirt floors and thatched roofs. Pucuru and Paya are in a higher altitude region that never floods.
The Cunas are famous for their molas, a reverse appliqué that is made by cutting and sewing some very colorful materials. The molas are very popular and you frequently see them for sale in Panama City, and in the tourist trade. The Cuna of Pucuru also made the traditional molas, which they would sew together and use for shirts and blouses, much in the same manner as their ancestors did for centuries. The Cuna of Pucuru did sell some molas to the tourists, on the occasions when we took groups into their village. They charged much less than half the price of what a tourist could buy them for in Panama City.
The other distinctive feature of the Cuna Indians, other than the molas, was their silver nose rings that were worn by both the men and the women. They also wore silver earrings that were frequently made of old coins in the same manner as the Chocó.
The personality of the Cuna Indians is very different from that of the Chocó. They are strong, aggressive people with a good business sense. They were also a very guarded people. They would keep to themselves when we set up camp in their village, and only visit with us and be hospitable when they were selling their molas. By contrast the Chocó would visit with us during the evening after we set up camp, and the Chocó children would always be around us and very eager to help whenever they could during the set up of the camp site. The Cuna of Pucuru and Paya did not move about the Darien the way the Chocó did. There would always be some Chocó in any of the cities like La Palma or El Real. The Cuna never came down to those cities. Actually, a traveler would rarely see the Cuna in Panama City as well, and it was even rarer to see the Chocó in the City.
The Cuna villages of the Darien were very isolated, and the only visitors who passed through them were headed over the gap into Colombia on foot; there was no access by river. Paya was the last vestige of human life located at the edge of the wild frontier leading to Colombia. There was a Guardia outpost there manned by a single soldier.
There was a river that ran by Pucuru, but it was so small and shallow that it was not navigable by dugout canoe. There was a nice wooden house built right on the outskirts of the village of Pucuru, similar to the house we first built when we arrived to the Darien. This house was built by European missionaries, and a couple lived there with the Cuna; they had lived in that house for several years when we met them. I respected these people. They were not phonies like most of the missionaries that I met, and had committed their lives to living, working and educating the Cuna Indians of this village while maintaining the tribe’s culture and traditions.
We took groups of tourists into this village on only about half a dozen occasions, most of who were bird watchers. Since this area was mountainous, unlike the rest of the Darien basin which was flat, the species here varied from what they had seen all day on the way upriver. One of the most common birds we saw were wild Macaws, both the blue and gold, and the scarlet varieties. These birds have a six foot wing span, are brightly colored, and a majestic beauty when we saw them in flight. They lived in the very top of the mountain jungle canopy, and it was common to spot them on the hike from Boca de Cupe to Pucuru.
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