Where to begin...
So, somewhere around the start of April I left Luna´s with the job unfinished and headed to Costa Rica for one last night in Franks insane company. We had a crazy night in San Jose and then he was gone. No more Batty Boy! Then off to Porto Viejo. They refer to this place as a backpacker reggae heaven so you can guess what i got up to there! Full of Americans who had got stuck there. One old guy had been coming back every summer for 17 years and had been looking for somewhere to buy for the last 6, but couldn´t quite find the right view of the sea.
After a week in yet another caribbeantropical paridise it was time to move on, but where to? What was the "plan".
As usual there wasn´t one. Life is so much simpler when you let it plan itself. You end up where you should be, which for me turned out to be Boquete, up in the Panamanian mountains and home to the highest point in Panama, Mount Baru.
And mount it we did. I met up with a couple of American brothers, Spencer and Walker. Walker had just been doing some kind of eco farm exploration of Central America. Then on a dark night, the day after we met, 0100 hrs, we set off up the Mountain. It wasn´t until about half way up that I realised it is a damn long way up a hill like that!
The reason we climbed at night was in order to reach the top as the sun rose, and what a sunrise it was! The sun coming up over the banks of cloud that streached all the way to the Atlantic and in the opposite direction the Pacific with the shadow of the Mountain streaching to the horizon. Stunning. This was combined with the most orgasmic pineapple i have ever put in my mouth. This thing was divine! So juicy and sweet! I´m sure the effects of the altitude made it even sweeter!!!
I´m sure I mentioned this before but as we´re on the subject of fruit, many months ago, in The Comonwealth of Dominica, I had a religious experiance with a mango.
Anyway. After the epic glories of Baru we headed back to Panama City. Walker to catch a flight, Spencer to decide where to go next, and I, to find a Yacht to New Zealand. I´d been chatting to a few skippers online and they were interested in meeting up for a drink to assess me. We hitched a lift with some other yanks, travelling writers in a big van callerd the Avacado. An ex-tour bus with ceiling lighting!
So back to Lunas! I met up with Melchior and Roman, two french guys I met in the Canaries. We ended up playing music for hours! It was great!
And then I changed my mind. Screw New Zealand, for now at least, I am off to Colombia and then the rest of South America! But how to get to Colombia? The san blas route is stunning, but done that bit. Fly? No! Through the Darien by land? Guerillas, malaria, some of the densest jungle and marsh land in the world? No. By boat down the pacific coast? Why yes!
15 dolla! thankyou! 3 or 4 days, Great! We leave tomorrow you say! Perfect, for that is my birthday! Sometimes things just go you way. Off to the shop for supplies! I think you can pretty much guess what we brought, but best by far, Papaya = sent direct from the tables of heaven to blow your mind with a taste and texture explosion. The fruit out here is so fucking great!
That night was spent on the bow of the Amparo, a beautiful old 80ft wooden motor boat, on an almost mirror like sea, outpacing a slight following swell and all strait into a scintillating full moon.
To top it all off I got chatting to this crazy french guy in his 50s, who was in the past something to do with the fench military. You seen Leon, right? For the last 13 years he had been living in the Darien, next to El Playa Del Muerte. The beach of death. Teh story goes something like this. An english priveteer ship had been chasing a group of pirates for 2 days. Eventually the brits caught up and ravaged the npirates. Not one was left alive. The beach was covered in blood. The Captain of the Privateer took 4 men into the jungle to bury the treasuse. He killed them all there and left for England. There he died. No one knows where the treasure is. But this guy is looking.
So we get to Haiken on in Panama but on the Colombian boarder, deep in the Darien. Stunning place. Then next day to Jurodo. Colombian Frontier town. Until 15 years ago a guerilla town, now a pretty much unmolested paradise. We arrived in a torrential downpour the likes of which England has never seen. As soon as we touched land we were shepperded to the police station.
"We", was now Spencer, Jonny (AKA Maloco, brasillian artisan, travelling the world from the age of 14. He speaks a kind of half spanish, half porugeese and to this day i barely understand what he says. we gat along great!!) and Veronica.
No internet time left!!!!!!
panic and fearª
more to come
dan
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