by Levison Wood
It was the thirtieth of October and we’d spent the morning walking along the highway, which was virtually deserted on account of the fact that it was a Sunday morning. I enjoyed it when it was like this and we had the road to ourselves; it meant that we didn’t have to worry about getting flattened by a truck, or dodging drunken drivers. It was a pleasant walk, especially since we were no more than a few miles away from the Pacific Ocean and occasionally we’d be treated to a view of the vast expanse of water in between the hills and palm trees.
We’d become used to starting the day without breakfast now. Often it simply wasn’t available, because the Panamanians didn’t get up till late, and when they did, it took them at least two hours to knock up a meal; and sometimes we just wanted to start walking early so that we could avoid the heat of the day and get some miles done before lunch. Today was one of those days. But it was almost noon now and we were both very hungry.
‘There’s nothing on this road at all,’ said Alberto.
He was right, there hadn’t been a single service station, shop or stall the whole route. The only other human being in sight was a boy standing under the shade of an acacia tree selling crabs.
‘Have you got any cooked?’ I asked him, salivating at the thought.
‘No, just these, they’re all alive. Buy one from me.’
I looked at the string of crabs, all tied together writhing their pincers and stalky eyes. I felt sorry for them. ‘No thanks.’
‘Where can we find some food?’ Alberto asked.
‘You can try El Nancito, up there,’ the boy nodded towards a side road that led up the hill off the main highway.
We thanked the boy and gave him a tip, before following his advice and walking off up to the village of El Nancito. It was a detour of a mile or so, but since we were so hungry, we decided it was worth it.
When we arrived, there was a little shop selling bananas and nuts, so we had to make do with that. It wasn’t exactly the most filling meal, but I’d learned to appreciate the power of serendipity. Whilst we only managed to find a meagre meal, what we discovered at El Nancito reminded me yet again about why I loved ground-level exploration.
There, in the middle of the quiet little village, we discovered a field full of giant boulders covered in prehistoric carvings. These were the little-known petroglyphs of Panama. Tucked away behind a rusty wire fence lay one of the wonders of Central America.
‘How do we get in?’ I said to Alberto.
‘Let’s climb it,’ he suggested.
It didn’t sit too well with me, climbing over a fence to get into an archaeological site, but it seemed like there were plenty of holes that we could scuttle through. We asked the man in the shop what he thought.
‘Nobody’s been here in ages. They sometimes open it if there’s any tourists, but there haven’t been any all season. Anyway, it’s a Sunday so the caretaker isn’t around. Just go through one of the holes, that’s what we all used to do as kids.’
We left a donation for the caretaker with the shopkeeper, in the vain hope that it would get to its rightful owner, and climbed through the fence.
The boulders seemed out of place, I guess they must have been spewed out of a volcano somewhere in the recesses of the past, but here they were, dozens of them in all shapes and sizes, some balanced precariously on each other like gigantic marbles. One or two had split down the middle and now had trees growing out of the centre. What united them all, though, was the fascinating etchings that had been engraved on their surfaces.
The shapes looked aboriginal in design, mostly abstract shapes of wiggly lines and dots; but some were clear representations of the physical world. There was a cross and an arrow and a sun, and what looked to be a human with his manhood very much on display. These were the markings of the ancient Ngobe tribe. Probably. The thing is, there is no accurate way of ever dating these inscriptions, or translating what they say. There was never an empire or real civilisation in Panama, only the sporadic evidence of hunter-gatherers who liked to draw pictures on rocks.
‘How old are they?’ asked Alberto.
‘Impossible to say. But from what I’ve read, they’re at least two and a half thousand years old. But some people think they might be double that age.’
‘There’s still a lot we don’t know, isn’t there?’
‘There certainly is.’
It occurred to me that we will never know the full story of pre-Colombian civilisation in the Americas. At least in places like Egypt, the sand kept archaeological ruins fairly intact. But here in the jungle, the rain and the trees meant that nature would always succeed in wiping away all but the most hardy traces of man’s existence. Trees, moss, roots and vines have disappeared entire cities in this unforgiving environment, and a world without metal is almost impossible to rediscover. But one thing is for sure, there’s plenty more out there somewhere.
We carried on east, following the curvature of Panama past the city of Santiago and the towns of Pocrí and Penonomé. It took almost a week to reach the slopes of El Valle de Antón, but it was a beautiful walk. We’d found the paradise of the postcards at last. Here, on the shores of the Pacific, wandering through the farmlands and rolling hills of Coclé and the central highlands, was a kind of rare magnificence. It didn’t matter that the Panamanians were some of the most idle and disinterested folk imaginable, their backyards made up for it. Teak trees lined the country lanes and exquisite stallions roamed the fields. Even the snakes were wondrous. One day, as we were traipsing along the road to Penonomé, a two-metre boa constrictor was slithering across the road. It was clearly wounded, somebody had tried to bash it in for fear of it eating the pet dog, so we picked it up and carried it to a wild bit of forest where we could let it go in peace.
Huge blue butterflies danced around the wildflowers, and bananas grew wild from the hedgerows. As we ambled by, the accompanying soundtrack was one of crashing waterfalls, singing cicadas, and the ringing of cows’ bells. It was a scene of man’s early happiness, unchanged in centuries. It was Independence Day here, too. Panama got to have an entire month’s worth of celebrations since it had its independence from Spain, but also Colombia, which had once ruled the country.
That meant that everywhere we went, we would find girls in long, flowing gypsy dresses, a legacy of the Spanish tradition. There were ladies with fans and castanets and gold jewellery drawn across bare shoulders. There was dancing in the streets and cross-dressers galore, and the boys playing trumpets were all kitted out in their best straw hats and white linen shirts. Despite it being the rainy season, we’d come at a time when the whole country was having a party.
Alberto had long forgotten about his blisters and we were covering a rapid pace. Even the occasional rain did nothing to dampen our spirits, as we began the ascent to El Valle de Antón. This was a place I’d been excited to visit for a long time. We got higher and higher up towards the crest of the mountain – this was the largest inhabited volcano crater in the world.
According to legend, Indians came to live here thousands of years ago, attracted by the magical properties of the warm waters, the abundance of wood, and I imagine, the rather splendid views from the top across the country. Nowadays it’s the playground of the Panama millionaires, a country retreat for the wealthy businessmen and their families from Panama City forty miles away. The walk to the top was hard work, but worth it. Looking back from the top of the rim, we could see the glistening Pacific and the jungle-clad shoreline in all its turquoise glory, and then ahead was a perfect ring of pristine rainforest circling this ancient valley. We looked down in wonder.
‘There’s a town in there?’ said Alberto in surprise.
‘I know, you can hardly tell,’ I said. It looked like a flat expanse of green; only the occasional flash of blue or red from a rooftop, and a few patches of garden and road, gave away the presence of a settlement inside the crater.
We ran down the road for a mile into the heart of the volcano, into the canopy of the
forest below. It was like entering the Lost World in the twenty-first century. Beautiful mansions were hidden behind walls of mahogany, and little lanes joined the manicured gardens and bungalows. Everywhere there were brand-new cars and buggies being driven by city folk having fun and celebrating their freedom. Boys cantered along on horses amid the meadows and babbling brooks. The red flowers of the acacia and towering teak trees almost obscured the sky from view, as we walked through this mini-paradise to find a bed for the night.
‘I can’t believe we’ve almost made it,’ said Alberto. ‘We’re nearly there and I’m so happy.’
‘Me, too, and you know what, thanks for coming along. This journey wouldn’t have been the same without you,’ I said.
I was genuinely getting a bit emotional about the fact that there were only a few weeks left to push, and I knew I’d have to say goodbye to my old mate. If I’d learnt anything on these journeys, it was that friendships matter. People matter. You can be in hell, but as long as you’re with someone you trust and you enjoy their company, then it’s bearable, and sometimes even fun. Likewise, you can be in the most beautiful place on earth, but if you don’t have anyone to share it with, then it loses its magic. Luckily, I was here in this extraordinary place with a good companion.
We were tantalisingly close to Panama City now; a mere forty miles on the far side of the crater to the east. We left El Valle de Antón content that we’d found somewhere so incredibly special that it would be a place that would stay in our hearts for a long time. The road wound back down the volcano towards Las Lajas where we reconnected with the highway. It took three more days to reach Panama City as we walked towards La Chorrera. The closer we got to the city, the more built-up the road became. After a spell of beautiful clear skies, we thought that perhaps the rainy season had all but passed us by, and we were feeling quite smug about the fact. But then one afternoon, as we started to leave the outskirts of a town, it began to rain so hard that I thought we might get washed away.
‘I’ve never seen rain like it,’ said Alberto, ‘and that’s coming from someone who’s been in hurricanes most of his life.’
The motorway vanished in the pounding rain and visibility was suddenly cut down to barely a few metres.
‘It’s too dangerous to walk along this road in this rain,’ I shouted through the noise of the thunder. ‘We’ll get hit by a lorry. Let’s find some shelter.’
I looked around. We were on the edge of an industrial park and the only place with any lights on nearby was the glowing golden arches of a McDonalds restaurant up ahead. It was the first one we’d seen, I think, on the entire journey.
‘That’ll have to do.’
We ran through the ankle-deep puddles across the road and darted through the revolving door into the dry safety of the fast-food joint. We were drenched through and the cold blast of the air-conditioning sent a shiver down my spine.
‘Let’s wait and dry off a bit. It shouldn’t last too long.’
The restaurant was full of rich Panamanian kids filling up on burgers after a weekend of fun in El Valle de Antón.
‘Hallo, guys, where are you from?’ The voice was English with a European accent. Dutch, perhaps? I looked around to see two men, travellers, every bit as soaking wet as Alberto and I were.
‘Looks like you got caught out, too,’ said Alberto to the first man. The pair looked like they were in their late twenties or early thirties. The one who had greeted us was slim and looked like he’d been travelling a while. The other, dark and bearded, wore cycling shorts.
I told him that I was British and Alberto was Mexican.
‘Ah, great, we were in Mexico a few months ago,’ said Tom, the slimmer one.
I asked them what they were doing.
‘I’m hitchhiking to South America and Peter here is cycling. His bike is outside. We’re from Belgium.’
‘Are you travelling together?’ I asked, wondering how that worked.
‘No, it’s weird we’re both from the same place and started at the same time and now we keep bumping into each other along the way, every day or few days we find ourselves in the same place. How strange we all meet in McDonalds like this, eh?’
It was strange indeed.
‘You’re walking to Colombia?’ asked Tom, clearly surprised that we were heading in the same direction.
I couldn’t help but enquire about their plans to reach South America. These were the first travellers we’d met on our route that were planning on trying to get to Colombia, and as far as I was aware, nobody had succeeded in crossing by land in years, if not decades.
‘Well, we are also trying to cross the Darién Gap,’ he said, sounding confident in his plans.
‘How are you going to do it?’ I asked.
He went quiet for a second and eyed me up and down. ‘We don’t have a plan. We just thought we’d get to Yaviza and pay the Indians to tell us the way across.’
He was either very clever and keeping his cards close to his chest, or else he was very naïve, if not downright stupid.
‘What about you?’ he said to me. Alberto kept quiet and gave me a glance.
I didn’t want to tell this stranger our route for fear of him getting there first. Not because it was a competition, but because if these two amateurs went and pissed off the army or the Indians, they could screw it up for us. The Darién Gap hadn’t been crossed, legally at least, since the 1970s and the last thing I needed was a couple of ill-prepared backpackers messing up my plans. Well, whatever plans I had.
Originally, we’d had a notion of going straight through the middle of the jungle and either crossing the Atrato river to get to Turbo, or else heading south-west towards the Pacific coast at Jurado. But to be honest, it was all up in the air. We’d been granted nominal approval by the Panamanian border force – SENAFRONT – to get through their side of the forest, and a tip-off from the Colombians, who said that we should get through and ask questions later. But really, it all came down to the tribal chief on the day and what mood he was in. The Embera and Kuna Indians were notoriously fickle and suspicious of foreigners, and since we were doing things by the book, my worry was that these Belgians could ruin our chances on a whim.
‘Look, mate. We’re not sure which route we’re taking yet,’ I told him the truth. ‘But the reality is this. If you go into the Darién, you’re going to need SENAFRONT approval and a local guide to get you through. Who are you speaking to?’
Tom looked at Peter and back at me. ‘Nobody yet, maybe you can give us your contacts.’
‘I can’t do that,’ I told them.
I began to feel sorry for them. They hadn’t got a clue about how serious this border was, and how dangerous the jungle could be for them. I felt like I should at least give them some advice, since I’d been planning this journey for months. There was something else, too. Here I was, almost at the end of a large-scale expedition, having had the privilege of a back-up team in the UK, television support and a pretty decent budget, and yet these lads had done the same thing with no money on a wing and a prayer. I was vaguely jealous of their freedom and sense of confidence, however unfounded.
‘What equipment do you have?’ I asked, wanting to see how prepared they were.
Peter showed me a tiny backpack. ‘This is all I need.’
‘What about tents or hammocks? Boots?’
‘I don’t have anything like that. Maybe I’ll pick something up in Panama City,’ Tom replied.
‘Yes, you might want to do that,’ I said, bewildered at what they thought they were letting themselves in for.
‘Have you ever been in the jungle?’ I asked.
They both shook their heads and smiled. ‘We’ll be fine.’
And with that, they shook our hands and headed off just as the rain died down.
‘Good luck!’ I shouted after them.
God knows, they were going to need it. I didn’t know if they would ever be seen alive again.
19
Crossing th
e Panama Canal
On the eighth of November, we turned off the Pan-American Highway at La Chorrera and walked south, with the intention of getting as close to Panama City as we could by the end of the day. All that remained between us and the town was a short fifteen-mile walk and I thought it would be rather more pleasant to follow the Pacific coast rather than walk along the motorway.
‘Not one of your shortcuts again?’ Alberto rolled his eyes, as we looked down off the embankment of the motorway in the direction of a country lane. ‘You always get us lost.’
‘That’s simply not true. We always have more fun on my shortcuts,’ I said.
The leaves were beginning to fall on the deciduous trees that lined the track and there was a distinctly autumnal feel in the air, despite its tropical warmth.
‘Come on, then, let’s go. If we want to get home for Christmas, we can’t hang about.’
When you’re on an expedition like this, there are some days when nothing happens. Literally you wake up, walk all day, find a bed and sleep. In fact, I’d probably say that’s the case fifty per cent of the entire journey. Often it can be so dull that you don’t even find anyone to talk to, and you spend the day lost in your own thoughts. So for the sake of the reader, I’ve tried to cut out or skip over as much of the humdrum daily grind as possible. Then again, some days everything would happen at once. Today was a day like that.
For a start, it was election day in the United States. The chatter on the streets was all about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and who would be the next president. Alberto joked that all his fence climbing would come in handy, now that a wall to keep the Mexicans out was on the cards.
