from santiago i get a ride immediately to panama city, something i don't remember too much about. i don't remember much about santiago either, except for this place:
since then in my sleep i am visited by bulked out marlins...i've also had strange urges to get big muscles...only in writing this have i put the two together. thanks blogger!
my first time in panama city and i'm shocked. i have no idea what's going on. i've not seen skyscrapers in latin america since mexico city, and before then, not once. this place looks like a shitty mix of san diego and edmonton, and i hate it. i quickly get out and hightail it to san blas.
well. easier said that done. i make it to the road to san blas...40km of the worst hills, all throughout the jungle. i see a man standing on the side of the road selling water, at least, he says he's selling water but when i ask him for some and he walks to his water truck, turns some knobs, and says something i can't understand, but doesn't sell me water. i try to talk to him and he just murmers some weird shit that i don't really understand without making any facial expressions, which i figure is my que to stop bugging him, and i march up a gigantic hill. i start to wonder. one thing the man told me was that there was absolutely no traffic here. lovely. i keep walking. and walking. i have no food and two bottles of water. i keep walking.
sun sets. the jungle sounds like a million sonjas making jungle sounds. who would have thought? it's still really warm out.
the night is long and i wake up multiple times (did i ever fall asleep?) listening to the sounds which now have changed to what sounds like john cage's reinterperatation of bad rave music. one frog (what else could it have been?) has a dubstep wobble as a mating call and some stupid birds have the hoover synth built right into their throat, everything playing out of time, howler monkeys, ever present but never seen, screaming like dying pigs from behind trees, almost danceable beats forming for a bar or two and then disappearing for an hour, nothing making sense...
i wake up (or do i just stop dreaming?) and i decide that walking isn't going to help me much. i can't walk 40k on these hills so i sit under a tree and be the Buddha for a bit, waiting for somebody to serve me a bowl of rice or at least a ride, and it's not happening. waiting. waiting. waiting. suvs pass me and each driver ignores me, even with my tried and tested praying hands motion which works so well down here...the first couple hours are spent bored but that passes and i enter a realm where boredom doesn't exist. soley paranoia, strange thoughts, old thoughts, morphing sounds, oh the sounds, every gust of wind through the leaves of these massive jungle trees transformed into a different truck just over that hill over there, yes, each a different pickup truck with a back full of fruit and just enough space for me...the fruit is ripe and the drivers will look at me with a smile, yes, of course you can have some! it's just over that hill over there...
more hours and my dreams come half true. a truck full of half ripe plantains, with just enough room for me...going half way to san blas.
the plantains are not even half edible. i try to eat one, they won't miss it, right? my mouth goes numb as that time i ate colombian coke and it tastes worse. i realize i am not that hungry.
dropped off in the middle of nowhere, i find an old school phone booth it which provides protection from some nasty rain. i try to call some friends and say "yo, i am stuck in the jungle! but that means i'm almost in colombia! so it's alright!" but the phone is busted, not that i expected anything different being where i was.
another truck comes and picks up the plantains to bring them to san blas and i ask the driver if he can take me and he apologizes and says no, not enough space.
i hang out in this spot for quite a while. i think i went crazy here. or at least did some weird things that i don't usually do.
at some point i saw a baby jaguar. it runs away from me and i grab a big stick and run away, in case la madre is around.
another night.
in the morning a truck picks me up and takes me to the docks of san blas. woooooooohoooooo! i think to myself. all i have to do is ask around and magically some captain will welcome me aboard his boat and i will be in colombia and i will do lots of pure and then go to chile! yes!
no.
i am greeted by some kuna lads. this is how the women dress:
(not my piccie)
pretty cool
but anyways.
the dudes. yeah, these dudes. they were drunk but they don't call it that. they call it happy. and oh boy, are these guys happy. they quickly start fighting over whose house i will stay at tonight and get me wasted. i spend hours playing chess with them, one of whom is actually really good.
"so is this some sort of, uh, ceremony?" i ask.
"yes. we've been celebrating for six days! it's a ceremony for--". i can't understand what it was for. but. it involves lots of sugarcane liquor.
i'm hanging out with elith and marcos and they introduce me to this wise looking dude reading a book. apparently this guy is the teacher of culture. he starts telling me about the kuna's original culture, and my spanish isn't good enough to understand most of it but i like the picture book he's showing me. we drink more and more. elith's dad comes out, already weary from six days of ceremony.
"yo soy...EL PADREEEEE!!!!!!!" he spits out. i smile. "si?" not really knowing how to respond to that.
i guess that wasn't good enough. he says it again. and again. i start talking more to elith and i can hear this dude constantly yelling, to me or to the culture man or to god, I AM THE FATHER, over and over.
we get progressively happier and elith and marcos are falling over themselves reading me kuna poetry in...the kuna language. i tell them i don't understand. they don't care. this goes on for hours, with the dad occassionally interjecting to say that he was indeed the dad. marcos looks at me and says "yeah, he's the boss!". padre looks happy and yells his one and only truth louder.
i take a quick break to ask everyone on the island about the boat situation. nope. looks like i'm fucked for about a week according to some dudes. on guy tries to take me to "colombia city" for 50 bucks. where is colombia city, i ask him. it's the capital! he tells me. i tell him that there is no colombia city (wait, looking it up, there looks to be a colombia village, which is completely landlocked). he keeps on insisting there is. i didn't go with him.
later, back at elith's house, elith is happy as hell and telling me about how we are brothers, and it's honestly one of the most heart touching things i have experienced. this dude is awesome. but it's not long before he starts screaming JESUS CHRIST!! IN!!! MY HEART!!!!
in the morning i look at my lifestyle down here, i look at my current financial situation and realize that i don't really even want to go to south america on no money. i can travel for free, the last two and a half weeks i've been doing it pretty well, but sometimes i like buying food, sometimes i like beer, and sometimes i would like to be able to have a hostel or whatever. and i look at my boat situation: i can't live on these islands for what i have for a week. i shrug my shoulders, hop on the boat back to that terrible jungle trail, and do it all over again. after getting searched by the panamanian military i got a ride out pretty easily, thankfully, straight to panama city, where i stayed in the ghetto, hung out with cokeheads, ate shitty diner food and found a love for that piece of shit. i love panama city. just saying.
i left panama city just as i learned there was a four day fiesta. SHIT. the fiestas down here...!!! i party for like, two hours with my backpack like an idiot and leave.
but hey. my first real adventure i traveled over 10,000km solely by thumb. i don't think i have ever had anything to prove, but now i know i don't.
but let it be said that i am someone who only does things in halves.
can i say even that? i never thought i could get to chile. fuck. i never thought i'd make it to mexico. i just told everyone and myself that to propel myself as far as i could, seeing just where the hell i'd end up. and panama wasn't too bad, honestly.
i've found a love for this place like nothing ever before. i left my heart in mexico (in many ways!) and the rest of central america wasn't bad, if not completely amazing. well shit. guess i'll have to do it all over again :)
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