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Crossing the Darian Gap, Part one.

These are real things that happened to me and my friend Dan in 2011/12 when we hitchhiked from Las Vegas to Patagonia in Southern Argentina.

Mid December, 2011

      The Crux in rock climbing is the hardest move on a route. The crux of our journey was the Darian Gap, the densest jungle in the world. Hiking through the Darian Gap is possible. Post the journey I’ve met two people who have hiked through and head about a girl who did it by herself with just a pop up tent. However none of those people had 30 lbs of climbing gear with them and a time limit.

    One of the reasons that no road has been built there yet is that relationships between Panama and Columbia were poor. Columbia used to own Panama, that was until the US funded an independence movement there so they could build the Panama Canal. There is no official ferry between the two countries so if you want to cross the Darian Gap by sea, you just have to find someone willing to take you.

     It is also a dangerous journey, full of predators and poisonous animals and horrendous bugs. We heard a story of a man who left his boots out at night in the Darian and woke up with them literally filled to the brim with bugs. Our plan involved going to a Port City called Colon in Panama and finding a Cargo ship that was willing to take us. Dan had read a trip report online about people who had done the same thing and it seemed to be the cheapest way across on short notice.

    As we got closer to Panama, people started warning us about Colon, that it was a dangerous place. We had been through many large cities in Central America by this time and though there was clear danger in some, it was nothing that you couldn’t avoid with a little wariness and common sense. So we though we were always alert, we weren’t too worried about this city.

    It was just a couple of days until we in Panama. We got a single ride (from another El Salvadorian) all the way through Costa Rica, not even stopping expect for lunch in the tourist haven country. We beat Cathy and Sterling to Panama by weeks. It was late when we arrived in Panama, and it was raining. They have a saying in Panama. In the rainy season it rains all day and in the dry season it rains everyday.

    Dan asked me how I felt about taking a Bus overnight to Colon. We could sleep on it and arrive by morning, giving us all day to try to find a boat to take us. I agreed to the plan and we hailed down a bus going to Panama City. There Dan slept in the bus station and I stayed awake waiting for the bus. A flamboyantly gay Panamanian came up and started flirting with me in Spanish.

    I told him I didn’t speak Spanish and ignored him for a minute until he started acting weird or high or something. After telling him to get lost loudly a bus security guard came and shooed him away. Eventually the bus to Colon came. Every bus in Panama is the same, used American school buses that are radically spray painted. A cross between street graffiti and something you’d find at Burning Man. Every single one seemed to have at least one image of Jesus and a marijuana leaf. Ours arrived, blaring reggae just like the rest of them. Despite that I got on and immediately fell asleep on it. I awoke with the sun coming up and us arriving at our destination.

     As we shook the sleep our of our eyes and got off of the bus, we immediately realized that we may have made a mistake in coming here. We had gone through dozens of large Mexican cities and all those ones in Central America. Many of them I would describe as dangerous shitholes, but in none of them did we ever feel such an immediate sense of danger. Nothing was quite like Colon. Dan had done two tours in Afghanistan and grew up in Caracus Venezuela. He turned to me.

“This looks sketchy.”

     It looked like the city had been bombed and people were just living in the hollowed out reminisce of a city. 90% of the city were squatting in abandoned industrial buildings, with no electricity or running water.

    One of the first things we saw was a small child steal food from a bus stop food store. The owner, who was Chinese Panamanian, a descendant of those who built the Canal (which ran through Colon.) He immediately started yelling at the child, then left his store to chase him a bit with a knife cursing at him in Spanish and Chinese and grabbing his crotch to accent his curses. The people at the bus stop seemed amused.

     We had other things to worry about. Everybody immediately started staring at us. We were possibly the only two white people in the city and with our giant backpacks stood out like a sore thumb. We had heard about another port city close by called Coco Solo, after one look at Colon we decided maybe that would be a better option. We asked a bus driver where the bus to there was. He told us that they don’t run that bus anymore, because too many people were being robbed on it. Fuck.

“Shit, we are here, lets at least go down to the docks at check it out.”

    We asked the bus driver where the docks were. He looked at us with a little bit of surprise and concern.

“You boy should probably take a taxi.” he advised.

“How far away is it?”

“Six blocks.”

“We don’t want to take a taxi for 6 blocks”

“Okay” he said “Here is what you do, walk down the main street, don’t talk to anybody, don’t trust anybody.”

      We took his advise. The main street had few stores but you could not actually go into any of them. All of them had bars on the doors and windows, even when they were open. If you wanted something it was an exchange like a drug deal, you had me the money and I’ll hand you the tee shirt. There was one bank in town, which consisted of only a single ATM, with two guards in full body armor with machine guns. Everybody, which was mostly tall muscular black men, half of whom had a machete openly dangling from their waste, turned to stare at us. Some with concern and some perhaps sizing us up. There was something of a police presence, but we were not sure that was even a good thing. We had a good security measure, we looked like we didn’t have anything worth stealing. During our whole strip so far we had not shaved. Our gear had tape on it, we were dirty. I had pots and pans hanging off the outside of my pack, hobo style. All of this was intentional. We actually had hundreds of dollars in climbing gear, Dan had an Iphone and I had more than 1500$ hidden in my shoe.

     We got to the docks. It was a long 6 blocks to walk. Outside of the docks a group of men were drinking at an open air bar. It was 8 am. They saluted us with beers in the air. Crazy white people in Colon. Across the street was a tavern with a sign that had a naked white woman painted on it. I got a feeling deep down that people had died in that bar. This was the closest thing that you could get to a pirate town in the 20th century. We went to the docks, again there were armed guards with machine guns there.

     We explained what we were doing there and they let us through, pointing out where a captain was that might take us. We approached the man, a tall thin black man and Dan told him that we were looking for a ride to Columbia. He told us he could take us for 60$ a piece, but that he wasn’t leaving until Sunday. It was Wednesday.

     “Also I can’t take you from here.” He explained to Dan in spanish. “There are rules about passangers and the Canal. I can pick you up from a city La Cieba. I’ll pick you up there on Sunday.”

     The idea of staying in Colon until Sunday was not an appealing one either, so whatever was in La Cieba, it had to be better than this. La Cieba did not show up on google maps for Panama. We walked the long walk back to the bus stop. There was a large man with dreadlocks standing waiting for a bus. He looked friendly compared to many there. We approached him and asked if he knew anything about La Cieba.

“You boys speak English?” He asked in a Jamaican accent. “I think you got to go back to Panama City and hire a 4 wheel drive to take you out there.”

I was dismayed.

“or…….” He continued thinking. “You might be able to get on this bus here, it goes to the last town on the road. Maybe someone there can take you on a boat.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. We hopped on the bus and got the fuck out of Colon.

To be continued…..

Colon (Not my photos, but accurate to much of what we saw)