Capn's Blog

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Capn's blog, mid December 2011

This is the real story of how my friend Dan and I hitchhiked from Las Vegas to Patagonia in Southern Argentina. This is about how we got around the Darian Gap, where the road ends in Panama and is replaced by the densest jungle in the world.

Crossing the Darian Gap, part 2.

     We were on the bus, listening to reggae and relieved to be out of that city. The road was a dirt one and a little muddy in spots, but the countryside was a relief to see and we got our first few of the Caribbean sea, clear and beautiful. About two hours into our bus ride we got a surprise when two other white backpackers got on the bus. A guy and a girl. The guy was short, bald with muscular arms a bit of a belly and a nose that looked like it had been broken multiple times. The girl with thin, with light hair and eyes and sandy blonde hair. They saw us and immediately went to the back of the bus where we were sitting.

“Hey, where are you going?” The guy asked, his accent was Eastern European.

    They were from the Czech Republic and were also looking for a way around the Darian Gap. They were nervous cause they had just met and Frenchman who had tried to find a way and failed. They also did not speak any Spanish, so were relying on English. I didn’t think the chances of finding someone who spoke Czech in Panama was very high. We told them about the Cargo ship we had already arranged and how we needed to get to La Cieba. We told them about Colon.

    Pavlic, for that was his name, smirked. “I would not worry about this place. For I have with me mace and asp.”

He pulled out a can of mace and an asp, a metal rod that extended with a lead ball on the end of it. “I can hit a man in the thigh and he passes out with pain, I hit him in the head and he dies. It could be one man or ten men. I spray them with mace, then I hit them with asp.”

They told us they were going to Boliva because that is where the best cocaine is.

     “Not like the shit we have in Europe.”

    Just like that, we were traveling with these people. You truly never know who you are going to end up traveling with on a journey like this. His girlfriend, Elia, was quiet by comparison. She was part girlfriend and also part chaperon. As they hadn’t got to where the cocaine was yet, Pavlic had started drinking rum.

The bus came to a stop and we all got out. The small town that we were in was paradise compared to Colon. Small children ran unattended. The Caribbean was magical. Almost immediately a thing, tan skinned man with high cheek bones came running up to the four of us. Dan started speaking to him in Spanish. I understood what he was asking though.

    “You guys are looking for a way around the Darian Gap? You are going to Columbia?”

    The man owned a launcha, basically a very large speed boat and was taking three Spaniards into Columbia tomorrow morning. He wanted 150$ but was leaving tomorrow morning rather than four days from now. We told him that we already had a deal for 60$.

    “Cargo ships, bah, they’ll take five days, I can get you there in two. 100$ but just for you two, everyone else is paying 150$ don’t tell them you go for cheaper!”

     The Czechs, who were not on a dirtbag budget and were nervous about making the trip at all jumped on the deal and it was done. We saved time, a hassle and were not having to deal with the sketchy crew of the cargo ship and climbing season was coming up, so the sooner we were there, the better.

For the Captain, who actually from Columbia, it was an extra 500$ of money for the same trip he was doing anyway. He and his son, who looked like a carbon copy of him 20 years younger went and introduced us to the other passengers. The Spaniards actually didn’t all know each other before hand. Two of them were a couple, young hippies who were traveling through South America, selling jewlery on the street and juggling as a way to get by as they traveled. The third was a sail boat captain who lived in Columbia and gave sailboat tours through the San Blas Islands, the Island chain that we were going on. He was taking this trip simply to see new routes and possible trips through the Islands. He was tall and dark skinned, with bushy hyper expressive eyebrows.

     We were told that we were leaving at 6 am and that the journey would take but a single day. We learned something about the way Columbians tell time, as we left at 11 am for the first day of a three day journey. We all loaded up on the boat, which just fit the 9 of us. Dan and I looked up and the 5 Europeans had all lit up cigarettes, even though there was multiple canisters of gasoline under the seat they all were on.

Away we went. The waves smashed against the boat for a while and I wondered if it would be this choppy the whole time. We got soaked with the salty water. After ten minutes of violent waves, like magic everything cleared and the Caribbean was as calm as glass and so clear that you could see straight to the bottom of the ocean.

     The San Blas Islands were unreal. Some of them were literally like the Island in the far side comic. A single coconut tree rising out of them. The largest Island had a town of only a few hundred people. The San Blas are populated by a tribal people called the Kuna. They believe they were god’s chosen people and that other people were unclean. As a result some of the Kuna are terrible Xenaphobes, and foreigners are not even allowed on many of their Islands.

Pepe, the middle aged spainard sailboat captain told us that they live by two methods. Fishing and salvaging cocaine. Drug smugglers were get chased by the Panamanian police and dump their cocaine the carribean hoping to come back for it. Sometimes the Kuna would get to it first and then smuggle it onto the black market. They also had all kinds of laws for foreigners that mostly involved fines. The largest fine that you could get would be to sleep with a Kuna woman, which is a 60,000 dollar fine.

     I chuckled thinking about how many Americans glorified tribal cultures, but the Kuna were basically drug dealers and bigots. Despite that most of the people we interacted with were friendly. Including old women in tribal clothes who didn’t speak spanish but rather just their native language. They would come up and ramble to us in their tongue like we understood, but the tone sounded friendly.

     We traveled between Islands. Our captain had a side business delivering chicken to some of these Islands and also even ice cream to a close friend of his. Which was a rare treat, as none of the Kuna villages had any electricity. Just beyond we could see the Darian Gap, the occasional village was on the coast, instead of the speed boats that most Kuna had, these villages largely had dugout canoes and lived similarly to the way people lived there 1000 years before.

After 3 days we arrived in Columbia. We were dirty and disheveled and all 7 of us paid our captain and found a hostel to stay at. It was the next afternoon that Pavlic, our Czech friend approached me.

     “Kevin.” he declared, having been drinking since morning. “Today, me and you, we find cocaine.”

    I was skeptical, Dan and I smoked weed but didn’t do any drugs. “I don’t know if that’s what I want to do.”

     “It’s not problem.” he said, “I know what to do, we go find the dirtiest man in this city, and he knows where cocaine is.”

     I was not thrilled to be part of this plan, to go find the dirtiest man in a colombian port city and try to get drugs out of him. Pavlic did not share my concerns.

“It’s not a problem.” One of his favorite phrases, “If he gives up problem, I spray him with mace and hit him with asp.”

     I declined the offer and instead we started drinking cheap Caribbean rum and went and found the others. The conversation flowed between English and Spanish. The more drunk that Pavlic would get, the worse his English would get. Occasionally when the conversation had been going on in Spanish for a long time he would loudly interject in Czech. Eventually he banged on the table.

     “I am a pirate. I am a hippy, I am lost in the Caribbean.” He banged on the table drunkenly again. “Respect me!”

     His girlfriend dragged him, stumbling heavily, back to their hotel room and that was the last I saw or heard of the pair. I imagine that they made it to Bolivia and eventually found the cocaine they were looking for. The rest of their trip after that? I can only imagine.

As for Dan and I, we pushed on into Colombia. Taking a quick Ferry ride to Turbo, another city we were warned that it was dangerous and we started our hitch hiking trip again.

San Blas Islands (Not our photos)