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December 7, 2017
Day 25 [Thr 12/07/17] - Yaviza, Panama [Parque Nacional Darién]
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Hospedaje Sobia Kiru [Corazon Bueno] in Yaviza, Panama. (I plan to stay here for a 2nd night.)
Update 2: I still don't have WiFi at my hotel, so I can't post photos right now. Will try to catch up on photos when I return from the Darién (dah REE Uhn).
Hoy es Jueves.
Starting Odometer: 10,752
Ending Odometer: 10,752
Distance Traveled Today: 0 miles
Distance Traveled This Trip: 6,149 miles [10,752 - 4,603]
All day long, this port is just madness. Insanity.
A woman walks through the street with a parrot. Dogs and chickens walk the street. Two dogs square off in the street in a vicious battle. No one intervenes.
A man explains that the "Cervesa in bota es para Boca de Cupe", so the one 20-30 meter canoe loaded with beer from stem to stern is heading for Boca de Cupe, downstream. (It appears to be upstream on my maps, but what do I know?)
Several canoes are just packed with bananas. He says that the plantains are to be shipped to \panama city in trucks.
He says that the bananas are worth $10 USD for 100 platains, and the boat has 6,000 platains, so the boat has $600 worth of bananas in it, which is a lot of money in this area, I think.
He says this goes on all year long. It never stops. They're cutting bananas from the jungle for free, essentially, and bringing them to port.
The whole time, they're splashing the plantains with water, to keep them fresh. Then, they pack the canoes with other goods on the return voyage.
Cervesa, tanks of propane, mattresses, freezers packed with ice and fresh fish.
Just upriver is a footbridge, where they can cross the river. Also, two pipes cross with the bridge, presumably for water.
Loading and unloading the boats takes some time, and the port is jammed with dugout canoes, so they toss the cargo through the air to load and unload the boats more quickly.
I ask the port authority if they know where they are going, but they don't. There's no paperwork or anything. They just sort of stand watch over the madness, same as me.
Vultures walk the streets.
There is an observation deck, where people come to watch. This is the most busiest place in town, so people do come here to watch, it appears.
A woman comes by. She climbed out of a canoe, apparently. She says that, tomorrow, in Corozal, there is a big party. It's about 1 hour up-river. And she'll be back in an hour.
And I can go with them to the party if I want to.
I explain to the security guards that there are 4-5 americans that are coming here on motorcycles to cross into the Darien. He says it's suicidal. But the other guard disagrees. He says they can make it if they follow a certain route, which he lays out. I dunno.
Now, one of the innermost boats needs to push his way out of the port, so he turns his propeller, and puses the others upriver out of his way, and then escapes backwards.
One of the boats has a propeller that's missing huge chunks out of all three blades.
I go to the edge of town to get my photos with the sign that indicates the end of the PanAmerican highway, but no one really knows how to operate a DSLR. They've never seen one before, it seems.
Yesterday, there were about a dozen Americans on some bid-watching tour taking photos of some birds in the trees. And I had the biggest lens out of all of them. But I should have gotten them to take my photo at the sign. At least they know how to use a DSLR.
I roll through town, filming wiht the GoPro, trying to capture the squalid third world poverty, as I won't remember, and no one would believe me if I did. So the GoPro is sort of an unbiased observer, in effect.
I roll around town and find the gas station that I saw when I rolled into town yesterday. So glad to know that it's there. That means I'll have no trouble escaping the Darien (Dah-REE-uhn) when the time comes. But today is only Thursday. And it seems a little early to be rushing back into civilization. My boat doesn't sail until Monday. So, I think I'll return to Panama City tomorrow (Friday), and then go up to Colon, or wherever it is I'm supposed to be, on Saturday.
Yesterday, I paid the slumlord $30, and she only asked for $25 a night, so I go today and find her and demand she return my change. She acts like she doesn't know what I'm talking about, or understand me, but eventually she give me my $5.00 back. Then, I tell her that I want ot stay another night, but there's no way I can pay $25 a night, obviously. So, I tell her I'll pay $20 a night. She balks, but when I start asking about other hotels, she agrees and takes the $20.
I have A/C, and a shower. There's no hot water, per se, but it's not like you want to take hot showers down here anyway. Any shower is fine. The water doesn't need to be hot.
I walk across the footbridge over the river to the other side, but then, once I get there, I'm not sure what to do so I return. I'd like to get in a boat and go up or down the river, but I'm not really clear how to go about it. There's not like a travel agency here or anything.
Posted by Rob Kiser on December 7, 2017 at 8:53 AM
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