Having got myself a boat organised to go to Colombia, I now have about a week to kill here in Panama.
There are a few things to do here (but not in the city) so today I decided Id head down the road into the "Darien" as far as I could get.
So I packed up and headed off. The GPS helped with getting out of the city and before too long I was riding along a small highway headed East.
The highway stayed quite good quality for the whole way... Its paved right to the point where it just stops. I did however have quite a bit of rain... I rode for about two hours in steady rain and being the slow learner that I am, I didnt stop to put my rain gear on till I was already quite wet (actually it was just the pants I was late with... They are a pain to put on!).
Its clearly still rainy season here (later than usual this year) and Im glad I dont have to deal with another suicidally muddy road to get to the boat this time...
This time the boat will leave from a different town. But even if it was from the same place as last time, Im reliably informed that the road is much improved from how it was two years ago. They say even in very bad conditions it takes less than an hour to drive the section of road that took us about five hours last time... There are fewer and fewer "remote" places in the world every year!
So, whats in the Darian?
Not a lot! Its the same rolling green country as the rest of Panama. It took me about three hours to ride from the city to the end of the road . The road is good quality and paved all the way. At the end of the road is a sizeable town in the bend of a big brown river flowing through the jungle. It is about fifty Km short of the boarder with Colombia. They would have to spend quite a bit of money to build a bridge over this river, but other than that there is no reason why the highway cant keep going (just confirms my belief that the legendary "Darien Gap" is there for purely political and commercial reasons!!)
The town at the end of the road is quite large and the people are quite friendly (despite city dwellers warnings about them). There were no white skins there, but I saw just about every other skin colour imaginable :)) There were even a few locals who had dyed their skin from brown to a blue/black.. Not like the coastal Kuna people... More like the Amazon natives with half their faces coloured in etc.
Along the way, I saw lots of roughly cleared land used for grazing Brahman cattle. lots of little wooden houses on stilts. Lots of houses with pallappa roofs (made of palm leaves) and lots of little streams and river crossings... Nothing too exotic or exciting :)))
In fact there was so little out there of interest that I decided to ride all the way back to the city the same day.
So now Im back in the same hostel in the city and wondering what I will do with tomorrow?
