Pam DeLuco

	The Darien Gap The Pan American Highway spans from Canada to Chile with the exception of approximately 150 km in the Darien Province of Panama and Columbia. This is the famous Darien Gap. There is a road that leads into the Darien--it's one of those broken red lines on a map--but it will only take you 2/3 of the way into the Darien. I'm not exactly sure why there is this gap, some say it's political: they're trying to prevent the Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers from entering Central America, and others say it's geographically impossible: the region is very mountainous and has many rivers that flood during the rainy season. The Darien is home to the most primitive Indian tribe in North America- the Chocó. They are a river tribe that has not had much contact with the rest of the world and I had been dying to see them. I arrived in Panama City Feb 3 and I stayed at the home of Pete Stevens, a yacht agent for the Panama Canal. Both of the yachts that I transited the canal in used Pete's services; the man can arrange anything. Pete knows all the boats in Panama, so all I had to do was express my interest in going to the Darien and by the end of the week he found me a ride. My ride was aboard the 'Alacran' a Merrit 65' sport fisher--some say, the finest sport fisher built. I met the crew of the 'Alacran' back in Costa Rica and wanted to check out their boat but had run out of time. Boy, was it fancy! They have all the bells and whistles and I made sure to enjoy it as that was probably as comfortable as things were going to get for me for awhile. In 6 hours we arrived Piñas which was the final destination for the 'Alacran'. Piñas is a big sport fishing spot and aside from a luxury lodge (gringo central) that's all that's there. All of the locals that work at the lodge live in the next bay over, Puerto Piñas, so that's where I headed. It turned out that the river that led to the Indian villages was accessible from the town, Jaqué, in the next bay. Travel between these two bays is not very frequent, so it looked like I was stuck for the night. Puerto Piñas has one room that it rents out to travelers and a guy from Sweden who was hoping to go shark fishing occupied it. I had my tent and sleeping bag with me and while it normally isn't my policy to camp alone, I was able to make an exception. It just so happened that the day before I arrived 16 policemen had been sent to Puerto Piñas where they were going to train for a few days and then disperse throughout the region. Later, I learned that there had been a few killings at the Colombian border by guerrillas and that's why they were sending out more men. That night, oblivious to the problems at the border, I set up my camp within eyesight of the police camp and slept like a baby. The next morning I packed up everything and waited by the water hoping to catch a ride to Jaqué. I got lucky because El Doctór from Jaqué showed up to make a house call in Puerto Piñas and he agreed to take me to Jaqué. Once in Jaqué he brought me to the home of the retired schoolteacher, la Maestra Vicenta. La Maestra is about 70 years old, lives alone, and is a tough character. The whole town knows and respects her. La Maestra rents rooms in her house, usually to visiting medical personnel, charging $5.00 per night meals included. She was a great lady, and I really became quite fond of her. Through the Doctor I met the malaria control people and I realized I had forgotten to take the pills to prevent malaria. "No problem" they said "we'll get you started right now". They put me on their prevention regiment, which is 600 mg of Chloroquine for three days which provides ten days of protection. I will NEVER do that again! I got so sick from the pills that I had blurred vision for three days. Next time I'll risk the malaria. As soon as I had gotten my vision back, I started to look for a ride to the Indian village. Once again I got lucky as the malaria control people were going up river to the Indian villages in a few days and they said they could give me a ride. This was perfect because I really didn't want to just show up with no introduction. The ride up the river lasted an hour and a half. This is the dry season and judging from the number of times the engine was lifted out of the water to avoid scrapping the bottom, I'd say it was pretty dry! We arrived at the village and the malaria people went off to collect their blood samples, and I tried to locate the Chief to ask for permission to spend several days in his village. The Chief could not understand why I wanted to spend time in his 'poor' village, but he said I was welcome. I started to look around for a place to pitch my tent, but the Chief said, "No, no, no, you can't sleep outside" and he offered me the home of someone who no longer lives in the village. The homes are all on stilts, with a long log with steps notched out as a ladder, because every ten years or so, the river floods up to the houses. They are hand made with wood and cane from the nearby mountains. The roofs are thatched and most of them have open fires inside. The houses are pretty empty, except for some food and clothes. They don't have tables, chairs, or beds- everyone sits, eats, and sleeps on the hard, often uneven, floor. The homes are all designed the same: a large open room with an open fire cooking area off to one corner, and another room separated by a wall for sleeping. No one is ever by himself or herself nor do they want to be. I found this out the first night. I was getting ready for bed when the Chief approached me and offered me his daughter as a sleeping companion. I said that was fine, thinking she'd take one room and I'd take the other. The Chief instructed me to close the doors at night, although I couldn't figure out why since most of the other homes didn't even have doors. I got out my sleeping bag and laid it on the hard wood, and the daughter, Oderai, laid down right next to me. After a few hours I became so hot that I couldn't stand it anymore, and I moved into the next room and slept between the two open doors. That was the first and last time Oderai ever slept with me. The Chief apologized to me for leaving me without a sleeping partner, but I had scared his daughter by not sleeping right next to her and by opening the doors at night. I assured him that I would be all right by myself, but I know this is something he never understood. The people were very shy with me at first. The women, who usually go topless, covered themselves up when I first arrived. This lasted only for a few days, and after that, whenever it was unbearably hot, even I went topless. I became friendly with one family in particular, and I hung out with them most of the time. They have four children ages: 6, 7, 11, and 15, and since the youngest was only six, the mom, Selena, didn't go to work in the fields very often. They were equally as fascinated with me as I was with them. Sure, they have seen white people before, but I don't think they have ever gotten to touch them. They couldn't get over how soft and pink my hands (I don't use a machete every day) and feet (I wear shoes) were for an adult. They marveled at the hair on my arms (they don't have any body hair), and they asked me if it was part of my culture to paint my hair like a doll. The Chocó live off of the land. Each family has a plot of land where they grow without pesticides or chemicals, sugar cane, plantains, beans, bananas, pineapples, corn, and rice. Other things are grown communally like yucca & ñame, and other things grow abundantly with no attention like coconuts, mangoes, materials for baskets etc.; these are for anyone to take. They eat three big meals a day and there always seemed to be plenty to eat. I ate: plantains of every kind, cooked every way I could imagine, roasted corn, fresh yucca (the smoothest I've ever tasted), ñame, ñampi, deer, something they called a rabbit but actually looked like a large guinea pig, lots of different fresh water fish and tiny fresh water shrimp, fresh corn empanadas, sugar cane, sugar cane honey (really good- made by extracting the juice from the sugar cane and cooking over low fire for five hours- good with just about anything!), panela (often confused with my name Pamela. Panela is a candy made from the sugar cane honey, it's really good, but if you don't drink lots of water while eating it makes you cough!) Arroz con coco (rice made with water that has been poured over freshly grated coconut-it's to die for!), I even tried their local fire water- chi cha- it's a fermented corn & sugar cane drink which tastes like cider. My policy was eat first, ask later. I decided to make this my policy after a conversation I had with Casimiro, the man of the house. He was explaining to me all the different animals there were in the mountains and he mentioned the Scarlet Macaw. I said "oh. I didn't know there were Macaws in this area". "Yes" he replied "hard to find, but very tasty"! Everyone in the village was an artisan. The men carved wood and tagua nut figures, and the women made baskets. The children are taught around age ten, and many of them are quite good. Everything they make comes from the mountains and all the dyes for the baskets were natural. I was in heaven! I did learn how to make the simpler baskets, but I wasn't very fast-I think I'll stick to knitting. They would sell their wares to get money to buy the few things that they could not produce themselves: salt, oil, coffee, flour, clothes, kerosene for their lamps, etc. They could get by without these things, and in some of the more remote villages, I'm told, they do. Once a week they would walk to Piñas to sell their wares to the foreigners at the fishing lodge. I had wanted to make the trek with them to get to know the jungle, and to trade in my book that I had finished reading (the owner of the lodge has lots of books in English for trade). The hike there was over four hours- crossing four, up-to-my-thighs, rivers, up and over a mountain dumping us onto some cliffs on the ocean with waves crashing against them which we then had to scale up and over. They walked the entire way without shoes and carrying heavy loads up to 40 lbs.. Even the kids made the hike. This only took us to Puerto Piñas, and then we had to wait for a boat to take us to the lodge. We returned to Puerto Piñas in the evening, spent the night, and hiked back the next day. It was kind of a long way to go for a book, but the owner of the lodge let me take two. The days in the village were very pleasant. We'd wake up at the first light and the women would start fixing breakfast. After breakfast everyone: men, women, and older children, would head to the fields. The women work the same jobs as the men, their strength being equal to that of a man. Even the old grandmother would strap a basket to her back, grab a machete, and head for the mountain to gather plantains. At lunchtime everyone would return for the day as the intense tropical sun would make it impossible to work. We'd have lunch and then the kids (this included me) would go for a swim in the river. Everyone else would work on their crafts, or just hang out and talk (they all speak Spanish as well as a dialect called Wounaan) When it cooled off a bit, some people would go fishing, or help with whatever house was being built. We'd have dinner and then hang out some more. We went to bed fairly early I think, although I'm not sure since no one had a watch. To me this was paradise! There were many things that I liked about this tribe, but my favorite--hands down--was their use of decorative pigments called jagua. They would extract the liquid from the fruit of the jagua tree and with a 'paint brush' made from the bark of sugar cane they'd paint their bodies. Everyone painted themselves, although the kids did it more regularly. I let them paint my whole body knowing it would last for fifteen days. I liked it so much that I made a bottle to travel with so I could always be painted. To make it, first I had to find someone to climb the very tall tree and knock down the fruit. Then the kids helped me peel the fruit (six year old Jessica is pretty good with a knife and seven year old Evita is almost better than me), then I grated the fruit and squeezed the juice through a cloth. We cooked it for a bit and voila I had a bottle of jagua. I also had dark purple hands that faded after thirty days. I am usually apretty lucky traveler. I just seem to stumble upon things that most people carefully plan. Well, in the Darien I stumbled upon a full solar eclipse. I had started hearing about it when I first arrived but didn't pay much attention to it because I was so focused on visiting the Indian village. As the day of the eclipse (Feb 26) drew closer I began to realize that it was going to be a full solar eclipse in the early afternoon, with 4 minutes of totality! The best place to view it was in Jaqué, so I said my good-byes to the Chocó while they loaded me down with honey, sugar cane, and plantains and headed down river the day before the eclipse. I arrived in Jaqué and learned that the president of Panama was going to fly in to Jaqué to see the eclipse and the whole town was preparing for his visit. Jaqué was starting to fill up with eclipse pilgrims from all over the world--how I did not hear about it beforehand, I'll never know--and they all had come prepared with special lenses for viewing the eclipse. Not to worry though, I sent out a radio message to the owner of the fishing lodge and she sent me out a pair the next day. The day of the eclipse was very exciting. There were t.v. cameras from all over and I even got interviewed by a local news station in Panama City--I think my painted body had something to do with it. About 1 hour and 45 min before totality the moon started to move over the sun. Was everyone at the beach looking up at the sun through their lenses? No, they were at the airstrip waiting for the President to arrive! He looked nothing like I thought he would, I was expecting to see Juan Valdez, and instead I saw an adult version of Ritchie Rich! We all walked with him down to the beach. He talked to me for a bit asking me who painted me and was I embarrassed to be painted. I said of course not, I love the body painting! He sat down on a bench near the beach and that's when I lost interest in him and focused on the eclipse. As it got closer and closer to totality the light started to change. I can't explain it but I've never seen anything like it before- it was really quite eerie. The shadow cast underneath a palapa showed several little eclipses. It got darker and darker until almost total darkness- totality! At that point it was safe to look directly at it with a naked eye. It was AWSOME!! It was this huge black dot with a fuzzy yellow ring glowing around it. Three other planets were clearly visible in the dark sky: Mars, Jupiter, and Venus. Four short minutes later the sun started to emerge and for a split second it looked just like a diamond ring and we all had to put our lenses back on. A group of people from Spain clapped and cheered. They had traveled to Mongolia for the last eclipse and it was so cloudy they couldn't see anything-can you imagine? With the major excitement being over, I headed back to La Maestra's for lunch. La Maestra's house had filled up with people who had come to see the eclipse (a great group of people from the States and Panama) and for lunch she served Sancocho and my favorite arroz con coco. A great lunch for a great day. The Panamanians that were staying at La Maestra's live near the Costa Rican border in a town called Volcán. One of them has a friend that has a large horse farm and he's said he would try to get me a job for a month or so. I made plans to head there the end of the week. The next day, I took the cargo boat out of Jaqué and headed for Panama City. I had heard horror stories about 'El Amparo' and they turned out to all be true. The boat hardly looked seaworthy, and while it was anchored out in Jaqué, low tide would find it sitting on dry ground looking more pathetic then ever. It's a two story red, white, and blue (colors of the Panama flag) wooden (or should I say dry rot) boat. The direct trip back lasts sixteen hours--it only took six to arrive in the 'Alacran' and that was considered slow. The boat was packed with people and cargo including all the empty bottles, cans, and propane tanks from the lodge. Luckily, I had kept my sleeping bag out and except for an occasional toe in my ear, I slept fine. La Maestra had sent me off with a piece of sugar cane that was about eight feet long. I can imagine the sight I must have been getting on the bus in Panama City with my backpack with machete hanging off the back, my painted body, and carrying a huge piece of sugar cane. It was an adventure I'll never forget.

The Darien Gap

The Pan American Highway spans from Canada to Chile with the exception of approximately 150 km in the Darien Province of Panama and Columbia. This is the famous Darien Gap. There is a road that leads into the Darien--it's one of those broken red lines on a map--but it will only take you 2/3 of the way into the Darien. I'm not exactly sure why there is this gap, some say it's political: they're trying to prevent the Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers from entering Central America, and others say it's geographically impossible: the region is very mountainous and has many rivers that flood during the rainy season. The Darien is home to the most primitive Indian tribe in North America- the Chocó. They are a river tribe that has not had much contact with the rest of the world and I had been dying to see them.

I arrived in Panama City Feb 3 and I stayed at the home of Pete Stevens, a yacht agent for the Panama Canal. Both of the yachts that I transited the canal in used Pete's services; the man can arrange anything. Pete knows all the boats in Panama, so all I had to do was express my interest in going to the Darien and by the end of the week he found me a ride. My ride was aboard the 'Alacran' a Merrit 65' sport fisher--some say, the finest sport fisher built. I met the crew of the 'Alacran' back in Costa Rica and wanted to check out their boat but had run out of time. Boy, was it fancy! They have all the bells and whistles and I made sure to enjoy it as that was probably as comfortable as things were going to get for me for awhile.

In 6 hours we arrived Piñas which was the final destination for the 'Alacran'. Piñas is a big sport fishing spot and aside from a luxury lodge (gringo central) that's all that's there. All of the locals that work at the lodge live in the next bay over, Puerto Piñas, so that's where I headed.

It turned out that the river that led to the Indian villages was accessible from the town, Jaqué, in the next bay. Travel between these two bays is not very frequent, so it looked like I was stuck for the night. Puerto Piñas has one room that it rents out to travelers and a guy from Sweden who was hoping to go shark fishing occupied it. I had my tent and sleeping bag with me and while it normally isn't my policy to camp alone, I was able to make an exception. It just so happened that the day before I arrived 16 policemen had been sent to Puerto Piñas where they were going to train for a few days and then disperse throughout the region. Later, I learned that there had been a few killings at the Colombian border by guerrillas and that's why they were sending out more men. That night, oblivious to the problems at the border, I set up my camp within eyesight of the police camp and slept like a baby.

The next morning I packed up everything and waited by the water hoping to catch a ride to Jaqué. I got lucky because El Doctór from Jaqué showed up to make a house call in Puerto Piñas and he agreed to take me to Jaqué. Once in Jaqué he brought me to the home of the retired schoolteacher, la Maestra Vicenta. La Maestra is about 70 years old, lives alone, and is a tough character. The whole town knows and respects her. La Maestra rents rooms in her house, usually to visiting medical personnel, charging $5.00 per night meals included. She was a great lady, and I really became quite fond of her.

Through the Doctor I met the malaria control people and I realized I had forgotten to take the pills to prevent malaria. "No problem" they said "we'll get you started right now". They put me on their prevention regiment, which is 600 mg of Chloroquine for three days which provides ten days of protection. I will NEVER do that again! I got so sick from the pills that I had blurred vision for three days. Next time I'll risk the malaria.

As soon as I had gotten my vision back, I started to look for a ride to the Indian village. Once again I got lucky as the malaria control people were going up river to the Indian villages in a few days and they said they could give me a ride. This was perfect because I really didn't want to just show up with no introduction.

The ride up the river lasted an hour and a half. This is the dry season and judging from the number of times the engine was lifted out of the water to avoid scrapping the bottom, I'd say it was pretty dry! We arrived at the village and the malaria people went off to collect their blood samples, and I tried to locate the Chief to ask for permission to spend several days in his village.

The Chief could not understand why I wanted to spend time in his 'poor' village, but he said I was welcome. I started to look around for a place to pitch my tent, but the Chief said, "No, no, no, you can't sleep outside" and he offered me the home of someone who no longer lives in the village. The homes are all on stilts, with a long log with steps notched out as a ladder, because every ten years or so, the river floods up to the houses. They are hand made with wood and cane from the nearby mountains. The roofs are thatched and most of them have open fires inside. The houses are pretty empty, except for some food and clothes. They don't have tables, chairs, or beds- everyone sits, eats, and sleeps on the hard, often uneven, floor. The homes are all designed the same: a large open room with an open fire cooking area off to one corner, and another room separated by a wall for sleeping. No one is ever by himself or herself nor do they want to be. I found this out the first night.

I was getting ready for bed when the Chief approached me and offered me his daughter as a sleeping companion. I said that was fine, thinking she'd take one room and I'd take the other. The Chief instructed me to close the doors at night, although I couldn't figure out why since most of the other homes didn't even have doors. I got out my sleeping bag and laid it on the hard wood, and the daughter, Oderai, laid down right next to me. After a few hours I became so hot that I couldn't stand it anymore, and I moved into the next room and slept between the two open doors. That was the first and last time Oderai ever slept with me. The Chief apologized to me for leaving me without a sleeping partner, but I had scared his daughter by not sleeping right next to her and by opening the doors at night. I assured him that I would be all right by myself, but I know this is something he never understood.

The people were very shy with me at first. The women, who usually go topless, covered themselves up when I first arrived. This lasted only for a few days, and after that, whenever it was unbearably hot, even I went topless. I became friendly with one family in particular, and I hung out with them most of the time. They have four children ages: 6, 7, 11, and 15, and since the youngest was only six, the mom, Selena, didn't go to work in the fields very often. They were equally as fascinated with me as I was with them. Sure, they have seen white people before, but I don't think they have ever gotten to touch them. They couldn't get over how soft and pink my hands (I don't use a machete every day) and feet (I wear shoes) were for an adult. They marveled at the hair on my arms (they don't have any body hair), and they asked me if it was part of my culture to paint my hair like a doll.

The Chocó live off of the land. Each family has a plot of land where they grow without pesticides or chemicals, sugar cane, plantains, beans, bananas, pineapples, corn, and rice. Other things are grown communally like yucca & ñame, and other things grow abundantly with no attention like coconuts, mangoes, materials for baskets etc.; these are for anyone to take. They eat three big meals a day and there always seemed to be plenty to eat. I ate: plantains of every kind, cooked every way I could imagine, roasted corn, fresh yucca (the smoothest I've ever tasted), ñame, ñampi, deer, something they called a rabbit but actually looked like a large guinea pig, lots of different fresh water fish and tiny fresh water shrimp, fresh corn empanadas, sugar cane, sugar cane honey (really good- made by extracting the juice from the sugar cane and cooking over low fire for five hours- good with just about anything!), panela (often confused with my name Pamela. Panela is a candy made from the sugar cane honey, it's really good, but if you don't drink lots of water while eating it makes you cough!) Arroz con coco (rice made with water that has been poured over freshly grated coconut-it's to die for!), I even tried their local fire water- chi cha- it's a fermented corn & sugar cane drink which tastes like cider. My policy was eat first, ask later. I decided to make this my policy after a conversation I had with Casimiro, the man of the house. He was explaining to me all the different animals there were in the mountains and he mentioned the Scarlet Macaw. I said "oh. I didn't know there were Macaws in this area". "Yes" he replied "hard to find, but very tasty"!

Everyone in the village was an artisan. The men carved wood and tagua nut figures, and the women made baskets. The children are taught around age ten, and many of them are quite good. Everything they make comes from the mountains and all the dyes for the baskets were natural. I was in heaven! I did learn how to make the simpler baskets, but I wasn't very fast-I think I'll stick to knitting. They would sell their wares to get money to buy the few things that they could not produce themselves: salt, oil, coffee, flour, clothes, kerosene for their lamps, etc. They could get by without these things, and in some of the more remote villages, I'm told, they do.

Once a week they would walk to Piñas to sell their wares to the foreigners at the fishing lodge. I had wanted to make the trek with them to get to know the jungle, and to trade in my book that I had finished reading (the owner of the lodge has lots of books in English for trade). The hike there was over four hours- crossing four, up-to-my-thighs, rivers, up and over a mountain dumping us onto some cliffs on the ocean with waves crashing against them which we then had to scale up and over. They walked the entire way without shoes and carrying heavy loads up to 40 lbs.. Even the kids made the hike. This only took us to Puerto Piñas, and then we had to wait for a boat to take us to the lodge. We returned to Puerto Piñas in the evening, spent the night, and hiked back the next day. It was kind of a long way to go for a book, but the owner of the lodge let me take two.

The days in the village were very pleasant. We'd wake up at the first light and the women would start fixing breakfast. After breakfast everyone: men, women, and older children, would head to the fields. The women work the same jobs as the men, their strength being equal to that of a man. Even the old grandmother would strap a basket to her back, grab a machete, and head for the mountain to gather plantains. At lunchtime everyone would return for the day as the intense tropical sun would make it impossible to work. We'd have lunch and then the kids (this included me) would go for a swim in the river. Everyone else would work on their crafts, or just hang out and talk (they all speak Spanish as well as a dialect called Wounaan) When it cooled off a bit, some people would go fishing, or help with whatever house was being built. We'd have dinner and then hang out some more. We went to bed fairly early I think, although I'm not sure since no one had a watch. To me this was paradise!

There were many things that I liked about this tribe, but my favorite--hands down--was their use of decorative pigments called jagua. They would extract the liquid from the fruit of the jagua tree and with a 'paint brush' made from the bark of sugar cane they'd paint their bodies. Everyone painted themselves, although the kids did it more regularly. I let them paint my whole body knowing it would last for fifteen days. I liked it so much that I made a bottle to travel with so I could always be painted. To make it, first I had to find someone to climb the very tall tree and knock down the fruit. Then the kids helped me peel the fruit (six year old Jessica is pretty good with a knife and seven year old Evita is almost better than me), then I grated the fruit and squeezed the juice through a cloth. We cooked it for a bit and voila I had a bottle of jagua. I also had dark purple hands that faded after thirty days.

I am usually apretty lucky traveler. I just seem to stumble upon things that most people carefully plan. Well, in the Darien I stumbled upon a full solar eclipse. I had started hearing about it when I first arrived but didn't pay much attention to it because I was so focused on visiting the Indian village. As the day of the eclipse (Feb 26) drew closer I began to realize that it was going to be a full solar eclipse in the early afternoon, with 4 minutes of totality! The best place to view it was in Jaqué, so I said my good-byes to the Chocó while they loaded me down with honey, sugar cane, and plantains and headed down river the day before the eclipse. I arrived in Jaqué and learned that the president of Panama was going to fly in to Jaqué to see the eclipse and the whole town was preparing for his visit. Jaqué was starting to fill up with eclipse pilgrims from all over the world--how I did not hear about it beforehand, I'll never know--and they all had come prepared with special lenses for viewing the eclipse. Not to worry though, I sent out a radio message to the owner of the fishing lodge and she sent me out a pair the next day.

The day of the eclipse was very exciting. There were t.v. cameras from all over and I even got interviewed by a local news station in Panama City--I think my painted body had something to do with it. About 1 hour and 45 min before totality the moon started to move over the sun. Was everyone at the beach looking up at the sun through their lenses? No, they were at the airstrip waiting for the President to arrive! He looked nothing like I thought he would, I was expecting to see Juan Valdez, and instead I saw an adult version of Ritchie Rich! We all walked with him down to the beach. He talked to me for a bit asking me who painted me and was I embarrassed to be painted. I said of course not, I love the body painting! He sat down on a bench near the beach and that's when I lost interest in him and focused on the eclipse.

As it got closer and closer to totality the light started to change. I can't explain it but I've never seen anything like it before- it was really quite eerie. The shadow cast underneath a palapa showed several little eclipses. It got darker and darker until almost total darkness- totality! At that point it was safe to look directly at it with a naked eye. It was AWSOME!! It was this huge black dot with a fuzzy yellow ring glowing around it. Three other planets were clearly visible in the dark sky: Mars, Jupiter, and Venus. Four short minutes later the sun started to emerge and for a split second it looked just like a diamond ring and we all had to put our lenses back on. A group of people from Spain clapped and cheered. They had traveled to Mongolia for the last eclipse and it was so cloudy they couldn't see anything-can you imagine? With the major excitement being over, I headed back to La Maestra's for lunch.

La Maestra's house had filled up with people who had come to see the eclipse (a great group of people from the States and Panama) and for lunch she served Sancocho and my favorite arroz con coco. A great lunch for a great day. The Panamanians that were staying at La Maestra's live near the Costa Rican border in a town called Volcán. One of them has a friend that has a large horse farm and he's said he would try to get me a job for a month or so. I made plans to head there the end of the week.

The next day, I took the cargo boat out of Jaqué and headed for Panama City. I had heard horror stories about 'El Amparo' and they turned out to all be true. The boat hardly looked seaworthy, and while it was anchored out in Jaqué, low tide would find it sitting on dry ground looking more pathetic then ever. It's a two story red, white, and blue (colors of the Panama flag) wooden (or should I say dry rot) boat. The direct trip back lasts sixteen hours--it only took six to arrive in the 'Alacran' and that was considered slow. The boat was packed with people and cargo including all the empty bottles, cans, and propane tanks from the lodge. Luckily, I had kept my sleeping bag out and except for an occasional toe in my ear, I slept fine. La Maestra had sent me off with a piece of sugar cane that was about eight feet long. I can imagine the sight I must have been getting on the bus in Panama City with my backpack with machete hanging off the back, my painted body, and carrying a huge piece of sugar cane. It was an adventure I'll never forget.