Which Canal?

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Time and the hour, going thru the same thing again, in your actual Panama City, right by your actual Canal...and trying to take the mind back to where the little note book says I last blogged...scrambled notes from odd opportunities along the road, when passions were high, death just a shot away, all the senses attuned to the present, head full of ideas, heart full of fear, love, scent of roses..whatever...now trying to interpret not only the writing but the sense also...
So, out of Domenical and just drifting without any rush, south towards the end of Costa Rico...dense, green impenetrable jungle to the left, towering giants, draped in lianas and creepers, brilliant flowers, masses of insects, butterflies, birds and sure as sure, deep inside, the animals whose calls indicate many, very sharp teeth...on the right side the rugged coastline occasionally glimpsed thru the palms...some BIG developments going on here as well, extensive properties, the gated estates, the mega private properties...same old, same old...
We turn off to find Pavones, another famous surf spot and the road soon deteriorates from bitumen to potholes to dirt to really rough dirt with mud....then the rain comes...we continue, warily, then come to the wide brown river, with the narrow brown ferry, with the overloaded little meat truck stuck trying to get up the dodgey ramps...we assist with the push and eventually the truck gets on and the ferry goes off!....we wait, after half an hour it has crossed, gotten the truck off and returned...its all of 50 metres across!...The ferry comprises a couple of pontoons with a floor, a massive old, smoky diesel on one side drives the prop, the ferry runs on 2 overhead cables, one on each side, attached to the ferry by 4 cables with pulleys that grab, slip, slide as she goes across. We carefully/nervously ride down the embankment and up the narrow ramps to get on board, even hairier on the other side, plunging thru puddles and up the bank...and then onward, another 40 kms of roughness, and more rain, then the swollen creek, I love that expression 'swollen' in regards to rivers, just so evocative of the roiling waters, currents twisting, eddies swallowing great gulps of water, froth and foam and all the crapola of the jungle washing down, threatening to burst out of the banks and flood the whole area...anyway, we waited for a while then had to go back, and thats a long way, and its getting darker!...
Luckily we took a wrong turn, found a pretty smooth gravel road...dusty even!...some weird rain shadow? or magic?..anyway, then potholy bitumen again, then more rain, the darkness, no idea where we are...pull into a servo and find we're at the frontier!
Find a dodgey hotel with lock up for the bikes and not so bad room upstairs over the street. I wake about 1am, a small puppy is yapping across the street, the family downstairs is watching tv, I can hear another 4 or 5 tvs in the other rooms, people walking past, one guy has the best belly laugh, I can hear him coming from 100 metres and then passing the same, I've got to smile its so infectious, other groups of drunks, slurring their yelling like all drunks, hawking and spitting, a dog is scratching and barking trying to get in, or out of somewhere, trucks rumble past, working their way thru the 18 gears or stopping and idling , loads on smaller trucks rattle and crash thru the potholes, out in the distance the flatulent roar of trucks engine brakes slowing for the frontier, water noises from the dunny leaking, people showering, leaking pipes, drains gurgling, the guy in the next room comes home accompanied by clattering high heels...an hour later, door slams, high heels clatters off downstairs and back to work.... the huge steel sliding gate that protects the car park, screetches open and shut as more vehicles arrive...this room is like an experimental sound booth for testing new, weird sounds, the window opens over the street and the walls are more thin than paper, its like they attract sound!.....you get the picture?
In the morning ..the puppy is still yapping!............we head around the corner to the frontier...hundreds of semi-trailers are lined up on each side of the road, on each side of the border, waiting their turns...now its a set routine for us..
1/ exit country passport (easy)
2/ exit country bike papers (easy)
then its off down the road, no-persons land, find the new office
3/ entry country - tourist card/passport (more time than anything, forms filled etc)
4/ entry country bike papers....here's where we have to find the actual office, never signed and usually somewhere else from the passport office...and here, someone eventually takes our forms, copies of passport, licence , bike rego etc, then they laboriously type out all the same details, onto exactly the same form as every other border xing!..fantastic, and lots of fun if you're patient!..and this is where we usually find someone who can interpret for us...why they can't send these officials to the same place I learned español?..why do they have to mutter, speak softly and use strange expressions? or why can't I get a grip on this language?
5/ just when you think its all over...customs! and this time they're serious!..they go right thru all of Grant's stuff, then they look a little bit at Ted's, by the time I get there he just signs the paper!!...but they have sniffer dogs going thru the truck cabs and the bus passengers luggage, long bits of wire and sticks to poke and search under the trucks.....but what the fcuk would they be looking for? I mean what more could you possibly bring into Panama?

The frontier building is new, so new, that they're still laying concrete as we go thru', concrete trucks backing and weaving between the semi-trailers, the roof is about 10 metres high, stylishly modern raked angles of glistening silver corrugated iron over brilliant blue steel beams and girders...lower down, the circular curved office buildings in burnt orange are half finished....inside, of course, the usual squalid, chaotic mayhem as usual.

For the first time I'm feeling really good on border xing, I had no real expectatrions of Panama but it feels good, much the same as CR but this is a fabulous, concrete, 4 lane, grade separated, bitumen covered highway...most of the cars are newish and the cops wave us thru'...we pull up after a while at a big american style shopping mall, its nearly 10 am and in the whole place there are 5 people. 2 guards outside the 2 banks, both closed, one chica at a coffee stall, the only thing open in the food court!, she shares our lack of interest in the greasy left-overs that make up her food offerings, I don't think the bain-marie has been fired up this morning!...
Onwards and upwards....up into the singing mountains, in fact, its just like that!...something out of Heidi or whatever it was, this tres cute little town of Boquete, as the name suggests (bouquet?)its flower town, also strawberries, lots of coffee (coz its at about 1500 m, perfect for coffee growing) but its like a little village in the Austrian alps, also mega property developments, vast estates for residential development, many estate agents, all in english!,...We stay in a pension, more like a chalet, nice room and , never thought >I'd be wanting it, hot water!!...the garden is full of flowers and greenery. Our timing was perfect, just after we moved our stuff from the bikes to the room, the skies opened up...we thought we'd seen rain but man, this was even heavier!..plus lightening striking all over the yard, cracks of thunder making us jump, rolling thunder across the whole valley, Luckily I enjoy a good storm, and soo much better thabn previously when we've been stuck in it on the road! However, it was getting a bit of a strain as we were now totally locked down and nothing to eat or drink...oh you poor things I hear you say!..hahaha...and sort of a cross-cutural interface as I had Fela Kuti on the little ipod speakers pumping out African jazz in the depths of the Panamanian highlands...and thanks Layli for the CD...its getting a lot of use. And the little speakers are proving their worth.
Next morning a quick but precarious ride around the local volcano road, put the bike into the gutter and had to get a local farmer to help me pull it out...the only bummer about these bikes is that they're just soo hard to get out of 2 foot deep channel gutters on 45 degree angle slopes!..
however, that passed, we headed off south, I think, occasional rain but nothing serious, its always a dilema of what to wear, with just the body armour the rain stings, with the jacket and pants with liners, absolutely waterproof but sweaty as the proverbial camel drivers jocks in the sun, half way alternative is the jacket without liner, fine in the dry or light rain, but if the rain persists you gradually feel it seeping down into sleeves, guts, crutch and finally boots....if its warm it can be quite fine, but in the cold mountains.....not fun.
Riding thru the country is cool, roads here are great and the traffic moves along well, as usual we attract lots of attention, always positive, from motorists and people on the side of the road. Seem to be passing the cops at the right time at the right speed as no dramas.

So we just keep on cruising and end up getting close to Panama city...its been a long haul but not all that tiring so we go on...get onto a freeway that winds thru the hills, off to the side there are real 'leggo land' housing estates, millions of little identical block houses altho' brightly coloured!...some consolation?....the trafic is reasonably heavy but moving along, and suddenly we shoot out onto a huge bridge, like a bigger sydney harbour, way up above the water, a huge tanker is passing way, way below, many small boats and ships are moored around the little bay, huge cargo handling wharves and container terminals...and off to the right, the start of the actual canal!!...I wasn't expecting to feel so emotional but it really brought a lump to the throat....this is such a significant moment on this trip, we all felt it and pulled up on the beachfront road on the Panama City side and yee-haa-ed....The end of Central America, the start of South America......in front of us the high-rise city skyline of >Panama City and now some work to do trying to find a way to get our beasts somewhere across the Darien Gap!.......

I note the passage of time by my nails...every 4 weeks or so I realise they need trimming and I think, crikey another 4 weeks have passed. Haircuts are similar but cam vary! the cut and the growth rate

Now I gotta go and pay for lunch....I'm Pussy Boy this week!.....whaaat?.......We started a money share thing to make it easier for joint expenses...like food, board, gasoline etc and we all put in from time to time as necessary...it was a kitty, which of course led to 'pussy', we take turns in being responsible (?) and it gets passed from one to the next on Saturdays, so for that week, whoever has it, is Pussy Boy....and takes a lot of shit from the other 2!!

Oh, and one more thing...just like I didn't see any small dogs in Chihuahua, I haven't seen any Panama hats here in Panama!...is it the El Nino effect, butterflies in Brazil, is the world-as-we-know-it coming to an end?.....you can see its time for me to have a little lie-down....and don't think this is easy!...I had this almost finished when the bloody system went down and I lost it all!!- ....Love to you all.....B

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