Leaving Nicaragua my passport is checked at a Monty Python style desk marooned in the middle of a wide muddy road. I have to wander around a carpark for some time to track down the official who inspects my bike. In his mirrored sunglasses he swaggers with an Al Capone sort of authority. Lord knows, if I was the supreme master and overlord of a muddy parking lot I would too.
The queue for Costa Rica is a 2 hour monster. For $20 we can jump it, a lady whispers, but we decline. My dad warned me against the moneychangers who work the line. We choose a harmless-looking old man. He fumbles shakily with his calculator and offers us ten times too much. We smile and correct him and hope there is a son ready to take over the family business.
It's all about carparks today and I become very familiar with the truck lot as I am sent the full length of it 3 times to fetch photocopy after photocopy between Aduana (with their tantalising photocopy machine in the back) and the copy shop 200 metres away beneath the sweltering sun.
Playa Coco is a boring and expensive beachtown but at least there is a sushi restaurant. I see a baby stingray, about the size of my palm, snorkeling at nearby Playa Ocotal and a huge crested iguana runs away with our papaya.
Hotel Lys in Montezuma probably takes the prize for most annoying accomodation in Central America. The rooms aren't cleaned, bad 80s music blares til late and we are woken at dawn by inexplicable explosions. Not the first rude awakennings by inexplicable explosions this trip by a long chalk but these ones are inches away... The proprietor looks like John Hurt's disowned twin whose body and mind have suffered terribly from an existence in the form of a mile-long reefer. There is a hilariously inept guitarist playing that evening. So many wrong notes that it enters the realm of psychedelia. Even so, the band is taken aback when John Hurt falls out of his perma-hammock onto some bongos. It then become painfully clear that he is actually attempting to accompany them. His THC level sags before the end of the song however and he drools off to roll another. A few hours later we hear him singing and arguing passionately with himself outside our window.
We scramble over rocks upstream to a delicious swimming hole fed by a dramatic waterfall
and then ride off in search of Cemetery Island. It is only reachable at low tide so of course when we arrive at 1pm as we were told it is high. A wizened old fisherman tells us that it won't be low until tomorrow. Not sure what moon he sleeps under but I fear for his family's food supply. We dunk ourselves deliciously at a nearby hotel pool and pursue a troupe of capuchin monkeys that swing past. At 5pm we return to the beach opposite the island. The old man is gone - off to read up on physics no doubt - and a magical Moses causeway beckons.
The island is a peaceful and unique place. Gravestones in the shape of a propellor for a pilot. Or covered in seashells. Or as two carved heads for twins.
We take the ferry to the skinny spit of land called Punta Arenas and make Alajuela by sunset. Alex and his family at Trota Mundos guesthouse are lovely and all line up to heave my bike up into the front of the house. The one clear channel on the TV shows an absurd version of Total Wipeout. If you get a question wrong you have to trampoline onto a furry pole and hold on til the ad break. After the break everyone wears even less clothes and rides scooters through obstacles. When the credits roll they all start dancing.
Apparently if you get to Volcán Poás before 10am the view is amazing. After we ride up the 2700 metres we are treated to the surreal picture of tourists staring out at, and even taking pictures of, a pure cotton-white nothing.
It's not even 9am and the cloud has come sat on us already. At least the paths through the cloud forest are atmospheric with aerial roots and bromeliads looming. My legs feel like lead piping at this altitude.
Back in town we wander the market and eat in a little eatery for which the term 'bustling' would be totally inadequate. It's mental. Waitresses yelling out orders and rushing around to the point that we can't hear the constantly spinning blender next to us as it churns out to-die-for juices. In a photo shop we burn a DVD of pictures for Em to take home for me. There actually use a punch-clock here. And they have a frame for sale that says 'Memories of Ireland' with a plastic leprechaun stuck to it. Who would buy such a thing in this town?? It is very dusty. Someone is airbrushing the photo of a pregnant woman. It sort of makes me jump when I realise I am sitting next to the same woman. Her husband is pointing out the stretchmarks he wants erased.
I take Emma to the airport in San José. Sort of at a loss for words. There is one last absurdity as we get directed around the wrong side of the airport and hit a road that is possibly the worst on the whole trip. We giggle as we plunge and lurch our way through the elephantine potholes. A last kiss and suddenly I am alone and everything is different. The bike feels weirdly light and as I climb to 3000 metres the weather echoes my mood with a downpour and a chill. Then the clouds are below me. On the other side of the mountain there is a double rainbow beneath me in a valley. I make the odd little town of Sierpe by dusk. I am the only one in my guesthouse and I sit in an echoey hallway talking to Coco the proprietor. He tells me of a rough overland way to Drake Bay and in a town whose only reason for existence is a boat there, I attract a lot of attention as I buy a can of petrol from the boat people and head to the river. There I find an elderly man paddling a canoe towards me and I protest that my bike will be too heavy. He smiles and points to the actual ferry which is hidden under a tree branch.
I steam along the hilly dirt road totally alone with the jungle plains unrolling around me and feeling great. The road is perfectly difficult. Impossible with a passenger. If I fall it's only my own skin. Near Rincón, they are digging up the road and putting in pipes for the river to pass through.
I have to wait half an hour and then as they fill it in I see some ropes and a hammer inside the pipe. "No olvida sus herramientas!" (don't forget your tools!) I joke with them as I pass. The joke is on me of course when I get 100 metres further and have to come back for my gloves which I have left in the road. The road gets more insane but somehow my momentum gets me through. Several river crossings, one of which is very wide and has two exits.
Murphy's Law sends me the wrong way and soon I am trying to ride up a gully which would be hard on foot. I backtrack. By the time I reach Drake Bay I have to take my boots off and pour out pints of water. Henar at Jade Mar is sweet and a private room for $10 in this country is as good as it gets.
I kayak up the tidal mouth of the Rio Agujitas.
The last time I felt this peaceful was drinking Kava in Tanna, Vanuatu. Tiny currents run in random opposing directions and then reverse. It is as if a million little stories are being whispered all around me in the eddies and branches which bend as monkeys nibble. It is a noisy peace with the water gurgling against the continuous whine of the cicadas which rises to deafening at last light. At the river mouth I tense as I spy a crocodile only 20 feet away. Beady eyes just above the waterline, the knotty ridge of its' back glides away menacingly.
A six hour walk to Playa Josecito along the beaches and trails of the coast. A pause to enjoy the spectacle of a family of white-faced monkeys on a branch grooming each other.
A baby on her back and the recipient of the grooming appears to be dead such is his ecstasy. Mini-dinosaurs hop out of my path. One little freeloader even hitching a ride on my shoulder for a while. The beaches are as wild as they come. After dark I join The Night Tour. Tracie and Giancarlo are so engaging and knowledgeable and find us a buddha-like Smokey Jungle Frog,
a Whip-Tailed Scorpion (which Tracie puts onto my face - I can feel the tiny hooks on its' feet),
an ant mummified by Cordyceps,
a fungus that eats the insides while keeping the ant healthy with antibiotics and even fungicides & insecticides to ward off the competition, then brainwashes it to climb a tree an on reaching a suitable leaf, kills it and turns it into a spore-factory. Spores used by the Chinese Olympic team to improve fitness. We flip open the lair doors of the trapdoor spiders. Little legs appear and indignantly slam them shut. A Northern Cat Eyed Snake and a Chunk-headed snake
- beautiful slender creatures that defy gravity reaching out from leaf to leaf. A Four-Eyed Possum. Apparently the male stores its' testicles in its' pouch when it goes for a swim. Amazing few hours and I walk happily back across the beach under a huge moon.
Gas up at Rio Claro and up through Ciudad Neily into the coffee plantations. Through San Vito to Sabalito and then (after a lot of asking) find the obscure dirt road to the border at Rio Sereno. Two Americans almost come to blows over who knows the paperwork ritual for the Migracion better. "Two copies" says one. "Three copies" says the other, shaking his fist. My one copy gets me through fine. One of the warring pair, after he has calmed down, tells me of being in the riots in Panama City during the Noriega coup. He hid in a MacDonalds. The Aduana guy is snoring with his feet up on his desk which is covered in plantains. Across the tiny hut there is a TV showing a British teen soap through a hail of static.
Windy little Boquete is full of geriatric Americans. Frail bodies but voices still piercing. All following the advice of Time magazine that recently voted Boquete into the top ten of retirement destinations. Swiftly on to the hot springs at Caldera. This road is just absurd.
I am hopping over boulders and narrowly avoid getting stuck in the middle of a stoney river.
The pools are about as hot as I can stand and it feels great to cook for a while, chatting to a couple from Curacao, then hopping into the river nearby to cool off. In all the undressing I manage to drop my wallet, containing my passport but the proprietor in his little house across a bamboo bridge finds it and the only cost is having to listen to his long rant about my being blessed by God.
I leave my bike with an old deaf man and his son and trek up the mountainside to Lost & Found Lodge. With its' barrage of signs, rules and Texans it feels like an odd little obsessive cult perched in the woods. "Scuba" and "T" are the loudest and occupy the only communal area with drawls and bickers. Scuba is a 36 year-old process server and shows me videos of himself tracking down some unfortunate in a public toilet and slapping him with divorce papers before a hasty exit. T is a whiney 19 year-old who compulsively showers when she gets drunk. Scuba feeds her rum and then spirits her away. There is a "foosball" table. How annoying is that word? Yanks enunciating it carefully as if holding a turd on a stick.
The trekking is absurdly steep but I haul myself up with tree roots to a lookout where I can see all the way to the Pacific. Down the other side to the crystal clear water at Kitten Falls
and I stretch out of a rock and read. The evenings are drunken and rounded off by teetering along perilous stoney paths between the buildings. We visit an organic coffee farm owned by the lovely Don Cune translated by an American called Nico in his gravelly voice. We sniff herbs, hear the history of coffee and how Don Cune has developped his beautiful wild little farm where every plant supports its' neighbour.
My arms ache from crushing sugarcane but the juice is a great antidote when Don Cune feeds us tiny chillis that make us cry. This seems to be his favourite part of the day, and he giggles as he snaps pictures of weeping gringos. I wonder what he does with them. A dutch girl sits roasting coffee beans, choking from the smoke in a tiny room. I watch her finish and head straight outside for a cigarette.
After 3 straight days of drinking and poor sleep from the doors banging in the wind it feels good to hit the road again. At the checkpoint I buy a squashy chocolate cake. Not every day a policeman sells you chocolate cake. I ride fast, enjoying the feeling of having no set destination. At Santiago I decide to head down the quieter side of the Azuero peninsula to Mariato and stay with a Dutch couple who have "Ranchos" - a tent under a wooden roof - at the end of their property. A little five minute hike there makes you feel like you are in the depths of nature and I wake to the sounds of hummingbirds like little helicopters on crack and sleep most of a day in a hammock watching the butterflies, some as large as both my hands. At night the path is lit up by the greenish glittering of spiders' eyes.
It's Carnival and I head down to Cascajioso for a "lazo" (rodeo).
The calves are kicked and pulled into place and then the gate opens and the rider's horse launches itself after it. The rope twirls and often as quickly at 2 seconds later the calf is pulled off its' feet, the noose tight around its' neck. I put my ethics aside for a moment and marvel at the skill of the riders, rejigging their lasso after a miss in seconds despite the bucking of their horse and the constant barrage of horns and stamping of the crowd. Not to mention the MCs who keep up a constant stream of excitable rolled 'r's through the cranked sound system. John, an American staying at the same place as me shows up on his bike. He created the first eCommerce website back in the 90s and is retired on his bubble earnings. We stand there two deeply unstylish gringos in shorts amongst hundreds of immaculately turned-out strutting cowboys with their flamboyant hats and brass-studded belts. There is a dancefloor as yet undanced and several cowgirls slouch around brandishing lassos. Can't help wondering how that will work out once the sun goes down. The police wrestle some ne'er-do-well to the dust. A lady tries to persuade me to stay for the fiesta and dance with her but I have had enough and we head off stopping at a restaurant where John wants to track down some locals from whom he might buy land. Everyone talks about buying land here. His friend a friendly Panamanian woman sneaks up behind me and pours a big jug of water down my back. Ah yes, Carnival. I get her back with a surprise bottle attack before we leave. Another gourmet meal prepared by my lovely hosts Kees and Loes. She brings to mind Isabelle Huppert in "White Material" and they reminisce about their years in Mozambique doing development work. I like her story about producing graphs of pothole densities on the roads there. She lends me "Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams and I read a chapter by torchlight in my tent. O to be able to write like him.
There are tons of cops out on the road, and what with the stingy 80km/h limit I eventually get stopped. He shows me his radar - I was at 108 - ooops - I get him chatting about his motorbike and it does the trick, he waves me on with a grin. I cruise over the Panamá Canal at Paraiso. Gaze at the enormous cruise ships waiting to be lifted up the gargantuan locks. It only takes 30 minutes to get from Pacific to Atlantic. I pass the scary-looking suburbs of Colon. Depressing looking poverty here.
What is it about the 'end-of-the-road' town that I love so much? Quy Nhon in Vietnam, Krong Koh Kong in Cambodia, Tsaaganuur in Mongolia, Kwamera in Tanna, Tibooburra in Australia, Trujillo in Honduras. They seem to me to be lit in a softer light. Half-lit from an unreachable world where the rules are obscure. Populated with criminals and outcasts and freaks. Half of the buildings in Portobelo have collapsed, perhaps under the weight of history, the pounding of Drake's cannons. I can see that pirate sailing into this sleepy harbour after months on the Atlantic with Spanish guns on all sides. They recently found his lead coffin, buried in the water here. Panamá wants to put it in a museum. Britain wants to leave it be. The looted contents of the British Museum lend us no leg to stand on.
Captain Jack who runs my hostel is having a bad week. The water and WiFi don't work. I shower with a mug. Neither does the drier. His cook quits in a loud confrontation that comes and goes over several drunken hours. I rent his Kayak and it sinks halfway across the harbour. Sort of glad it happened before I got to the mangroves with their 'baby' crocodiles. It does not fill me with confidence for the yacht he has booked me to Panamá. He says 'I'm just trying to spread a little love'. He says the world is being covertly run by the nepotists behind the Federal Reserve (which is neither federal nor a reserve) and that we are all 'Sheeple'. No-one can get a word in edgeways. They are controlling us all using endless war. Their evil end is a world country with no borders. I gently shoehorn in that wars need borders. He stops in full flow with an epiphanic glow. 'I didn't think of that'. This mellows him into the gentler subject of music. 'I don't like female singers. I mean, I'm not gay but...' He plays desperately emo versions of 'Rocky Racoon' on his acoustic guitar. His bar is popular with the yachties, they order diesel over his radio. Julian from Devon is provisioning to sail for Thailand. He catches geckoes from the walls here to chase the cockroaches on his boat.
Carnival is in full flow here and, as I breakfast on salchichas and olanchos, a man in a bat costume and another painted yellow from tip to toe dance in the road. The car horns blare but they have no choice but to part with some loose change. There's no reasoning with people this drunk. A crowd gathers in the square in front of a huge lorry filled with water and the driver straddles the tank and hoses down the dancers. A Carribean ease and swagger permeates everything. The Black Christ looks down harrowingly on the faithful. He's not in the Carnival mood.
Rob, another Brit and I cluck around like expectant fathers as our bikes are pushed off the quay and dropped into a wobbly little launch. I hug my grab bars, anxiously hoping to stop the boat tipping over on the way to Wild Card. They winch the bike up and strap it down near the prow. I fuss around with extra tarps to protect it from the seawater.
We glide out of the harbour at sunset with regal grace. Once out on the open seas it is a different story and the spastic motion of the boat starts to tighten a knot in my stomach. I recall likening a band sleeper bus to a boat. You acquire bruises on every trip to the toilet. But this comparison is only realistic if the driver of the bus is an epileptic on crack being given high-voltage defibrillation. I concentrate on the horizon. My attempts to distract myself from the inner turmoil become mindgames and the evening becomes increasingly unreal. The lights on the shore are the truth. The moving of the boat is a lie. When a inky black swell rises to obscure the lights I have to hold my breath until the connection is restored. The stars are another haven and I start to name all the constellations I don't know. All around me is a scene from the trenches of the Somme. Bodies lurch and collapse at the rails. The retching and spitting. Mind triumphs over matter but at what cost. After several hours I have thought myself almost whole and can contemplate eating. I descend into the first and second circles of hell. That being the lounge with its' heat and diabolical red light and gaunt faces and blundering walls, and the galley below. I somehow grasp my bowl of spagbol and fight my way out before its' too late. On deck, with a force of will I eat and, after some hours of staring, I eventually reach a point where I can speak and chat with John the captain while everyone else attempts sleep. Finally I am tired enough to go below and am exhausted enough to sleep. Scant minutes later I am awoken by an especially large wave crashing through the hatch above me, soaking my head and half my bed. I turn lengthways and shudder back to sleep. A hour later an excruciating cramp in my leg wakes me. More feverish dreams and then the bliss of the engines being turned off and a gentle bobbing motion. It's 4am and we are in Porvenir.
From hell to heaven. A swim from the deck into the turquoise waters and the rigours of the night are washed away.
Second breakfast is pancakes with bananas, cream and jam. We take the dinghy to one of the tiny islands, this one is just big enough for about 10 huts and is called Mamitupu. The Kuna Yala are tiny, the Vietnamese would be giants here, and they greet us offering bracelets and Mola fabric pictures. I buy a reverse swastika bracelet, not because I want it, but as a donation.
This reservation is a unique arrangement and the Kuna are almost entirely autonomous and have maintained their independence admirably. If sea levels rise by less than a metre most of the 375 islands would cease to be. Apparently they signed an agreement last year that if they have to move to the mainland they would be paid welfare to avoid the deforestation that would otherwise result. I chat to Señor Sahila Iguailikinya González - one of the chiefs. He is a lovely old man with a walking stick and he asks me to send him a photo of himself that I take. John and I are invited into a hut. Comfortable and well-organised. The woman have long tattoos on the bridge of their noses. I play with a tiny island kitten that one of the children carries around. I ask one Kuna about music but he tells me that they have no music only dance. All the music they have is from the Spanish. We up-anchor and cruise about an hour to a cluster of unimaginably perfect little islands all ringed with coral and snorkel around a rainbow-encrusted wreck near the beach of Dog Island. Busy fishes of every hue and pattern dart through the openings.
Drinking games on deck in the evening lead to a long lie-in in the morning. I play Broadcast and eat pancakes and take a plunge whenever I feel too hot. We cruise 2 hours to Coco Bandero which is even more stunning than where we were yesterday. The Stahlrate, a boat I nearly took, is anchored there and the German crew are making the most of some R&R, drunk at midday in less-than-stylish underwear. I snorkel in a current that carries me all the way around the island as I look down, godlike, on the alien cityscapes and flickering fishes. We dine on lobster but it crosses some odd line in my head with its' Ridley Scott's 'Alien' looks and I able unable to join in with the splitting and cracking. I am charged with getting a crew together to gather firewood and we assemble a huge edifice on the nearest island that we burn after dark. Sandia punch, tall stories and the strong wind blowing the sparks into glassy tracers across the water.
In the morning we start the 36 hour trip across the Colombian basin to Cartagena that everyone has been dreading. I take a Dramamine but it makes me so drowsy that I spend an entire day fitfully sleeping an unpleasant sort of half-life. And still we continue. The decks career wildly and every ninth wave soaks you to the skin. Nothing but pitching canyons of water in all directions. Below decks is stuffy and reading and writing are not options that my stomach will permit. The only comfortable place is the wheelhouse and I spend most of my time there learning about boats from John and JB his South African wing-man. It's really interesting and they both know how to spin a good yarn and have great stories from all their many travels. Gato, the ship's cat is happily curled up near the wheel during most of the day but the moon brings on a skittish mood. JB has the scars to prove it. Gato even bites Roksana the Polish cook's nose while she is sleeping.
During the night a big wave covered the wheelhouse and came through the hatch, drenching the laptop that has the mapping system so John reverts to chart and ruler. He has 3 backup GPS units but the really expensive-looking one loses its' lock inexplicably and in another the battery contacts are broken. He fixes it with the foil from a cigarette pack. I dig out my motorbike GPS which helps to doublecheck our position. It's nice to be a little involved. As blobs of land appear on the radar, the flying fish are bested by 3 speckled dolphins that keep us company for a while, leaping and being obligingly picturesque. One big wave leaves Canadian Stefan with a fish wriggling in the crook of his neck. When it falls to the deck, Gato pounces.
A hush falls as we glide into Cartagena harbour through Boca Chica, the green and red lights showing us safe waters and the Miami-like skyline of Boca Grande and the rest of the city glimmering. It's another perfect moment in a trip of extremes. Already I am rewriting the story and the horrible bits are receding.
Landfall tomorrow but that is another continent and another day.
The queue for Costa Rica is a 2 hour monster. For $20 we can jump it, a lady whispers, but we decline. My dad warned me against the moneychangers who work the line. We choose a harmless-looking old man. He fumbles shakily with his calculator and offers us ten times too much. We smile and correct him and hope there is a son ready to take over the family business.
It's all about carparks today and I become very familiar with the truck lot as I am sent the full length of it 3 times to fetch photocopy after photocopy between Aduana (with their tantalising photocopy machine in the back) and the copy shop 200 metres away beneath the sweltering sun.
Playa Coco is a boring and expensive beachtown but at least there is a sushi restaurant. I see a baby stingray, about the size of my palm, snorkeling at nearby Playa Ocotal and a huge crested iguana runs away with our papaya.
Hotel Lys in Montezuma probably takes the prize for most annoying accomodation in Central America. The rooms aren't cleaned, bad 80s music blares til late and we are woken at dawn by inexplicable explosions. Not the first rude awakennings by inexplicable explosions this trip by a long chalk but these ones are inches away... The proprietor looks like John Hurt's disowned twin whose body and mind have suffered terribly from an existence in the form of a mile-long reefer. There is a hilariously inept guitarist playing that evening. So many wrong notes that it enters the realm of psychedelia. Even so, the band is taken aback when John Hurt falls out of his perma-hammock onto some bongos. It then become painfully clear that he is actually attempting to accompany them. His THC level sags before the end of the song however and he drools off to roll another. A few hours later we hear him singing and arguing passionately with himself outside our window.
We scramble over rocks upstream to a delicious swimming hole fed by a dramatic waterfall
Apparently if you get to Volcán Poás before 10am the view is amazing. After we ride up the 2700 metres we are treated to the surreal picture of tourists staring out at, and even taking pictures of, a pure cotton-white nothing.
Back in town we wander the market and eat in a little eatery for which the term 'bustling' would be totally inadequate. It's mental. Waitresses yelling out orders and rushing around to the point that we can't hear the constantly spinning blender next to us as it churns out to-die-for juices. In a photo shop we burn a DVD of pictures for Em to take home for me. There actually use a punch-clock here. And they have a frame for sale that says 'Memories of Ireland' with a plastic leprechaun stuck to it. Who would buy such a thing in this town?? It is very dusty. Someone is airbrushing the photo of a pregnant woman. It sort of makes me jump when I realise I am sitting next to the same woman. Her husband is pointing out the stretchmarks he wants erased.
I take Emma to the airport in San José. Sort of at a loss for words. There is one last absurdity as we get directed around the wrong side of the airport and hit a road that is possibly the worst on the whole trip. We giggle as we plunge and lurch our way through the elephantine potholes. A last kiss and suddenly I am alone and everything is different. The bike feels weirdly light and as I climb to 3000 metres the weather echoes my mood with a downpour and a chill. Then the clouds are below me. On the other side of the mountain there is a double rainbow beneath me in a valley. I make the odd little town of Sierpe by dusk. I am the only one in my guesthouse and I sit in an echoey hallway talking to Coco the proprietor. He tells me of a rough overland way to Drake Bay and in a town whose only reason for existence is a boat there, I attract a lot of attention as I buy a can of petrol from the boat people and head to the river. There I find an elderly man paddling a canoe towards me and I protest that my bike will be too heavy. He smiles and points to the actual ferry which is hidden under a tree branch.
I kayak up the tidal mouth of the Rio Agujitas.
A six hour walk to Playa Josecito along the beaches and trails of the coast. A pause to enjoy the spectacle of a family of white-faced monkeys on a branch grooming each other.
Gas up at Rio Claro and up through Ciudad Neily into the coffee plantations. Through San Vito to Sabalito and then (after a lot of asking) find the obscure dirt road to the border at Rio Sereno. Two Americans almost come to blows over who knows the paperwork ritual for the Migracion better. "Two copies" says one. "Three copies" says the other, shaking his fist. My one copy gets me through fine. One of the warring pair, after he has calmed down, tells me of being in the riots in Panama City during the Noriega coup. He hid in a MacDonalds. The Aduana guy is snoring with his feet up on his desk which is covered in plantains. Across the tiny hut there is a TV showing a British teen soap through a hail of static.
Windy little Boquete is full of geriatric Americans. Frail bodies but voices still piercing. All following the advice of Time magazine that recently voted Boquete into the top ten of retirement destinations. Swiftly on to the hot springs at Caldera. This road is just absurd.
I leave my bike with an old deaf man and his son and trek up the mountainside to Lost & Found Lodge. With its' barrage of signs, rules and Texans it feels like an odd little obsessive cult perched in the woods. "Scuba" and "T" are the loudest and occupy the only communal area with drawls and bickers. Scuba is a 36 year-old process server and shows me videos of himself tracking down some unfortunate in a public toilet and slapping him with divorce papers before a hasty exit. T is a whiney 19 year-old who compulsively showers when she gets drunk. Scuba feeds her rum and then spirits her away. There is a "foosball" table. How annoying is that word? Yanks enunciating it carefully as if holding a turd on a stick.
After 3 straight days of drinking and poor sleep from the doors banging in the wind it feels good to hit the road again. At the checkpoint I buy a squashy chocolate cake. Not every day a policeman sells you chocolate cake. I ride fast, enjoying the feeling of having no set destination. At Santiago I decide to head down the quieter side of the Azuero peninsula to Mariato and stay with a Dutch couple who have "Ranchos" - a tent under a wooden roof - at the end of their property. A little five minute hike there makes you feel like you are in the depths of nature and I wake to the sounds of hummingbirds like little helicopters on crack and sleep most of a day in a hammock watching the butterflies, some as large as both my hands. At night the path is lit up by the greenish glittering of spiders' eyes.
There are tons of cops out on the road, and what with the stingy 80km/h limit I eventually get stopped. He shows me his radar - I was at 108 - ooops - I get him chatting about his motorbike and it does the trick, he waves me on with a grin. I cruise over the Panamá Canal at Paraiso. Gaze at the enormous cruise ships waiting to be lifted up the gargantuan locks. It only takes 30 minutes to get from Pacific to Atlantic. I pass the scary-looking suburbs of Colon. Depressing looking poverty here.
What is it about the 'end-of-the-road' town that I love so much? Quy Nhon in Vietnam, Krong Koh Kong in Cambodia, Tsaaganuur in Mongolia, Kwamera in Tanna, Tibooburra in Australia, Trujillo in Honduras. They seem to me to be lit in a softer light. Half-lit from an unreachable world where the rules are obscure. Populated with criminals and outcasts and freaks. Half of the buildings in Portobelo have collapsed, perhaps under the weight of history, the pounding of Drake's cannons. I can see that pirate sailing into this sleepy harbour after months on the Atlantic with Spanish guns on all sides. They recently found his lead coffin, buried in the water here. Panamá wants to put it in a museum. Britain wants to leave it be. The looted contents of the British Museum lend us no leg to stand on.
Carnival is in full flow here and, as I breakfast on salchichas and olanchos, a man in a bat costume and another painted yellow from tip to toe dance in the road. The car horns blare but they have no choice but to part with some loose change. There's no reasoning with people this drunk. A crowd gathers in the square in front of a huge lorry filled with water and the driver straddles the tank and hoses down the dancers. A Carribean ease and swagger permeates everything. The Black Christ looks down harrowingly on the faithful. He's not in the Carnival mood.
From hell to heaven. A swim from the deck into the turquoise waters and the rigours of the night are washed away.
Drinking games on deck in the evening lead to a long lie-in in the morning. I play Broadcast and eat pancakes and take a plunge whenever I feel too hot. We cruise 2 hours to Coco Bandero which is even more stunning than where we were yesterday. The Stahlrate, a boat I nearly took, is anchored there and the German crew are making the most of some R&R, drunk at midday in less-than-stylish underwear. I snorkel in a current that carries me all the way around the island as I look down, godlike, on the alien cityscapes and flickering fishes. We dine on lobster but it crosses some odd line in my head with its' Ridley Scott's 'Alien' looks and I able unable to join in with the splitting and cracking. I am charged with getting a crew together to gather firewood and we assemble a huge edifice on the nearest island that we burn after dark. Sandia punch, tall stories and the strong wind blowing the sparks into glassy tracers across the water.
A hush falls as we glide into Cartagena harbour through Boca Chica, the green and red lights showing us safe waters and the Miami-like skyline of Boca Grande and the rest of the city glimmering. It's another perfect moment in a trip of extremes. Already I am rewriting the story and the horrible bits are receding.
Landfall tomorrow but that is another continent and another day.
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