March 2002

ihana.com - big trip - diary - panama - march 2002

 

Police check point on the Darien road

Yaviza, the end of the road...

...a big river then solid jungle to Colombia

Wednesday 13 - Sunday 17 March

We spent the night by the canal at Gamboa, a US style town made for canal workers, and in the morning headed out to the Darien Gap. After spending the night in a friendly Kuna village by the bridge across Lake Bayano, we headed off to Yaviza, the last place on the pan-american highway. Arriving at lunchtime after a disappointingly easy drive over the dusty and potholed gravel road we found Yaviza to be a bit of a dump. The wide river had no bridge across although there were houses in the jungle on the other side. A local man told us the famous story of the Darien Gap expedition with landrovers that the British army did in the 1970s and how theres still a landy in there somewhere. The only people who make it through go by foot and boat but there has been at least one motorbike (carried by some hired locals) and some bicycles through to Colombia. There were police checkpoints every 50kms or so and they all knew about us. Security is tight due to the guerrilla activity and drug trafficking in the border area. The people of Yaviza were relaxed enough and none of them mentioned seeing any trouble. The main activity in the area was concerned with improving the road and hacking down the forest. Big lorries carrying enormous hardwood trunks where everywhere and the deforestation is very significant to say the least.

Barry checks out a doris

Alison checks out a boa

Meteti

As we headed back it was getting late so we stopped in the small town of Meteti where we'd spotted a large number of dorises earlier. A guy working on eradication of bovine intestinal worms kindly invited us to stay in his garden (complete with rotting Lada) and avail ourselves of his facilities. Later we took him out for a few beers and games of pool to join us for B's birthday.

Washing the landy

Crossing the river at our campsite

Custom made rock chess table

Returning from the Darien, dusty and tired, we camped by a wide rocky river and washed ourselves and the landy. The river was full of fish which take a liking to flesh, T fell victim to a 3 inch long shark which bit his nipple!

Look at my cock

The judges attach the spikes

We didn't bring ours to fight with

The start...

...the white one loses

B continues his trend for exotic haircut locations

Travelswithrover had arranged to have their landy painted like the local buses. A guy in Pacora was the main man and we arrived after a Saturday night in the city to find the previously dull white landy resplendent in stunning new colours. Check out their site for the full result. Once their landy was finished it was time to take in the local cock fight in a purpose built building in the town. The cocks have their 'thumbs' removed and big spikes are attached in place to help them tear into their rivals. The fights last about 3 or 4 minutes until one of them is just lying still. None of the fights we saw produced much blood and guts and none of them died. Its not that exciting.

Now we've got a few days left here in Panama before the landy ships on Thursday the 21st. TWR are heading north back to the USA, we've spent a fair amount of time with them and it'll be great to see them go so we don't have to get beaten at scrabble by Marty anymore! They've kindly given us their digital photos to make this page with while we wait for our new camera to be delivered to Colombia.

The next update will be from Cartegena. Fingers crossed we don't get kidnapped or shot in the first five minutes!

 

previous entry
next entry

Join our Mailing List      Read Guest Book

all content is copyright © ihana.com 2002