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November 23, 2005
Sailing to Escudo de Veraguas
So, Rick's friend Ed has a 43-ft Catamaran called Quixotic and last week he invited us to sail with him to Isla Escudo de Veraguas. We jumped at the opportunity since Escudo is known to be gorgeous but infrequently visited by tourists. Plans were made tentatively because it was unclear when Ed would be able to make some necessary engine repairs. The night before the tentative departure date we met Ed in Almirante just as his engine repairs were being completed by a local mechanic - or rather, by Ed who was working under the mechanic's direction down in the cramped, hot engine hatch. The mechanic sat comfortably up on the deck complaining about his bad back and how underpaid he was, every so often giving directions to Ed.
Getting to Almirante in the first place had been interesting, with six people, lots of luggage, decent-sized swells, and minimal gas. We had brought 2 of the teachers into town to do errands, and by the time we had picked them up and fought the waves across the bay to Almitante we arrived with less than 400ml of gas remaining. Upon seeing the size of our panga and the weather conditions, the teachers had decided to bring along their lifejackets, which was a source of amusement for the rest of us. There were only four of us returning because we left the Wwoofers in town so we hitched a ride back to Tierra Oscura on Quixotic and introduced the teachers to the luxury of yachting =PAnyhow, we were up early the next morning to pack everything we needed to take. And yes, the amount of luggage that we managed to bring along was incredible. Unbelievable. Ridiculous, even. But we did manage to make use of almost everything except for Rick's dive gear. Besides that, we packed: a 2-person ocean kayak, 2 playboats, 4 paddles, lifejackets, helmets, spray skirts, laptop computer, giant spotlight, boxes of food, a large thermos of coconut juice, tupperware containers of coconut cream, etc etc etc. Plus, there were one hundred other things going on at the same time while we were packing. Between the farm workers coming and going and helping and needing to ask questions about what was supposed to happen while we were gone, and Ed running around trying to get internet and cellphone access and trying to book flights between Panama City and Bocas, it was a minor miracle that we were able to leave by about 9am. And it was yet another minor miracle that Rick's head didn't explode.
Once we were finally underway everyone started to relax. The four of us included Ed, Rick, myself, and Marcella. Once we were outside of the mangrove islands and clear of the shallow water we put up sail and turned off the engine. The wind and waves were both coming from directly behind us and were quite powerful and we were able to surf the catamaran as we headed out towards open ocean. Now THAT was a cool feeling! Ed started to teach us the ropes on board the boat so that we could help him while under sail power.
Once
we got into open ocean and headed towards Escudo large waves
started to hit us broadside. We were pitching and rolling all the way
to
the island, and it turns out that Rick gets seasick. Violently seasick.
But we made it to the island with only having lost one of the slats of
teak that make up the rear deck, which got punched out by a strong
wave. Rick later managed to gouge out two long, deep holes in his foot
when he slid onto and across the nails that had originally held the
board down. Fortunately Ed carries good first aid supplies, but it made
it difficult for Rick trying to keep his foot dry while being in a
paddling and snorkelling wonderland.The main island of Escudo is surrounded by islets that protect it from the breaking surf, creating a calm-watered paradise of lush virgin rainforest and hidden sandy beaches. Outside, the surf crashes against the islets creating stunning rock formations and some perfect surfing waves. As soon as we had anchored Quixotic in a semi-protected bay, Rick and I jumped in the ocean kayak and took a quick tour along our end of the island. The strong swells were fun to paddle in as we snuck in and around some small islets - rushing surges that threatened to slap us up against cliffs. Fortunately we'd already practiced rolling the double ocean kayak so we were comfortable paddling together and able to enjoy it without letting it freak us out. The small hidden beaches are spectacular - we paddled up a narrow channel to get to one, where we beached and walked around for a bit (barefoot through the jungle - yikes!).
After the ocean kayaking, we decided that there was still enough daylight to do a little surf kayaking. So we tied up the ocean kayak to the back of Quixotic, got into the whitewater boats, and seal launched ourselves off of Quixotic's front trampoline. It was a 10min paddle or so out to the surf, where we caught a few waves. The wave speed was too fast for the hull speed of our short boats though, so it was difficult to stay on the waves. Marcella was kicking herself in the butt for not having brought her surfboard (it was being repaired in Bocas). She's writing a travel column for a Mexican surf magazine, so surfing is obvioulsy pretty important to her.
After
passing through a channel with some interesting
signage we spotted some men snorkeling looking for lobsters. They had
bottles of bleach that they were using as poison to make their jobs
easier. Lovely. Shortly after that we passed a large protected bay
where there were a
few small houses, made in the typical thatched-roof up-on-stilts
style
that the indigenous people here build. This was the island village,
made up of 4 or 5 families. There was no school, and some of the
children didn't speak Spanish. On the opposite tip of the island there
is another small community of men from the mainland who are there to
dive for lobsters - they paddle their cayucos over from the mainland
and
dive to a depth of up to 80ft. Pretty impressive.
Eventually
we caught up to Ed and Marcella between some small islands where they
had stopped to snorkel - and were finally able to drink some water. We
then traded vessels, with them paddling and us motoring. When they got
into the kayak, Marcella shrieked over its tipsyness and was talking
about how she didn't like paddling
and Ed would have to do all the work. So we were quite surprised when
we couldn't find them shortly thereafter! We spent quite a bit of time
going back and forth between the islands, making sure that they hadn't
flipped somewhere.
Once
we even had to pull the dinghy under a fallen tree. Eventually we
continued around the rest of the island where we met them
back at Quixotic - they had beelined it around the inner coastline and
through some waves (which we were sure they would not attempt in the
kayak without sprayskirts), then hired a guy with a motorboat to tow
the
kayak through a little rough section back to the sailboat. So we had a
bit of a stressful time worrying about them and making sure that the
motor didn't touch the coral (I spent a lot of time depth probing with
a wooden paddle). But now we know that place like the backs of our
hands!
Later that night we took the dinghy back to the little village to buy some nice fresh fish for dinner, and on the way we were stopped by the military-ish boat. It turned out to be the Panamanian Coast Guard, and they were very friendly and chatted with us for a while. We bought three large red snappers, a lobster, and a bunch of smaller fish from Don Pancho, owner of the "Fish Man" boat which is often seen in Almirante. It turns out that he makes a regular run between Escudo and Almirante. He sold us the fish for $0.80 a pound. In Almirante it sells for $1.25/lb. Strangely enough, he also had a bunch of closed-cell foam - perfect for outfitting kayaks and hard to find in Latin America. He uses is for keeping the fish cold, but had extra so he sold us a large block of it for $2. On the way back we managed to get the propeller caught in an unseen fishnet and spent a while floating and shredding the skin of our hands trying to tear it off (where's the machete when you need it??) until the owner came out to help us. He was very nice about it - probably because it was an illegal net. But we gave him some gas for his troubles anyway, because we shredded his net.
The
next day we had to head back to reality. The winds were very light, so
we had to motor most of the way, stopping briefly at Isla Tigres for a
quick snorkel break. Shortly thereafter a school of dolphins visited us
for a while, racing alongside and in our wake.
Back
home again, unpacking was easier than packing as we simply piled all
the cargo into the boats, tied them together, and ferried it all over
to the dock.
Posted by rick at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)
Paddling the Changuinola River
There are a number of rivers in the province of Bocas del Toro, but access to them is very difficult. The lower stretches are used for travel by motorized canoe, but the upper parts are very isolated. In November 2005, we set out to explore one of them, the Changuinola river.
Looking at the map, the most reasonable access point for a first trip seemed to be via the Rio Robalo. The map showed a community called Norteno about 2km up the Rio Robalo from the road bridge, and from this community it was 15 or so km to the Changuinola headwaters. Part of these 15km follow along the Cano Sucio river, which gives hope for the existence of a trail at least part of the way.
We
took Izmael and Choni with us; the idea was to leave the boat at
Izmael's grandmother's place and then walk to the road (10 minutes
which turned out to be 30) and take a bus or taxi to the Rio Robalo
bridge about an hour towards David. After 10 minutes on
calm ocean water, we went up the creek through pretty mangrove to his
grandmother's house. From there, we hiked up to the road in about
half an hour, giving us a chance to get a feel for the weight of the
boats.
We
waited along the road and chatted with a few indigenous people who were
taking
cacao beans to Almirante to sell them. But soon a taxi came by, so we
stopped it and had the guy take us to Rio Robalo. He was English
speaking, and it was as usual very entertaining to listen to
his accent. At one point I asked him something about "the little bus"
which he did not understand even after I repeated it twice -- until I
translated it to "de liki bos". I love their accent...
He had a 4WD truck, but was apparently not used to dirt roads, so given the "bad"condition of the road from the Rio Robalo bridge to Norteno he eventually refused to go further. Very strange; the road really wasn't all that bad. Oh well, it just meant 15 additional minutes of hiking with boats.
The
Rio Robalo was very pretty, and soon we got to Norteno and the
confluence with the Rio Cano Sucio. We followed a trail along the Rio
Cano Sucio (to the
right after the bridge over the Rio Robalo). About an hour and many
stream crossings later, we reached Filo Verde. From there, it was
another hour to Loma de Agua, a community of about 100, with a new
school built from cement under construction. Six hundred bags of
cement, plus bricks and other building materials, had been brought in
on horseback and carried by hand to build the new school.
Here,
we managed to hire a horse to help us carry the heavier bags on to La
Pista (another 2 hours). In La Pista, two very nice young men named
Benjamin and Simon offered us a
house to stay in and themselves as guides for the next day. Good news:
There is a trail all the way to the river! They said
it would take 4 hours to get to Corte Culebra (they called this part of
the Changuinola river the Rio Culebra). There are two trails
to get to the river, one of which was a bit longer and met up with the
river further down, where it was not as wild. Of course we ended up
choosing the
shorter, wilder alternative - a good decision, as it turned out.
Choni and Izmael went and got some firewood so we could cook something, but then the decision was made to accept Simon's invitation to cook in his kitchen. As I found out when I was done setting up the hammock, nets, thermarest, etc, "using" Simon's kitchen apparently meant Simon telling one of his two wives to cook on a fire under their house, with a good 20 people total watching her... It made me a bit uncomfortable, feeling like the reason that she had to do all this work even though I never asked her or Simon for it; I would have preferred simply doing our own cooking or chipping in some ingredients and eating whatever the family was eating that day.
So we provided rice, traded some more rice for some squash and some breadnut, and since there was no salt we gave the cook our salt container for the trip which contained enough for about 50 meals or so. I had a hunch that this was a mistake, and indeed, the container came back empty. Fortunately, there was a little tienda that sold me 10 cents worth of salt to refill the container. A little later, Izmael asked if we wanted some coffee, mentioning that they could not use their locally grown coffee. Izmael then asked if we had a little bit of sugar, we did, and because I am soo slow to catch on, I gave him the whole bag -- one pound. A weird sense of deja vu came to me when the coffee turned out very sweet. Sure enough, a little while later I found myself giving Izmael money to buy another pound of sugar... An interesting aspect of local culture; things are used when available, not when needed. Makes a little bit of sense in an environment where nothing lasts because of the humidity and heat. But is that enough reason for salty rice and overly sweet coffee? A matter of taste, I guess.
The
house we stayed in was a classical traditional hut; the posts were made
of wood split with an axe, the floor and low walls from Jira (a palm
that can be split and flattened out -- a bit like bamboo but much more
durable), and the roof from Penca palm fronds. The whole structure was
built with a machete and, in lieu of harder-to-obtain vines, the
ubiquitous red and white twine the banana company uses to tie their
banana plants up so they don't fall over in the wind. No chainsaw, no
nails, no hammer, no wooden boards. No wire, no hinges, no screws, no
cement. They might have needed a shovel to dig holes for the posts
(which were split with a machete or maybe an axe. Ok, so machete, axe,
shovel, and twine. Very impressive; it was nice to see that that here
people have preserved their traditional construction methods.
The
next day, we left the unnecessary gear with Choni and Izmael, which
they took back with them for us the same morning. We continued on with
minimal gear that fit into the small whitewater kayaks.
Simon and
Benjamin dragged the boats most of the way, laughing out loud a couple
of times on the downhill sections when one of them was knocked over by
a boat sliding down the hill behind him. We paddlers carried the gear,
partly simply by wearing it (PFDs and, in my case, helmet, which added
safety anyway) The uphill sections were very exhausting and all four of
us took turns with the boats. It was quite a
mudfest, and my soaked hiking boots doubled in weight; the trail is
apparently used to move cattle.
This,
by the way, was one of the most surprising things about the trip. I had
expected that 2 hours or so from the road, there would be no more
agriculture of any sort and was hoping for virgin rainforest. Instead,
there was a cattle farm at the end of the trail, along the Changuinola
river. Along the way, however, the trail crossed through virgin forest
for about 3 hours. Very pretty.
The plant with the interesting
root system behind the tree with the flowers in the picture on the left
is Jira; the same plant the floor and walls were made of in the house
we were staying in the night before.
The
trail was clearly heavily used, and it appears that it had been there
for a long time. Apart from the muck, it was actually a very good
trail. It supposedly goes all the way to Boquete, 2 more days of
walking.
Seeing this gave me an idea... most of these trails are ancient and have been used for generations. However, they are not mapped anywhere, and even the names of the communities do not appear on the military topo maps we were using.
So, wouldn't it be fun to explore this trail system with a GPS and add the trails to the maps? Where else can you find hundreds of km of maintained jungle trails connecting small communities? (Ok, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, maybe Costa Rica, certainly Colombia). Still, pretty cool...
On the other hand, the entire
area is part of the Comarca Ngobe Bugle, sort of an indian reservation;
people are very weary of strangers and it would probably hard to
convince them that you are walking around with a GPS to map trails and
not to steal their land and sell it... And, more realistically, they
might object to having this information publicly accessible.
The trail went mostly southwest, which meant we were putting in much higher than we planned to. Good, more whitewater that way.
Before reaching the Changuinola/Culebra river proper, we came to a creek that we decided had enough water for us to paddle.
Simon and Benjamin had wanted to try out the boats, but just as we arrived at the creek it started to rain, so they changed their mind since they were already cold. Also, all of us where equally exhausted after the long trip, and they had to hike back while we had a few hours of whitewater ahead of us,
The creek, probably Quebrada Romero, was a fun little creeking experience to warm us up. We had to walk around part of one rapid because of a nasty decapitating rock overhang.
It was obvious from the river that
this was a rapid that needed to be scouted though, so not too
much
danger here.
The
Changuinola river turned out to be beautiful, with clear water and fun
class III rapids and countless waterfalls coming in on the sides. The
first 2 hours of the run we were in a canyon with no sign of
civilization, after this, the valley opened up and there was a cattle
farm on the hillsides and some signs of people living there (mostly,
Pifa palms which have been used for food since ancient times in this
area).
The
rapids were mostly straightforward and boat-scoutable, and there were
surprisingly few trees in the river. This can, of course, change
rapidly; we were just lucky. For the first day the rapids were quite
consistent and there wasn't much flatwater between them at all - fun!
The
toughest rapid on the river definitely required
scouting, and
even though it was only class IV we decided to walk part of it,
because
of the remoteness of the place and the consequences of injuries. We put
in below a drop that could
in the have possibly flipped us and put us into a
bad spot lower in the rapid. The lower part
was fine, we ran a sneaky line down river right.
Our
first camp was on a little island. It's usually a bad idea to camp on
an
island, but the spot was very high and we thought it would be extremely
unlikely for the river to flood so rapidly that we would get stuck. Our
options for camping were pretty limited -- all we had was the tarp and
hammock, so we needed a spot with trees to tie things to but preferred
not to be directly in the jungle with all its bugs.
Getting water was a bit of a problem; the river had become muddy with runoff from the cattle farms (did I mention I hate them?), so we had to find a clear side creek to get water from and treated it with bleach (fortunately we had noticed at home that my iodine tablets were spoilt -- the lid was corroded).
Because of limited space in the boats all we had to sleep in was one hammock to share, which worked surprisingly well once we had found a comfortable position (heads by feet worked best), and until we heard a scary sound and found ourselves falling fortunately only about 2 inches onto the rocks. The branch I tied to had broken...
The
second day brought us mostly class II rapids in an open valley, with
good current. We found some very conveniently accessible good water,
and
passed the community of Guayacan (just a few huts). Shortly before
reaching Guayacan was when we started to see a few people on the side
of the river. For the rest of the trip we would spot a person every so
often, usually fishing. Every once in a while we'd stop to ask somebody
for information about the river.
In this kind of situation, the way you ask things is very important... If someone is sitting in a cayuco, we might ask him if he had gone down the river, how long, and what place he got to; not much sense in asking somebody on foot about the distances on the river, or asking someone how long it takes to get to a place they have never been to.
Then we'd ask very specific or comparative questions, such as "Is the current stronger further down"? "Do people paddle this section in cayucos"? "Are there sections where they have to get out and push the boats?" etc, etc, etc. By asking several different people we could usually get a good rough estimate of how long it would take us to get from one town to another (none of the towns or anything were on our map).
We were getting low on food, so we decided to prepare some bananas and bread nut that we had found along the way during the day. The bananas were still green, so we baked them in the fire and they tasted like potatoes.
The next day finding water became a priority. We soon found this lovely little creek, and once again there was no need to get out of the boat to fill the Nalgene.
After
2.5 hours on the third day, we reached Corriente Grande, the largest
comunity so far. Lots of kids were playing in the water and happily
posed for pictures.
We wanted
to take out it El Nance/Risco, but
managed to paddle right past the town without seeing it. So we ended up
having to paddle
all the way to El Silencio, another 3 hours or so. In El Silencio, I
called Man Hing so that he could meet us in Almirante at 5pm, then
bought some food and
water in a little supermarket right by the river. We were trying to get
a taxi from there to Almirante, but very few taxis went by and when we
found out it was only 20 more minutes by river to the road bridge to
Almirante,
we decided to paddle further in spite of the rain and cold.
On the river we chatted with a few guys who had built little rafts from
balsa wood and some young guys from Changuinola who were floating down
the river in inner
tubes.
Finally, after about 8 hours (15km) of hiking, 15 hours (80km) of paddling and 4 days total, we reached the bridge, exhausted but happy. I'd love to do this trip again, though it might be worth investigating to see if it is possible to put in higher up by starting on the Pacific side, hiking across the continental divide with the boats, and then put in. So much to do, so little time...
River description:
Times and flows are rough estimates on the day of our trip; the parts with whitewater can probably be paddled quite a bit faster if necessary. If you do this, email me, and please remember to respect the locals and always ask for permission to take pictures.Put In: Take a taxi to Norteno. From the end of the road, walk to the bridge, cross it, and instead of going left into Norteno go right, up the Rio Cano Sucio. Pass Filo Verde and Loma de Agua, arrive in La Pista after about 4 hours. In La Pista, get a guide, since the trail leaves the creek and is hard to find.
Take out: Bridge
Almirante-Changuinola, or, earlier, at El Nance/Risco (supposedly
requires a 15 min hike up the hill with the boats to get to the road).
| Minute | Flow (in cfs) | Description |
| 0 | 100 | Put into Quebrada Romero |
| 12 | 100 | Dangerous rapid; tight chute with undercut rock, walk on right |
| 20 | 800 | Confluence with the Changuinola / Culebra River |
| 60 | 800 | Right bend before a tall canyon wall, class III rapid, large beach on the right. |
| 80 | 800 | Class IV rapid, many boulders, walked part of it. |
| 120 | 900 | Canyon opens up, rapids get easier, II |
| 150 | 800 | We camped on river right here, on a little island. |
| 320 | 800 | Fun class II rapid |
| 330 | 800 | Nice waterfall on left |
| 360 | 1200 | Confluence with the Rio Culubre (from left) |
| 540 | 1200 | Camp |
| 690 | 1300 | Community of Corriente Grande |
| 700 | 1300 | Fun II-III rapids |
| 720 | 1500 | First motorized canoes. El Nance/Risco with road access. But still a few good play waves below. |
| 880 | 2400 | El Silencio, confluence with the Rio Teribe |
| 900 | 2400 | Take out bridge along road from Almirante to Changuinola |
Posted by rick at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2005
First Iguana Sighting
Man
Hing told me that he saw an Iguana near the nursery the other day. I
couldn't quite believe that; I thought there weren't any on this island.
However,
a couple days later, on a hike around the property, we saw one...
surfing down on a branch that broke off a tree. The dogs found it
first, and before we could stop them, they had injured it. Hopefully
the bites will heal and this cute little guy will stick around.
Posted by rick at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)
Swimming Lessons for Puppies
When
you live on the water, and don't have complete control over your legs,
it's a good idea to know how to swim. Unfortunately, the puppies didn't.So-- time for swimming lessons.
Daddy's (Tasso's) old water wings were still around, so they were reused. Passed down a generation... pretty funny.
They
fit quite well... and were very necessary. As it turned out, these guys
did not have natural instinct to tread water; when dropped in the
water, they simply froze and sank. With the water wings, they had
a chance to explore carefully what happens if they move. Except, they
didn't. But once I started moving their paws, they somehow figured it
out, and kept kicking. Now, 3 lessons later, they can stay above water
for quite a while. Good thing, because a few days later, both fell in,
but stayed up until we fished them out. Next lesson: WHERE to swim when you fall in....
Posted by rick at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2005
Paddling the Cricamola River
A few months ago, Abelardo's father went back home to his house in Nutibi. There is no work in the area at all, so we sent some seedling bags with him so that he could find seedlings in the jungle and start a little nursery. Nutibi is a little village on the Cricamola river, about 5 hours by boat from the closest town or road. The Cricamola river is quite pretty, and we were told there were lots of dangerous "remolinos" and rocks further upriver -- sounded worth exploring by kayak. So the purpose of our trip was twofold -- pick up hopefully 1200 seedlings, and do some whitewater paddling. Also, this was a chance for Abelardo to see his father again... he had not heard from him since the phone in Nutibi does not currently work.å
But let me back up... this adventure really started the night before. Some time in the afternoon, I realized I was a bit low on cash to pay for 1200 trees; so between that and a few other things, I decided to make a trip to town with its ATM, grocery stores, and halloween parties. Surely we would be back in time to get some sleep before leaving for Cricamola at 3am... Didn't happen. None of it. After dinner with Ed, we went to the Barco Hundido bar (aka the Wreck Deck, named after the wreck in about 3 feet of water that is illuminated at night). It got rather late. The drive back was a challenge... It was pitch dark, choppy, and all I had to go by was a tiny compass. So I did the usual strategy... get the direction, drive for a while, stop, look back to see if town is in the right direction, and if so keep heading directly away from town, while also using the wave direction as a guide. But unfortunately, I did not get it exactly right, and we missed the entrance through the mangrove... it took quite a while to find it. When we finally got back and got done packing, it was 3.30am, but neither Abelardo nor Emiliano or Ricarcito showed up... At 4.30, I decided to go get them, but it turned out that Emiliano was in Buena Esperanza, not at home, which explained why his phone was out of range. By the time I headed back, it had started raining, and I could literally see only one thing: a faint light in what I thought was the rough direction of my house, in an indeterminable distance. I am not counting the countless reflections from raindrops that were all I saw when turning on my flashlight...
So I headed to the light, was relieved that it was the house and I did not have to spend 3 hours in the dark in the rain in my bathing suit, and passed out in bed. No point in going in this weather anyway.
We finally left at 7.30 am, in the rain. It sucked. There had not been time to set the boat (42 ft dugout canoe) up properly, so EVERYTHING was damp and muddy. 300 empty sandy flour sacks, 20 plastic plant boxes, shovels, machetes, sandy wet rope, boards with nails sticking out, the bottom of the boat was wet and mudy and slippery, etc. Yuck. And I was picturing gliding through the night and waking up in a hammock to a beautiful sunrise over the water. Didn't happen. (I went back and forth between laughing and whining. Peeple of the wurl, relax! I had just read "Fierce invalids home from hot climates", and have to say I agree with End Of Time that laughing is the best thing to do).
Eventually we set up the hammock under a tarp and got a few hours of sleep, followed by a breakfast of sandwiches with roast beef and guacamole, and a brunch of ceviche we had brought along. At 11.00, we reached the mouth of the river; the level was quite high, about a foot below the famous phone booth on river left.
A
few minutes up, we saw a woman sitting in a boat, and a pile of thatch
leaves next to the boat. I have been trying to get seeds for
this type of thatch for a while; they are the best roofing material
around, and have been almost eliminated from the area. People ended up
cutting down the palms to get to the tall leaves; a clearly
unsustainable practice.So we decided to stop, and asked if they would be able to get seeds or seedlings for us. I managed to amuse the local audience by seal launching my whitewater boat off the dugout to get to shore, and Alfonso, the woman's husband, and I walked back through the jungle to see if there were seeds. They were "Cerquita", at least for him, who managed to dance on the submerged roots like a mountain goat on steep hillsides. I fell a few times, but managed to not pick up any leeches... Eventually we found some seedlings and seeds, an agreed that he would round up some people and obtain as much as he could until tomorrow afternoon.
Back at the boat, it turned out that the woman's name was Anayansi, which prompted Emiliano to say that that was his sister-in-law's name. Strangely enough, these two Anayansis turned out to be sisters... clearly evidenced by the fact that this Anayansi knew that her sister was married to this "big moreno guy" who refused to pick up her father in Almirante the week before. (Which is another story... The other Anayansi had not seen her father in 10 years, and he was going to come visit, but showed up unannounced and there was no space for him in the small boat. Not understanding the dangers of the ocean, he was upset that Anayansi's husband had to leave him behind...). Emiliano gave them a small barracuda we had caught on the way to the river.
In a little while I will head over to the caretaker house and show Anayansi the picture of her sister; she has not seen her in 10 years at least, so I am curious if she will recognize her.
But back to the adventure... We made it to the first town, Bisira, without problems, and continued on to Nutibi. After getting stuck in shallow water in one of the rapids, we decided to follow the experienced water bus driver. Our boat was slower than the water bus, and in one rapid we were literally inching our way forward. Emiliano has gotten amazingly good at driving in rivers. In one rapid, he used the hole behind a tree stump to gather momentum and then push through the fast current beside it. Impressive. We were right upstream from a nasty tree strainer; had the engine cut out unexpectedly, we would have lost the boat and had to swim for our lives. But none of this happened, and we made it to Nutibi just fine.
Here, it turned out that Anselmo (Abelardo's father, the one with the seedlings) had moved out of town to his farm, which was a 1.5 hour walk away. Instead of sending one person, our three worker friends decided to go all three, without even letting us know... So I spend half an hour asking around for them, and learned about the location of Anselmo's new home. Eventually, the three guys came back, exhausted, and reported there were only 400 seedlings to be picked up, and many of them not planted in bags.
So we decided to hike to Canquintu, about one hour upstream the same day, with the kayaks, spend the night there, and then hike further the next day, and paddle down to Bisira. The guys, meanwhile, were supposed to load the plants into the boat, drive to Bisira, and then load the boat with rocks for ballast (we can always use rocks at the farm).
We
spent the night at Cedeno's house in Canquintu. His wife cooked
dinner for us, and we realized where Anayansi learned to cook her
signature dish, "chicken surprise" after we were served
this for the 5th time in a row. Anyway -- Cedeno had a little church
under his house, which is where we piled up our whitewater gear for the
night. The next day, we started hiking. There are trails on both sides
of the river, but Cedeno recommended the one on river right. The trail
was clean, but muddy and somewhat challnenging, at least with kayaks on
our backs. It was good to have Cedeno along to help us carry the gear.
After about half an hour, we came to a fork; the left leads to Rio Cana
(3 hours to the river, than one day paddling); we took the right, which
followed the river. After about an hour, we came to the rock that
Cedeno had described to us the night before... he said it was shaped
like a woman lying down. We had not thought much of it, but it turned
out to be very interesting. It actually contained some parallel, curved
lines that someone had carved. Cedeno said it had always been there,
and nobody knows where it came from. I asked if anyone had ever
investigated it (for example, someone from the university in Panama)
but he said no -- few people know it's there. He also mentioned that
they frequently find pieces of pottery and figurines in the area.
About
two hours later, we reached a cattle farm on river left, and decided to
not go any further. Supposedly, the trail continues for 3 days;
reaching Piedra Roja in 2 days and finally connecting to a road in
Chirriqui. At our put in, the rapids were only class II; we would have
to go much further up to get to interesting whitewater. It seems like
the way to do this would be to drive to Chirriqui and then hike down
from there.The paddle was uneventful; for a while we joined a couple of kids in a dugout canoe who were taking firewood to Canquintu. We traded paddles and found out that whitewater paddles don't work well in dugouts and that single bladed dugout paddles are even worse for short playboats. Good way to practice the J-stroke...
We
stopped in Canquintu; it's definitely the nicest town in the province,
which is amazing given that it is so far from the road system.
Manicured lawns, trash cans, etc/ Incredible. We bought some local
chocolate (25 cents per 1/4 lb ball) and sealed a deal with Cedeno for
him to get some more seedlings for us. We continued on to Nutibi, where
we stopped briefly to grab a handful of grapefruit and an interesting
new fruit that we had just learned about, called "Petate" in spanish in
"Odob'a" in Guaymi. It looks like Cacao, but fatter, the texture is
similar, but it tastes like Papaya and smells like Durian. Yuck. Still,
good to have...In Bisira, we met up with the guys in the boat, who had had a very scary moment driving down from Nutibi... The current grabbed them when the motor cut out and they hit a tree trunk, doing some temporary damage to Abe's back and some permanent but easily repaired damage to the boat.
The
guys had been unable to get permission to pick up rocks since the
Cacique was not there; so we continued with an almost empty boat, to
the meeting point for thatch seeds and seedlings. We got 3 sacks of
seeds and about 50 more seedlings; enough for hopefully about 1000
palms.
Cold,
hungry, exhausted, and tired, we arrived back home at around 10pm.The puppies were fine -- always a relief. They seemed to have inherited their bizarre sleeping poses from their father.
Anayansi did not recognize her sister in the picture... and seemed completely indifferent to us having run into her. She did confirm that she has a sister with the same name who lives around there, though.
Posted by rick at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)
Surgeries on the Picnic Table
After Tita's second litter of puppies, it was definitely time to get her fixed. Since she has never left the farm since she was 6 weeks old and has never had a collar on her, I didn't think it would be a good idea to try to put her into a taxi and take her to Changuinola. The better choice seemed to be to bring a vet out to the farm, particularly since two more female dogs belonging to neighbors were in need of the same operation, and I wanted to get Tasso fixed as well.So today, it actually happened. (Previous attempts to bring a vet out here had failed, but that's another story) I picked up Dr. Miguel Quintero in Almirante, and on the way back to the farm we picked up Sushi and her daughter Stella, who both were to be sterilized as well. Sushi's owner had kindly volunteered her as the guinea pig; which was really sweet and not as cruel as it sounds. Sushi is by far the oldest, and ended up being adopted out of necessaity on her part rather then by choice of her owner. Besides, she has a huge goiter that makes everyone doubt she will live much longer.
First
order of business was to find a way to weigh the patients to be able to
calculate the correct drug dosages. The only scale on the farm is about
100 years old, rusty, but still works; an antique piece I bought from
the Price family. An airline blanket served as a makeshift dog hammock.
Very cute.
Miguel
preferred to work on the picnic table outside rather than in the
kitchen as we had planned. So we lined to picnic table with plastic
courtesy of Continental airlines, Sushi was sedated, cut open, and the
fun began. Miguel stuck his hand into her and pulled out one of her
organs. Nope, that wasn't it. Back in it goes, and eventually Miguel
found what he was looking for. Some clamping, stitching, cutting, and
plenty of spurting of blood later, we are all done, and back into her
blue kennel she goes. One down, 2 to go. Her daughter turned out to be a lot less bloody, and after that it was time for lunch.
As it turns out, Miguel studied in Brazil, and is a really interesting and nice guy. He was recently fired from his 22 year lasting job with the ministerio de desarollo agropecuario because he did not support the winning party in the elections last year.
Tita
was next. As expected, it was not easy to sedate her... she resisted
for a long time, managed to run away and fell in the water, where Robyn
fortunately grabbed her right away. She was in no shape to swim...
Eventually Miguel decided to anesthesize her completely.The surgery went smoothly, and this time I was able to stop Miguel from throwing the ovaries and uterus into the normal trash (along with used needles, yuck...), and asked him to throw it in the ocean instead. The red snappers who live under the house really appreciated this delicacy. Maybe it is to them what really fresh sashimi is to us...
All
female patients needed to get a little ring around their neck to keep
them from biting their stitches off... In Panama, such devices are
fabricated from plastic bowls, in this case courtesy of El Maximo in
Almirante.
Next
was Tasso. I apologize for the extremely graphic pictures of him
getting his balls cut off. Robyn took them. Women seem to have an
obsession with the details of castrations. His balls (the white thing
floating in the middle in the picture) also made good fish food.While we were at it, we also pulled out half a dozen petrified parasitic works out of Tasso's back... He had accumulated them while I was gone. Yum.
Overall, it was quite an interesting day. And I made it through it without fainting or puking. I am so proud.
Posted by rick at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2005
Cooking Appliances made of Mud
Building a Lorena Stove
Zoe Sylvester & Andy McNamara
We spent a week at Ulrich's Native Species Reforestation as part of the WWOOF program (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - www.wwoof.org), whereby volunteers can exchange their labor for room and board at organic farms around the world. While here, one of our projects was to build a Lorena stove for the school across the Laguna de Tierra Oscura from Ulrich's farm. A Lorena stove derives its name from the combination of two Spanish words, lodo (dirt) and arena (sand) which are the two principal components of the stove. The benefits of the Lorena stove are that it contains the heat of the fire more efficiently, thereby using less firewood for equivalent heat, and directs the smoke out through a chimney and away from the lungs of the cooks.
A Peace Corps volunteer named Annie directed the project wonderfully. Many Peace Corps volunteers learn this process and she was kind enough to spearhead this project even though it was after her last official day of service. Additionally, Ismael and Emiliano - two of Ulrich's workers - were instrumental in the mixing process.
We
began by building a wood frame to contain the stove while it cured.
Its approximate dimensions were 1.3 x .45 x .3 meters, and the
base was a table raised a .3 meters above the ground. Since the
stove would eventually weigh half a metric ton, it was important for
the table to be strong. We then collected dirt and sand in equal
quantities. The dirt should be clay subsoil and as free from rock
as possible. The soil from the mound of a leaf-cutter ant colonly
works quite well. We used 3 large wheelbarrows of each material
and added 50 kilos of cement. After mixing the dry materials, we
added water until it was somewhere between damp and wet - wet enough to
stick together when pounded, but dry enough that when squeezed no water
seeped out.
Next
we pounded the material into a wooden box using our hands and scrap
pieces of wood. We pounded vigorously to ensure that no air
bubbles were caught in the material. About 5 cm from the top, we
placed scrap pieces of iron in the corners and between the eventual
burner locations to reinforce the material. We completed
compacting the material by standing on wooden boards that we
temporarily placed on top. After smoothing the top with a masonry
shovel we let the material set for an hour and returned to dig out the
holes. We knew the material was ready when our hands left a small
dent, but it was not sticky and could not be punctured.
We
dug out a firebox on the side and two holes measured to the size of the
pots they use at the school. The firebox was 15 cm high and 5 cm
above the wooden table. It connected with the first hole, which
was the same depth. The second hole was more shallow than the
first so that a slanted tunnel so that the heat from the first hole
would rise to the second pot. From the second pot we constructed
a curved tunnel up the chimney. All the tunnels were about the
size of a fist. After construction, a metal chimney should be
placed in the chimney hole and curved so as to direct smoke out of the
kitchen. The holes for the stove were cut at an angle so that the
pots rested down in the holes. Then we wet our hands and rubbed
down the whole thing to give it a smooth and finished look. After
five days the stove was ready to use. As cracks inevitably
appear, rub ash from the fire into them. The fire should be
constructed only in the firebox and under the first pot.
Since our first Lorena stove, we constructed a second stove for another family close to the school. We also tried our hands at an earthen oven back on Ulrich's farm which can hopefully be used to bake the local "Johhny Cakes", which are a white roll made from coconut cream and white flour. The process we followed was Kiko Denzer's and we followed an article in Permaculture magazine to construct it.
We were grateful for the opportunity to learn and experience life on these unique and beautiful islands!-Zoe & Andy
Posted by rick at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)