San Blas

The Hammerhead Othere was restless and provoked. I turned and ran but I could not hide. That great head crashed against massive stout trees and ... oh fuck it's 4:00 in the morning, that's Marcos banging on the door. Did I pack? No, of course not.

I jammed everything I could see into a suitcase and stumbled down five flights of stairs with two 50 pound rolling suitcases and about 25 pounds of expensive electronics in my backpack. We drove to a supermarket and hung out for at least an hour, with no explanation as to what the hell was going on. Late model 4x4's showed up, bags were switched and instructions given in Spanish and English. I think most of the people were Israelis. They all spoke at least Hebrew, Spanish, English, some also spoke Russian or German.

Bags were double bagged in 2 mil trash bags then unceremoniously lashed to the car top carrier. My backpack, bearing an $800 camera body, two lenses, 2 teraabytes of storage, a new notebook computer that I spent to weeks configuring.

I passed out in the first seat of the Toyota SUV, undoubtably snoring my ass off. At 7:30 we arrived at a supermarket and got shuttled from one car to another and waited for the second coming of Christ.

My backpack benefited from my refusal to allow this treatment to my backpack, with its $4,000 of electronics content. When we arrived a surfboard carrier had obviously flown off the top of the car and bounced down the road and was subsequently re-lashed to the top of the car.

I was jostled as we spun up and down dirt roads in the central northern region of Panama. Finally we arrived at a river and mysterious fees were presented. $2 for something I still don't know, but the importance of keeping my receipt under penalty of death was conveyed. Another $6 for use of the canal, that was not previously explained or included in the $15 boat fare. It subsequently turned out to be a fee on the outbound side only, or just a fee because we didn't know any better.

Seventy minutes later we arrived at Isla Robinson. WTF? This isn't like any San Blas island I remembered.

I arrived with the Philipino with a plan to create a leather bound coffee table book with his tiny little point and shoot, the dutch couple, the Brazilian couple, the Canucks and the ever present israelis. My quarters were half of a thatch roofed hut with a shitty little mattress and the sheets thrown on top.

Whatever. Lunch was deep fried bonito and rice. I've never used bonito as anything other than bait fish. It could have been worse. More just hanging out. Dinner was "Langosta y arroz" (lobster and rice). At 6:30 the sun went down and we sat around the dinner table and discussed Literature for 3 hours. I know few people in the states who would have felt at ease discussing Twain, Michner and Hemmingway. These people spoke English as a second language. I was the only person at the table that didn't speak at least three languages.

Oh hell I'm tired of all the details, and you probably don't care. Day 2 I went back to check out the Kuna Museum.