A Couple of Projects

I am trying to help a friend start a water purification business. Things are different out here on the fringes of nowhere. It's two boat rides, a taxi ride, a four hour bus ride and another taxi ride to get to anyplace that sells water purification equipment, in a city that requires none. Thousands of bottles of water are sold here daily. Resorts try to by five gallon bottles and find that they are not available at any price. Maybe I'll get into that later.

Chris a strapping 41 year old from Belgium, his girlfriend Alexandra in her mid 30's from Spain and his daughter, Noa, a 6 year old trip and a half, set off to the most wild island in the area, Isla Popa, on Saturday where Alexandra had the misfortune of purchasing 4 hectare of land in the interior of the island. For some crazy reason Chris thinks that getting water from the spring there is a good idea. Water weighs over eight pounds a gallon. We hope to need thousands of gallons a day. His boat could readily acommodate the 12 tons that three thousand gallons would weigh. Pumping it onto the boat with his 8 hp bilge pump with a three inch fire hose could be done, but the foredeck would certainly be crowded with plastic storage tanks and the water would have to be transported down a river by smaller boats, it would take at least a score of trips.

Whatever, let's go check this place out. The threesome showed up at my house an hour and a half late. Saturday was mother's day and the gas dock was closed. Not only that, but they showed up without enough gas to get back to town with the expectation that I would have a bodega filled with tanks of gas. We took some from my boat and found an open Indian gas dock and procured 5 more 1 gallon water bottles filled with gasoline. My cell phone was out as I had changed carriers to MoviStar as Mas Movil network connections never worked, although their voice coverage is excellent. Hey, you have a smart phone you may as well have data, right?

We headed south the length of Bastimentos and onward to the leeward side of Popa. Alexandra directed us to a bay with mangroves. Beside a house behind some mangroves was the opening of a river. The river was wide and deep, easily navigable. No doubt that many caimans could be spotted here in the night. We pulled up to a well constructed dock made of Nispero, a local hardwood that is denser that water, too hard to drive nails in and insect resistent. A mighty fine dock led us past a bodega and terminated in boggy ground. Damn! Why did I even ask if I needed rubber boots? They were back in my bodega, taking them would have been effortless.

We sought a spring and some tanks. Down a boggy trail, a turn on the banks of a small channel. I stepped on a board crossing the channel and was not surprised when it gave way. Up a hill, down a slope. Chris wanted me to go first. “Hey bud, the first guy wakes up the snake, the second one pisses it off and the third one get's bitten. Well, that's for palm vipers. These fer-de-lances are something else."  A fer-de-lance is a highly venomous snake that packs a lot of venom and a bad attitude. They don't sneak away as most snakes are likely to. They will do more than hold their own, they will attack.

We finally found the tanks. I stepped up on the concrete. Rip... more testicular exposure. At least I'm wearing underwear. The tanks were dry. The intent on buying this land was to create a jungle resort. I like the jungle, but not this jungle. It's not the jaguars that swim over from the mainland or the fer-de-lances or the twelve foot bushmasters that bother me. It's the utter absence of air movement and swarming biting insects.

My feet twisted and slipped in my “adventurer Tiva” sandals. There is was no way the straps were adequate to hold my mud covered feet while descending steep slopes. I have sent more than one pair of sandals to a very early retirement under such conditions and I took them off. The trail was narrow. Too narrow. Isla Popa is teeming with snakes that can easily strike four feet. This trail was but a couple of feet wide. The adjacent foilage would readily conceal grave danger.

This is crazy. I didn't even bring my machete. I thought we were going to walk on cleared trails. No reply except from the little girl behind me. Daddy had the intelligence to stay out of this.

“Noa, I am going to take you back to your dad.” Noa speaks English and Spanish, some Swedish and is learning Russian. No, dad was just standing back there and a six year old who can spot and catch a gecko and tell you its sex in seconds wasn't going to miss out on the walk.

We found the tanks, they were bone dry, pipes were broken. This place was ill maintained. Alexandra had been paying Fidel, the jeffe of the Ngobe community called Popa One was being paid to keep the trails cleaned and things in order. He was taking the money and not doing anything.

“Let's get the hell out of here.” Back to the boat. A beach sounds welcome. We headed to the other side of the island and docked at one of the most expensive resorts in Bocas. Four people were playing frisbee on the beach. I knew them all. Well, all the beaches are public property. I knew the resort operators and walked to find them and say hello. A dozen other people where there. I knew them all. These are people I hang out with on occassion. “Jim Schmidt, I'm glad you could make it!” Make what? What is going on here? Most of these people never leave town and we are a long boat ride away. It was somebody's birthday.

We are celebrating John's birthday for the fourth day. Oh oh. With this crowd? Up to the bar beside the infiniti pool, hell, I know everybody here except for one. “Who's he?” “A paying guest.” He was a big time movie producer there with his wife. I met another couple later. The rest of the place was filled with people I knew.

A twenty eight year old Swede came up to me and told me that girl I was chatting up the other night was here. So she was. A spectacular 40 year old redhead who is living with a guy I know. Chatting her up? Hardly, but it was great conversation. She is a research scientist working on a cure for aids and an associate professor of marine biology. Generally. "chatting" up does not involve discussions of graph theory, the relative biomasses of reefs, (I had just finished reading a long article on that the day on the topic) a superficial discussion of "String Theory" a mathematical attempt to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity and a wide variety of other topics. One of my better chats recently. We chatted until just before dawn.

We mingled freely with the jet set and two other research scientists that were friends of the redhead. A bonfire was lit, a stainless propane grill was filled with wood and dinner was cooked. Filet mignon, sea bass, succulent ribs, eggplant, garlic bread, potato salad, pasta salad, mixed veggie salad. It was quite a feast.

More drinking, people had long moved on from beer and wine to rum and tequila. Groups would disappear and then reappear, unsurprisingly energetic. It's Bocas. More drinking. Then came the dancing. Dancing progressed to dancing on the swings that serve as seats at the newly formed bar, then on the bar, people hanging from rafters on their legs, pole dancing. Then it got wild. By three I couldn't talk with anybody. Incoherence ruled. “Sorry, but it's my bed time, I wake up at dawn.” “Did I say something to offend you? I'm sorry.” No, you just said the same inane thing five times in a row.

My room had been cooled down to frigid. I don't have air conditioning at my house. I'd rather have fresh air. It drops down to the low seventies at night and my house is well ventilated. Three hours later one of the revelers stumbled up the hill messed up out of his mind. Massive amounts of alcohol, cocaine and LSD had taking its toll. He entered his room, fell down, crawled to the toilet and vomited blood. Are we having fun yet?

I went out in search of coffee. The paying guests were at the breakfast table, getting ready for a four mile sail to the Zapatillas for only $500. How many times have I sailed 20 miles in the last month for nothing other than my share of the food bill? I don't know.

I sat at a table and laid out plans to turn the property in to a reptile zoo. I said we could have it ready in two weeks, as long as we didn't have to wait on anybody. This pleased Alexandra.

Drinks and breakfast were not gratis. “What do I owe?” “What did you have?” “Last night I had dinner, five bottles of water and this morning breakfast and five coffees. “That'll be $18.”

The latest to crawl to bed was awakened around noon. “Are you coming back with us?” As he couldn't walk to the dock, the answer was no. We said our goodbyes, got in our little launcha with a 40 HP, toured around for a bit and they dropped me off at my house. “Nope, I have no need of town this evening, see you tomorrow.”

Today I took my boat to town and sat on the dock waiting for my friend to show up. One of the employees, who is miffed at me for failing to return his tools. I couldn't return the rusty things, I had thrown them out. I came into possession of them which I walked onto the dock and took my toolbox out of his hands. The toolbox had been stolen off my boat at the same place a few days earlier. This three hundred dollar waterproof case, which I bought for $30 from sailor as it was no longer fit for his computer had been on my boat and docked there four times a week for the last six months. He said he found it in the water. Maybe he did. Most of my tools were missing. But it's hard to believe he didn't know that it was my toolbox.

Noa was sick, Chris asked me to come to his boat. “Boy, you look tired, I thought you were going to have an easy night.” “XXXXXX sent out a distress call last night (VHF 68). He had driven his boat (a 28 foot Caribe Pro fishing boat) into the mangroves.” “So?” Well, it turns out he was hauling ass. He didn't simply brush into the mangroves. The bow of the boat was eight feet into the trees and the outboard was stuck in the sand. Had the water been deeper, the boat would simply have filled over the stern and sunk into the depths. Chris had pulled him off and the idiot limped home.

We met the Indian Chief with the layout of my design a list of tasks and deadlines, clear these trails to a width of ten feet, no vegetation higher than two inches. Clear a 30 meter area near the dock. Dig a big pond to be used for Tilapia and place the dirt on the other side to raise it up, sloping it so that it would drain. “Now the snakes, tell him to have his people catch one of every type on Popa, except the Fer-de-lance and bushmasters. That should take him a day. Tell him we will pay him ten bucks apiece. We need a baby boa and a big one.” The guy agreed although Indians are terrified of snakes, $10 is whole days labor.

We found some appropriate screening, sourced out a free supply of wood, secured the use of a complete woodshop on Wednesday for free, the same day we get the wood. I created a tour itinerary and a brochure.

We needed some wood cut so I went to see my gardener who had disappeared. It turns out that he is on a religious retreat hours from here and won't be back until March. No problem, we'll find somebody else to cut down some trees for wood to make the planks.

Next stop was an Indian Village, for no apparent reason. I ran into a guy who wants to rent my house. He is running some crazy sort of charity that teaches Indians that don't have clean drinking water how to surf. All of his volunteers are paying hardbodied twenty something females. He said he needs some private space. Maybe he needs to get away, maybe he needs some private room for other purposes.

“Did XXX disturb you last night?” “No, what are you talking about?” “Didn't you hear him yelling? I was scared, we all hid upstairs, locked the doors and I pulled out a knife.” “From XXX?” “Yeah, he was yelling like he was possessed. He said he wanted to kill somebody and then started screaming at the Indians.” “XXX?” No, really? “Yeah, it was really scary.”

I knew I had to check on him. I went over, stepped off the dock and two dogs came down barking furiously. “Chris, hey, I'm afraid of dogs, call them off.” “Not gonna happen bud.” “Hey, Jessica. High Hayu.” My dogs often go to visit him. He looked fine. We talked for a bit and left with the dogs.

Back to the boat. We stopped by the Swede. He had run up a $183 bar tab and was lamenting same. Hell, that only counts what he drank before he started helping himself to the whisky after the bar had closed.

The woman who was coming to visit today? Who knows? Last time I heard from her she was flying from LA to New York to pack. She was to be here today. No postings on Facebook, no messages, no emails. Whatever.

It's Bocas.