Exhausted, dark, peeling, healing, waterless.
Where the hell have I been? For a couple of months I was bed bound, anemic, weak, pale and fighting an auto immune disorder that I have had for thirty years. It's not life threatening, but it wears me down from time to time.
During that time I had few adventures, but one notable one to Rio Cana and the Island of Escudo.
Allow me to break for a coffee, using the last of the bottled water I have with me.
I won't go into the details of my health, suffice to say that covered with bleeding, supporative wounds, hair matted with pus and blood, sticking to the sheets. Every time I rolled something peeled off and exuded more vile bodily fluids.
An Ngobe I knew had a brother that needed some work. Between clearing land and planting pineapples, palm trees, banana trees and various fruit trees I dispatched him to town to buy food. The doctors in Bocas were not much help. Eventually I went to David for medical treatment. That was a medical disaster and I ended up leaving my wallet in a cab, getting it returned shortly thereafter sans money, getting a night club jammed in my sternum for entering a grocery store without shoes and losing my new tablet computer.
One night I went out for dinner and on the return trip asked the driver for his name and number in case I wasn't up to taking the four hour bus ride from the Pacific to the Caribbean. The cab fare was $2. He didn't have change for a twenty so I popped into my hotel to get change and he took off. I tried to flag him down but he ignored me. He didn't respond to my phone calls. The next night I saw him on the street in front of a bar with my tablet. He had already paid somebody to do a factory reset. How do I know it was mine? It was in a very distinctive case. As he was surrounded by a group of locals I couldn't exactly grab it from his hands.
I went to the police station to report, they sent me to the office of judicial investigations, who sent me to the corregidor (a type of sheriff). That office was closed and was closed the next day. Ahh, to hell with it. I wasn't going to stick around for a couple of days to prosecute on the off chance that I would get it returned at an expense greater than the value of the lost equipment.
After a frustrating week and feeling significantly better I returned home but convalescence wasn't in the cards. At one point I diagnosed with cutaneous
leishmanias but a blood test proved that to be incorrect, thank the stars.
A woman was visiting from Brooklyn, another from Germany. So, I did the usual and showed them around, boating to exotic and wonderous places. A long couple of days with
Julia and sunshine and I started to feel human.
Tamika came down from Brooklyn with a camera I had bought online at Amazon. Turned out that all of the menus were in Japanese. She also brought me a hammock I had ordered, complete with mosquito netting and a rainfly to be used on my overnight forays in remote jungle locations.
A neighbor had a kayak for sale, I bought it.
The Ngobe gardener who was going to watch my house while I was gone, with his family extended his stay for another three weeks. They left a couple of days ago after consuming all of my water. Without my knowledge he switched to my secondary tank, drained it and then decided it was time to move on. No good deed goes unpunished.
Then, boating. Girls, girls, girls. I don't know, Olivia from Australia, Amy from New Zealand, a couple of German girls, a couple more German girls, more girls, girls from Panama City, Santiago, I lose track. Where do they all come from? They run into other girls in other countries, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua. You're going to Bocas? See if you can spend some time with Jim.
Locals give them my number.
Expats cruising the hangouts looking for pretty young things. A guy named Bill approached a beautiful tall exotic looking Australian woman. I overheard Bill say, "Jim Schmidt? Good luck with that!" as he stormed away. I walked over to her. "Hi, I'm Jim. I heard Bill say my name are you looking for me?" "You're Jim Schmidt?" "Yup." We chatted, bill glowered. "hat guy is scary. He got very angry when I mentioned your name." "Bill is always chasing girls and is always alone, he is one frustrated guy." We chatted some more and headed out to snorkel. An afternoon of snorkeling turned into four days of adventure, smiles and fun.
Seven hundred miles of boating in ten days. This place is fairly small but full of new things to see if one explores.
Snorkeling, dolphins, fish, Indian Villages, pizza, beaches, a bat cave, dropping in on friends, stopping off to check out random rivers.
An afternoon lazing on a hut built over the water miles from nowhere.
Then there was yesterday, day two with two German cuties.
We headed to explore the river to Changuinola, off to Bird Island where we watched frigate birds and boobies in great abundance and actually drove the boat through the opening in the island. A giant crab fell down on one of the girls. The most exciting day they had experienced in five days of travel had yet begun to unravel.
We were hot and decided to take a dip on an isolated beach on the windward side of Isla Colon. Bad call. The sand fell away precipitously, the waves picked up and started throwing the boat around. Waves washed up over the stern and splashed the cowling. We tried to drag the boat up on the shore but it was several tons heavier on account of the water in the boat. Sand was thrown into the mix. The contents of the boat floated around and with the withdrawing seas, out to sea.
My water resistant backpack, with a camera and smart phone in it floated around in the sea water. Water is bad for electronics. Sea water is death. Everything was double bagged, but these bags have seen a lot of use. Good for unexpected rain, not good for immersion.
I tried to get the boat turned around, bow away from shore. The girls were trying to drag the boat up onto the beach. I was yelling at them to get away. The boat was lifted and thrown on me repeatedly. One of the girls was going to get help. I had to yell at her as loud as I could. "Come back here." Don't need a girl wandering barefoot through miles of jungle as the sun is setting. Give it a couple of hours the sea will calm down at sunset. With each big wave the boat was dragged up a little farther. The seas were calming.
I pulled the plug and a thousand gallons of water drained out of the little boat. One of the girls insisted I consume some homeopathic remedy. Homeopathy, what a crock of shit. I pretended to consume her curative and drank two liters of water.
Finally I decided it was time to go. We needed the aid of the seas to get the boat off the beach. Wait too long and no waves would reach the boat. We pulled the bow around and rapidly threw our belongings back on the boat. Fortunately the upper unit on the outboard had received nothing more than splashes on the cowling as I had tilted it up full. Now was there salt water in the tank? That would be death. I tilted the tank so that the pickup was at the upper point as gas floats on water. It fired up right away and we took off.
Soon I was checking through my possessions. The phone worked, the camera worked. Where is my USB cable? While checking for a three dollar cable I flipped my walled overboard in fifty feet of water. Fortunately, I was just about out of money and there was little to replace. I dove in anyway and upon pulling myself over the boat lost my pants. The pockets were filled with sand. I was naked on the bottom of the boat for but a short time as I had a spare pair of shorts in my backpack.
Back to town, the girls took me to a lovely seafood dinner. On the way Bill glowered at us as he sat alone at the balcony at the wine bar. Someone had picked up the octopus, crabs, fish and lobster I had bought at sea from a fishman in a dugout canoe. Home to a deep sleep.
There you go, kind of caught up. Working on putting together a real adventure, but the vagaries of my life warrant that I should actually begin the adventure before posting a plan.
Pictures
