The Darien

We head East at 5:45am on the only road which ventures into this half of the country. It begins just north of Panama City in sprawling and unusually picturesque slums extending outward in an unplanned and disorganized expansion. Soon the large Walmart-style buildings turn into warehouses and then dissolve into new structures just being built. We drive alongside construction which is widening the two lane road into a larger highway; an attempt to make living so far from the city center more palatable as the inevitable development continues. Panama, when you look at the per capita statistics, is growing faster even than China.

The road is quieter now, and we pass through new growth of trees, re-establishing from the continuous clear-cutting. A monkey bounds across the bridge in front of us, a tractor rolls by leisurely with a horse plodding behind. A young man dressed in the latest style with his cap at a hip-hop tilt, slouches by on his skinny grey horse. Squat concrete shacks give way to huts on stilts thatched with palm fronds. Many have no proper walls to allow for airflow in this wet humid climate, and inside I see glimpses of Kuna families; the women wearing bright skirts and cloths on their heads, the children running around naked. We are now in a world than spans different eras. Men walk along the road to various destinations, all carrying sharp machetes. The pavement deteriorates and potholes three feet deep and four feet across seem to jump out at us. At times it seems that the unpaved road is safer than the paved sections, mud and dust instead of large ditches between the broken asphalt.

We have been driving for five hours and are nearing the end of this lone road. I expected to be deep in the notorious Darien jungle at this point. The forest of the Darien is so thick and treacherous that no road has even been built between Panama and Colombia, and it is home to many revolutionaries and drug lords in hiding. However, we are still in relatively open farm and pasture land, and it saddens me to realize that any (relatively) easily accessible part of the rainforest has been cleared for lumber and unsucessful farms. The topsoil is too thin for conventional farming methods, so after a couple years the soil is ruined and the people move in deeper.

Sunshine and I visit a sustainable farm. The farmer lives in a spacious hut with a mud floor and palm roof. One of his young sons hobbles around a shaded wooden enclosure on bent feet. The farmer is (deservedly) very proud of himself, as he is the only permanent worker on the largish farm. He grows pineapple, coconut, yuca, banana, passionfruit, mango, borojo, avocado...and he raises chickens, conejos pintados, and pigs. In an ingenious move, he has built two connected plastic bubbles: in the lower one the pig-feces runoff collects and ferments, and then methane gas rises into the upper one which he has connected to a pipeline that goes down the hill, through the trees and up another hill into his house. He uses it to cook, and doesn't need to pay for gas! He has also made a little pond where he can fish, and we saw a friendly turtle in it. After walking through the farm in the suffocating midday heat, he treats us to fresh young coconut water and frozen pineapple. He hints in a round-about way that we should pay him, and Sunshine does (research costs...after all, she may need to work with him again for her future project).

On the way back I am driving so Sunshine can eat and rest, and I have trouble avoiding the massive potholes. I swerve to avoid an especially large one, but then I hit a different one which I didn't see. The truck goes out of control. I turn the steering wheel, but the tires don't respond and the truck veers from one side of the road to another. An oncoming car is approaching quickly so I slam on the brakes and stop in the middle of the road. The car passes around us, and I slowly check if the steering is working again, and if the wheels are aligned. Everything seems fine, but the rest of the time I drive like a fearful snail.

We arrive back in Gamboa at night, and it feels strange to have so quickly passed between such different worlds.