The flood

One lazy Panama Sunday morning, I leave the little town of Gamboa squeezed into a car with some friends and neighbors to go to a nearby swimming hole. We are 6 in the car, and someone notices that the tires are a bit low…but there’s no gas station around so it will have to wait until the next grocery trip into Panama City. We park at the trail head and walk into the forest to a lovely spot with dappled sun patches on a small amphitheater, a covered picnic area, and little trickling waterfalls pouring into a pool.

It’s refreshing to dip my body into the water; I’ve been wanting to swim in the Chagres River since I arrived, but supposedly there are too many crocodiles. Humph. I climb up the rocks along the side of the waterfall and explore the shallow pools above. Strangely, we find floating sunflowers…A date gone wrong? Who knows. I plant them in the pool and they look cheerfully yellow.

After a while, the sun disappears and drops begin to fall. We sit at the picnic table and share a couple beers while the tropical storm picks up in full force. Rain dumps, tiny hammers pounding into the ground all around us, forming new streams. The thunder booms and I can feel the deep rumbles in my chest. We nibble muesli and watch the water.

Soon, the dribbly little waterfall has become a raging, frothing, brown monster; alive and hungry, eating away at the banks and rushing through in wild waves. It is almost unrecognizable as the pool that we swam in. My sunflowers are washed away.

When there is a short break in the rain, we walk back to the car along a path that has become a river. We drive slowly back, hardly able to see the road in the wash of white water covering the windshield.

We cross the long one lane bridge into Gamboa, and find that the road up to the ridge where we live is flooded out. Tall bamboo stalks have also fallen and are blocking the way. Luckily, there is another road that you can take, around the back of the Gamboa Rainforest Resort. We head into to the main part of town, only to find a large tree across the road. The firefighters are there in full costume, chopping at it with machetes. I wonder if they are thrilled that they finally have something to do around here…

We go over a speed bump, and the car scrapes painfully. Low tires are no good in this situation, so first we try the way with fewer speed bumps. Nope, completely flooded. Have to turn around. So we brave the speed bumps; going over them at a sharp angle, sucking in our breath to try and be lighter, hoping the car is not destroyed each time. We make it home eventually, and cook a big (late) lunch as we dry off.