Panama

Panama

I’m sitting behind the counter of Air Panama by the women's bathroom. Keith and Don are off arranging arrangements. I’m watching the gear.

We woke at a reasonable seven o'clock at the Gamboa resort, had breakfast and headed out to put the Earth Roamer on a barge to the Pearl islands.

At first the road took us along the canal, which at that point was more or less a river. The banks were a few hundred feet high and covered in jungle. Soon we were in Panama City, diving through narrow streets packed with people. There was a car leading us or we would have been lost in the first turn. The streets were lined with food carts and the traffic was an act of faith.

It had been pouring rain but a patchy sky was drying out and the sun would make brief appearances. Our circuitous route brought us to the sea. A thicket of skyscrapers stood against a gray sky. Of this huddled mass of buildings, every third one was under construction. this town must be booming. I hadn’t seen anything like it since Shanghai.

At the “docks” the barge was sitting, hard, on a concert ramp. The ramp angled down to a rolling plain of mud. From the smell, there must have been something other than dirt making up that gray brown mass. There was no water in sight.

The gear was divided into need right now and need later. The “now” came with us, the “later” went in the Roamer. The theory was that the tide would come in and cover the crap mud plain, raise the barge off of it’s parking spot and float the Roamer off to San Jose, one of the Pearl islands. We would fly there and meet it when it arrives a day later.

Oh, and never ever, ever think of swimming off the coast of Panama City. I’ve seen what’s down there.

Although a necessary task, watching the gear, I’m getting bored sitting on the airport. There is the traffic to the bathroom, the workers punching in but beyond that it’s dull back here. Guess I’ll read my book.