Around The World In 80 Waves

The Darien Gap is the informal title given to the break in the highway which would otherwise run from Alaska to Chile. It gets its name from Darien, which is the largest and eastern most province in Panama, but also includes the northern extremes of neighbouring Colombia. It is what stopped me driving on towards South America

It is a vast area of rugged, sparsely populated, jungle covered terrain, which is second only to the Amazon in scale and within it’s confines are the huge Darien National Park and a self governing indigenous area.

Europeans first visited The Darien in the early 1500s. However people from my own shores arrived in 1696 when 2500 Scots tried to establish a trading colony. Many of the settlers died from disease, and those that didn’t had everything destroyed by Spanish soliers a few years later.  So much of Scotland’s wealth was invested in the colony, and subsequently lost, that Scotland was nearly bankrupted and effectively lost its status as an indepent nation as a result of the fiasco.

I know how they must of felt because all my own best laid plans are starting to look more than a little shaky because I can’t off-load the car. I have now significantly dropped the price to get rid of it, because it will be impacting on my later plans in a big way if I allow things to drag on much longer. A cheap selling price is not ideal but the financial implications of the potential delays, the time itself and the administrative overhead of any changes needed, will be far more costly for me in terms of this trip.

Drastic times call for drastic measures and I spotted this place a few doors down from my hostel yesterday. (www.darien.org.pa) I have decided that if I do not sell by lunchtime on Monday I will walk into their offices and hand over the keys. That would be outrageously generous of me but I really have had enough of feeding the local mosquito population and just sitting around for days on end. We did something similar on the Sahara Surf trip, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world and a lot of good would come from it, not least me leaving!

It is great to be mobile again. Today I invited a Venezuelan biology teacher called Jenny to join me in the little green surf machine for the day. Jenny’s English is as good as my Spanish, but the two of us enjoyed a lovely day getting out of the city.

We took the Corredor Sur which is the road going across the sea that you can see here, built because they had run out of land in the city! However we stayed on it far too long and then had a bit of a shocker trying to get to our destination mostly because I had failed to notice the car was running on empty when we had started. Thankfully though my green friend did not let me down when I had company.

We were trying to find the ruins of the original city called Panama Viejo (or Old Panama in English), at least what was left of them after Henry Morgan and his shipmates went on the rampage through here in 1670. The picture here is what is left today of the original cathedral, which was the first one to be built in the Americas in the early sixteenth century. Epic work by the man from South Wales. I may have to burn down the hostel in his honour later this evening!

It was all quite impressive but having grown up just down the road from Conwy’s castle and walled town, which dates back to the thirteenth century I can freely admit to being more interested in the waves on the horizon that were breaking underneath the Corredor Sur.

Even though the water quality is appalling here I almost needed holding back. The opportunity to be the first person ever to surf under a motorway was rather tempting, especially so because I have not had a wave in weeks! It does mean there is swell about though, so maybe tomorrow. 😀

We strolled around for a bit and enjoyed all the remnants of Spanish architecture, including the convent you see in the background here. It wasn’t actually ruined by the Welsh pirate, it just was never finished after he had trashed the rest of the old town. After the attack it was decided to abandon this area and simply move the entire city westwards a few miles because it could be better defended there.

We also walked through a local artisans market, where every trader tried unsuccessfully to talk me into selling my soul for a brightly coloured beer can holder or equivalent. However after a few hours we had spent enough time in the area.

We weren’t rushing back to the hostel though and stopped for a drink or two on the way home. A top day.

By the way if like me you have ever wondered why Spanish influence in this region faded from near omnipotence across two continents to nothing bar the language being spoken, think Napoleon. I have been looking into it and as best as I can make out there had been revolutions and declarations of independence throughout the world in the late eighteenth century, and the feelings in Central and South America were no different at the time. The Spaniards kept a lid on it at first but when Napoleon invaded and conquered Spain a short while afterwards, also I believe putting his own family on the throne, it gave the locals the excuse they needed to throw off European shackles and stand on their own. I believe that to be true for all the Spanish speaking countries from Mexico to Chile, but please could anybody correct me if I am wrong?

I am not talking about the recent Disney movies here, more about the two British seafarers who had a significant impact on this part of the world. I have been hearing a lot about them since arriving in Panama so thought I would pass some of that on.

In particular I am talking about Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Sir Henry Morgan who caused quite a lot more havoc than I have whilst visiting the region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively.

On his ship The Golden Hind Sir Francis Drake was the first person from Britain to circumnavigate the globe, and I suspect that feat was a tad harder than my own trip in 2013. He was also largely responsible for the defeat of the Spanish Armada when it intened to attack England in 1588, but that is just as well because he was probably part responsible for the Armada being created in the first place due to number of attacks that privateers like him made on the Spanish settlements in this neck of the woods. Under the sponsorship of the English monarchy Drake and others like him would sail into the ports and steal all the gold and silver warehoused here ready for transport across the Atlantic, which the Spanish had in turn largely stolen from the indigenous people here.

He also died off the coast of Panama after contracting dyssentry on the last of such voyages. The lead coffin he was buried at sea in near Isla Grande on the Caribbean coast is still being looked for by treasure hunters today.

Half a century later Henry Morgan, who was originally from South Wales, was up to the same sort of mischief. He is remembered as the greatest of the privateers, amassing huge fleets and attacking prominent targets. His three most famous exploits were the 1668 sack of Portobello (which is just down the coast from Colon), the 1669 raid on Maracaibo in Venezuela and the 1671 attack on Panama City. Most of this was done with the support of King Charles II of England but the attack on Panama City with about 1,000 men in which the city was destroyed, was undertaken after a peace treaty had been signed between England and Spain, so you can imagine that the Spanish were not best pleased.

Morgan was summoned back to London because the situation was at the very least embarrassing for the English too. However not only was he never punished, but he was feted by the gentry and commoners alike upon his return who were impressed with his exploits. He was also knighted by the king and then sent back to his base in Jamaica as Lieutenant Governor of the island, where he worked on improving the defenses of the island which was Britain’s jewel in the Caribbean crown.

He was guilty of the death and torture of countless innocent Spanish civilians and spread terror far and wide on the Spanish Main, but the English loved him. So much so that the Captain Morgan dark rum that you may enjoy today over ice with coke is named after him.

All of which means I have a lot to live up to in the time I have left here! What would they call the drink they name after me?

I have been in Panama city for nearly two weeks now and hadn’t really been out on the town at all, so was rather pleased when a Canadian chef, who is also called Robert, arrived at the hostel because it meant I had a wing-man to take on the town with.

Our first port of call was the casino where we spent several hours winning and losing at the Roulette and Blackjack tables, not paying much heed to the advances of the ladies of the night that were circulating the floor.

Next we moved on to the bars of the Hard Rock Hotel where there was plenty of eye candy on show. It is also fair to say that as a result of the proximity to Colombia there was rather a lot of nose candy being enjoyed by many of the local patrons. In particular I will always remember one particularly manic young fella whose eyes looked very similar to those of this cat, who seemed to be having trouble staying upright. In addition to shouting how much he didn’t like the United States of America at the top of his lungs he would not let us accept anything less than the fact that he would definitely be the President of Panama in 2049. Bold worlds for a guy in his late teens but I suspect he may need to sort his coke habit out if he wants to make that happen.

We were getting raved at by a number of wide eyed people, so decided to move on to the bars of Calle Uruguay, which had been recommended by a lady we had met earlier in the evening. The fantastic street is lined with bars, and is full of the young and the beautiful. It was still rocking when we arrived some time around 2am. We bowled into the busiest looking club and with our very limited Spanish were soon attempting to chat with the locals.

I can’t really recall how we got talking to him but we were soon befriended by a half Spanish and Colombian bloke who for legal reasons I will call AJ (also for reasons that will become clear to avoid getting undue attention from the USA’s DEA!) His English was quite good and we got on famously with him, when at first he was telling us how he had recovered from having broken his neck in a MMA professional fight (That is Mixed Martial Arts or cage fighting for the uninformed.) The damage to his spine was clearly visible so we took him at his word on this.

His mates were pretty cool too despite deciding that I was the spitting image of Charlie Sheen, and they insisted we carry on partying with them when the bar stopped serving just after 4am.

There was nowhere close by still open, so we had to join AJ in his car to travel across town to the private members club he had in mind. He seemed alert enough to drive, but after he had snorted copious amounts of cocaine up his nose off the dashboard whilst driving down the road it was clear why that might be the case!

As if that wasn’t mad enough he then proceeded to tell us in a very off the cuff manner that he had previously been an enforcer for his dad’s drug running operation in Colombia, and that his preferred method for eliciting information from people had been an electric drill applied to the knees! He said he had recently stopped because he didnt have the stomach for it anymore.

I am something of a cycnic and wasn’t sure whether to take all this with a pinch of salt, but both the other Robert and I had already noticed the deferance with which everybody seemed to be treating AJ with, and the casual nature with which he passed all this information on was quite chilling.

Having seen Scarface both of the tourists in the car are now fairly certain we may be somewhat out of our depth. However we have by now arrived at the club which was not too dissimilar to that of Tony Montana’s in the film. AJ is greated like a king by absolutely everybody in there and despite a healthy amount of unease at the situation we were made very welcome.

No further tales of villainy were recounted to us, and we spent most of the rest of the night talking to all of AJs friends including some bloke called Alessandro Rodriguez Boyd Morgan, who could barely speak but was trying to convince me he was a direct decendant of a famous Welsh pirate. (More on that to follow at a later date.) He was also somewhat amused at the idea I was David Hasselhoff, and kept trying to fluff up my hair so I looked more like the Knight Rider. I was also having a fun conversation at the bar with the husband and wife OAP bar tenders from Galicia in north west Spain that were running the place. I have surfed in their neighbourhood and whilst I told them of the beaches where I had got in the water they kept free pouring unbelievably strong G&Ts into my glass.

After a few hours Robert and I decided we should probably be on our way, and unsurprisingly did not take AJ up on his offer of a lift home when we said our goodbyes. We left the club and caught a cab with surprising ease. Although once again there seemed to be an inappropriate amount of deferance being shown by the cab driver to the crowd from the club who had walked us to the street. A quick drive across town to our hostel later and we staggered through the door and past the restaurant where the other residents were by now having breakfast in the dining area long after the sun had come up.

A great night. Absolutely frigging bonkers, but a great night!

I did a bit of research on Panama hats before I left the UK and discovered that they are actually made in Ecuador. They are only known as Panama hats because this is where the trade in them flourished (along with many other things) because the narrow strip of land faciltated easy trade from both Asia and Europe.

I was originally hoping to buy one of the hats made from the plaited leaves of the Carludovica Palmata plant when I travelled through Ecuador in my car. However I am no longer sure that I will be stopping there at all. Depending on how long it takes me to sell the car I may well be just flying over it, so Panama seems like the obvious place to buy one instead.

All Panamas can be rolled up to make storing or travelling with them less cumbersome. the narrower the weave the easier this is and the most expensive hats have as many as 2500 weaves per square inch.

They are known as Montecristis, after the town where they are produced. A ‘Superfino’ Montecristi Panama has a weave so fine that the hat can hold water, and when rolled for storage the entire hat can pass through a gap as small as a wedding ring.

I would love one of those bad boys but cannot justify the £400 I would have to shell out for something I might wear at the cricket or for picnics in the park, but have picked up the one you see here along with its storage box, which does have a very fine weave, even if it is not quite a Superfino.

Julia (which would be pronounced Hulia back in the UK) is from Argentina. She works in Mexico City for an Argentinian fashion company who are trying to expand, and she is tasked with turning around their new store there. She is in Acapulco on her own, enjoying her day off and trying to see a bit more of Mexico during her time here.

After our turtle encounter, which Julia told me she had initially thought was a dead sea-lion, we get on famously over a beer and get to know one another. However I am surprised that she is completely unaware of the world famous cliff divers here in Acapulco and tell her she really must see them if nothing else while here. I invite her for join me for dinner at my hotel where she can do so, and am very pleased when she accepts, because if I have one complaint about this trip it is that I have been severely lacking in female company so far.

We agree to meet later at my hotel, and after being taught how to kiss like an Argentinian I rush into town to sort out the shopping I had originally planned for today. It takes longer to find the things I am looking for and then I get stuck in such a bad traffic jam that I am almost late for our date. However Julia is also caught by the same traffic and thankfully doesn’t arrive until after I have had to time to make myself more presentable.

After enjoying another of the amzing sunsets here, we go down to dinner where I show off by pointing out Jupiter which has been visible in the night sky ever since Hawaii. Julia gets to enjoy the Mexican traditional show laid on by the hotel, and is as amazed as I was by the cliff divers’ acrobatic performance.

We share a lovely bottle of wine over our meal and even navigate a conversation on Las Malvinas or The Falkland Islands, depending on where you live, without going to war.

We are looked after by the hotel staff, who took this photo of us with the cliffs in the background.

We have a wonderful night together, but Julia has to be back in Mexico City for work and I need to push on myself so I make sure she gets home in a cab. One day Julia hopes to visit the UK and I hope she does. After I get back of course!

Now that I am back on the mainland I do not have anything at all planned until my flight out of Lima in Peru to Santiago in Chile at the end of May. To get to Lima I need a surf wagon of some desription and this picture on the box that my ukulele came in gives an impression of the carefree existence I am hoping for.

However anybody who knows me will tell you that I am blessed with a Leper’s touch as far as vehicles are concerned. In the same way that I have a talent for finding great surf lodges I can select the runt of the vehicle litter without even trying. These pictures show some of my more epic failures, but they are far from the whole story.

One shows the car which we got stuck and had to abandon in the Sahara Surf trip (a car after the original one that blew up before we had gone 20 miles in it on that trip) and the other shows the aftermath of my attempt at cornering the market for stunt milkmen back in the early 90s. I have also chased the surf bus ideal before with a 6 wheeled 3.5tonne truck which turned into a vast money pit, so am justifyably nervous about this shopping expedition.

I walk the length of San Francisco and back on one day trying to find second hand dealers. However almost all of them have been put out of business because the US, like the UK, operated a scheme through the credit crunch where decent old cars got scrapped by owners in favour of thousands of discount off their next car, which removed almost all the supply of saleable used cars from the market overnight. Consequently I walk for miles and miles without any joy of even finding more than one used car lot, but towards the end of the day I am directed over to Auto Row in Oakland, which is the nickname for a road of delerships who may have a bought old cars off buyers in order to sell a better vehicle to them, which they in turn may be willing to sell to me within my budget. It is on the other side of San Francisco Bay but accessible by the BART train so I head over there first thing this morning.

Another epic stroll up and down this road, ducking and diving, bobbin and weaving my way through just about every second hand car ruse known to man as I walk along and I realise I will have to spend a wee bit more that I wish if I want something half decent to be my lifeboat, my changing room, my hotel room, my shelter, my dining room, my safety deposit box and my board storage for the next five months.

I actually spot this beauty in the Mitsubishi dealership, which is the first one that I see on day two, but continue down the street and back to ensure I am not missing a different gem. However my scouting doesnt unearth anything worth shouting about, so I go back and haggle like a demon until this lovely VW Beetle is mine for the trip.

I’m not sure if it was the fact that ‘The Love Bug’ was filmed in San Francisco or if it was VW’s huge surfing pedigree but it felt right so I went for it and am now looking forward to kitting it out over the next few days. It looks much better from a distance than it does up close, but the chassis engine and wheels all seem good which is all I am bothered about for now.

Name suggestions would be very welcome, because I can’t think of anything straight away. Anybody?

A funky car for a funky trip. Wooo-hoooo!