Footloose Scot

by Jim Glendinning

  From David, I continued along the Pan American highway. Changing buses again in Santiago, I took a local bus to a small village 30 miles east. I then got off and, following instructions given to me earlier, walked half a mile south on the main road, then turned right under an ornamental gateway onto a private drive. This lead to an attractive hacienda, called finca in Panama. I rang the door bell. A grey haired, petite lady opened the door and said: "You're right on time, Jim, come on in". It was Margot Fonteyn.

  I had met Margot Fonteyn a few months earlier in Houston at the house of a mutual friend. Now 71, she was still a picture of elegance and grace. She had been in Houston for cancer treatment. When she found out about my trip, she insisted I come and stay at her home in the country near Panama City. She was so charming and easy to talk to that I had no trouble in accepting, although I warned her I might be a little travel worn. And here I was.

  She had been very precise in asking when I could arrive. So I had worked out that it would take me eight days using local buses; I was right on schedule. I soon got cleaned up and enjoyed the comfort of the spacious ranch house, which looked towards the Pacific Ocean. Her sister from England was visiting and we sat around under shade trees chatting. The contrast between days on the move in crowded buses, nights in cheap hotels and food bought from vendors at bus stations, and being welcomed to a comfortable home, discussing books with sophisticated people while sipping cool drinks was total.

  The next day we took a walk along the beach, and had a picnic. Margot was limping due to cancer radiation treatments so her man-servant, Ventura, gave her a hand over rough ground. Ventura had previously tended her husband, Roberto Arias, a politician and diplomat, who had been crippled by a bullet and bedridden for many years until his death the year before.

  The reason Margot wanted to know exactly when I would arrive is that she intended to put on a party. When she was married, she and her husband regularly held parties at the finca and invited politicians, diplomats and people from the arts world in Panama City. Now Margot wanted to host a party with me as the surprise guest.

  So I cleaned myself up even more, and was introduced to a variety of people from Panama City, the UK ambassador, a bookshop owner, some models and one or two politicians, old friends of her husband. None of whom had met a backpacker before. A model tried on my backpack, which got a lot of laughs. They wanted to know where I was going. When I said by foot through the Darién Gap, they were worried. To them no one ventured south of the capital, Panama City. To venture deep into Darién Province and then continue by foot through the jungle into Colombia was in their opinion madness. I told them I had a map and that I had done this sort of solo trek before and, if there were problems, I would turn back. They still looked doubtful.

  After four days of feeding and resting, I was ready to move on. Margot was seriously concerned about my safety so I promised her I would call her from Colombia once I arrived. I had had a wonderful rest and had got to know a remarkable woman as much as four days permitted. I was not to know I wouldn't see her again. She died from cancer later in 1990 in a Panama hospital.

  Ventura drove me to the bus station in Panama City where I caught a minibus going south to Meteti. After four hours the minibus arrived and with a few other minibus passengers I caught a truck going to the next town, Yaviza, the last town of any significance before the Colombian border. The truck bogged down in mud. I got out to help push, as did everyone else, and fell flat on my face. It didn't really matter. I was going to an area where bathing and cleanliness were not important. In Yaviza I found a basic hotel with a good lock on the door, but no window. The most important part was the lock; and it was also clean. I wandered around muddy streets and was surprised to see a US Army patrol boarding a boat and leaving downstream. I'd forgotten all about the invasion since talking with the CIA man in David, six days earlier.

  I was now deep inside Darién Province, and from now on transportation would be by river. This area of southern Panama measures 3,000 square miles of mountainous rain forest and river valleys. It is home to the Darién National Park which lies to the east. The route I was following is called the Darién Gap since it is the 54-mile missing part in the Pan American Highway which runs from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to the bottom of South America, about 29,800 miles. The region is home to the indigenous Cuna and Choco Indians, whom I would meet soon.

  I found a motor boat heading upstream the next morning after my night in a room with no window. Now my adventure was really beginning. I hadn't seen and didn't expect to see any other backpackers this year. Normally each dry season several dozen hikers would go south into Colombia. There was even a guidebook about the area (Darién Gap by Bradt Travel Guides), which I carried with me. But this was the year of the US invasion and most hikers seemed to have changed their plans.

  After four hours the motor boat reached Boca de Cupa, a collection of huts on the riverbank. By now, as the river narrowed, the motor boat could go no further. I then negotiated a price for a seat in a dug out boat owned by an old Indian who took me to the next village, Pucoro, where I asked the tribe elder for permission to stay. We were talking simple Spanish, but I could just as easily have mimed my request. I spent the night in a Meeting Room. I felt comfortable with the Indians, simple and shy people. I bought a small woven piece of cloth, and kept my camera shut.

  LOS VOLADORES, MEXICO CITY

  PALO DE LAS LETRAS, PANAMA

  There were one or two Panamanian Army soldiers hanging around near the village, and the headman made gestures to me that I should show the soldiers my passport. I did, and they stamped it. I was now clear to leave Panama. First I had to hike to the last village before the frontier, called Paya. Apart from the fact that one of my two cameras had gotten wet in the dugout canoe, I was feeling pretty good. I was making good progress, and I would soon be completely on my own for the exciting part.

  It was hot, but not overwhelmingly so. It was March, and I was still in the northern hemisphere. I felt fit, and I carried food. Water was readily available in the jungle streams. At one village, an American missionary came out of a hut, and said "Where have all you guys been?" Apparently there had been very few hikers in the past few months, which was the hiking season. I suggested that the invasion of Panama might be the reason. He wished me good luck and told me to be careful.

  The guidebook mentioned hiring a guide in Paya for the crossing into Colombia. I felt that with the guidebook to consult and with a good trail to follow, I could do this myself. I had a stove, some snack food and some tablets for purifying water. I should be able to make it to the first village inside Colombia in one long day's hike. I didn't fear attack by wild animals since the jungle had long since been hunted pretty clean by the Indians. I didn't see drug smugglers using this sort of trail, they had long since moved to large scale methods of transportation, even submarines. Two years later, when the drug war in Colombia had heated up, the situation would radically change and through-hikers would be stopped by the Panamanian Army. For now, I felt safe.

  For five hours I plodded uphill on a good trail through thick jungle vegetation and high tree cover. Then, as the trail leveled out, I noticed on the left side of the trail a rectangular piece of stone sticking out of the ground, with Colombia and Panama marked on the side. This was Palo de las Letras, the frontier stone. I was stepping into South America. There was no one on the trail; in fact I had not seen anyone since leaving Paya. I was now in South America.

  The trail now led downhill. I shortly came to a river crossing. This was the first of four crossings of the same winding river, all within a short distance. Before the fourth crossing, the guidebook said, veer to the left and follow along the river bank; do not cross there. The problem was that when I got to the fourth crossing there was no sign of any trail to the left.

  There were however, ribbons attached to some bushes on the other side of the river, the sort that are used to mark orienteering trails in the USA. I took this as a sign to cross and did so
, easily wading across the shallow stream. But twenty yards ahead the trail suddenly ended, a wall of vegetation in front. What the heck, I wondered. Why the ribbons if this were not the right direction? Usually ribbons are used to indicate the route, not a dead end. Mystified, I put down my pack and climbed a small tree. All around, and as far as I could see, was a green blanket of jungle. No trail this way.

  When I got back down the tree, I could not find my pack. My large blue external frame backpack was missing. In a moment I panicked. Now I really was in trouble. I looked around the other side of the tree, and the pack had fallen over, and was partially obscured by a bush. Feeling reassured that I had found the backpack; I also felt I was maybe getting disoriented through dehydration. I decided to take a few moments, make a cup of tea with the water from the river and decide what to do next. I had plenty of time. It was not yet noon.

  It was hot so I sat in the river to cool off. I boiled up a pan of water, made tea and considered my options No one who might know the route was likely to come along for a long time, certainly not any backpackers. There was no local foot traffic between the two countries. There seemed to be one option only: to go back to Paya and get a guide.

  Admitting that I had gotten lost and needed a guide was not a good position to be in when negotiating a price. With no bargaining power I resigned myself to paying the headman US$50 for three young guides to take me into Colombia the next day. When I was introduced to the guides, I saw that they were kids, barely twelve years old. The tallest one carried an old Lee Enfield rifle, which I doubted would work and hoped we wouldn't have to test it.

  After another night in Paya, I set out the next day with my youthful companions. We passed the stone marking the frontier, took a photograph and then followed the trail until the third river crossing. Just before this crossing the boys turned sharply left along the river bank. I had not thought to check the third crossing otherwise I would have seen the trail. My counting must have been off. I was not thinking clearly. Still, there was no harm done except for a depletion of my funds and a question to myself about my decision-making under stress. The boys scampered ahead, and I plodded behind them carrying my pack.

  After five long hours we arrived at a handful of houses in the jungle, the first settlement in Colombia. In a shack which sold groceries I got my passport stamped by the smiling owner. He was tall and much darker in complexion than a Panamanian. This was a different race of people, taller and blacker, and I could see that my young escorts were not at ease. So I thanked them and told them they could go home. I put up my tent on a patch of ground near the grocer's shop.

  Now I faced the same sequence of transportation as in Panama, but in reverse. I walked, then took a dugout canoe to the village of Bijao, and then in a motor dugout to Travesia. The terrain here was flatter, more like swamp land, than on the Panama side of the border. From Travesia the motor boat continued downstream on the ever widening River Atrato through an area rich in birdlife (kingfishers, herons and hummingbirds) until we reached the river estuary and entered the Gulf of Urabu. I was now with a group of local folks, and the motorboat would take us to Turbo, a way station on the Caribbean coast.

  Halfway across the isthmus in the Gulf of Urabu, a Colombian naval ship intercepted us. It was a small coastal vessel but nevertheless it towered above our motorboat. Since I was the only white person in the boat, I was not surprised when an officer shouted for me to come on board and show my papers. So I climbed up a rope thrown from the ship, and showed my passport with the stamp from the village shop. This seemed to satisfy them.

  The motor boat arrived in Turbo an hour later, and we disembarked at a crowded quay with lots of fishing boats tied up and the clamor of a trading place. It was hot and smelled of fish. According to the venerable, 1380-page South American Handbook, then in its 65th year of publication: "Turbo is the centre of banana cultivation, which is booming. It is a rough frontier community, not too law abiding and tourists are advised to be very careful." My Bradt guidebook was more brief: "This place reeks of evil."

  I stepped onto the quay and headed away from the dock. I got a few stares since a white man carrying a large backpack was unusual. I find it important in this sort of place to look as if you know where you are going, even if you don't. So I strode purposefully through streets crowded with merchandise and groups of people talking, passing shops and a bus station until I reached the town center. I found a simple hotel with a good lock on the door to my room, and had my first shower since leaving Margot's ranch six days previously. Next I found an immigration office on the waterfront where I got an official entry stamp. Later, as I ate a meal of fried fish and rice I found out there was a flight the next day to Medellin. This would save me fourteen hours in a bus, so I planned to walk out to the airport early the next morning and see about buying a ticket. This didn't seem like a place to linger, and I felt I had earned some comfort after my six-day trip through Darién province.

  Medellin was a large bustling place, but I did not intend to stay. This was the time of maximum media publicity about the strength of the Medellin drug cartel. My plan was to move on immediately to Ecuador which had a reputation as a good destination for backpackers: a stable government, low prices and lots of outdoors activities.

  At Medellin airport I climbed on a bus with "Centro" on the front, and immediately got into trouble with my backpack. There was a turnstile which passengers passed through when they had paid the driver. My bulky pack and a crowded bus did not go together. The pack got jammed, and I got embarrassed. Some kind man helped me maneuver it over the top of the turnstile, and I stood in the aisle with the pack blocking the way for other passengers. No one seemed upset or even very interested.

  The temperature was a lot cooler than on the coast since Medellin sits at 4,879 feet. It was a prosperous industrial city, circled by mountains, with a fast-growing population of 2.2 million. The streets were full of traffic and the sidewalks crowded with well dressed people. I found the tourism office and got a street map. I then went to the post office and sent a telegram to Margot to say I had arrived safely in Medellin. Then I headed for the bus station to catch the next long distance bus going south towards the Ecuador border.

  The bus station was eerily quiet. Had there been a bomb scare? The place somehow seemed sinister. I felt people were looking at me. It's funny how one interprets things differently according to mood. On another day, or accompanied by friends, I wouldn't have given a second thought to whether the bus station was safe. On this occasion, I felt distinctly uneasy, and was happy when the bus pulled out.

  Ecuador had a good reputation with backpackers in 1990: safer by a long chalk than Colombia and inexpensive. It is small, the second smallest republic in South America (176,204 square miles) with a population (40% of whom were Indians) of around 9.6 million (1986 statistics).The Andes form the central backbone to the country, running north to south from the Columbian border to the border with Peru. To the west is the Pacific Ocean, and 600 miles offshore the Galapagos Islands. In the eastern tropical lowlands the rivers drain into the Amazon. I had no inclination to go to the Galapagos and was content to relax in Quito and take a couple of side trips.

  I finally arrived in Quito after a long bus ride through the night, and a change of buses at the Colombia/Ecuador border. At 9,350 feet, the second highest capital in South America, it is set in a hollow at the foot of the towering Pichincha volcano. There was the expected Plaza and Cathedral and some monumental government buildings but the charm lay in the steep cobbled street in the colonial center. Interestingly, the dramatic location and the low prices had spurred a growth of language schools in Quito, and there were plenty of US and European youngsters frequenting the cheap restaurants.

  My sister-in-law in London had given me some advice earlier when I told her of my visit to Quito: watch your pockets. Apparently Quito has some very deft pickpockets. She was French and her father had been in a French foreign service and at one time served as ambassador to Ecuador.
Shortly after arriving in Quito, during a sightseeing tour of the city, his pocket was picked and his wallet stolen. The Ecuadorian personnel on the embassy staff told him not to worry; they would get the word out on the street, and for a fee the wallet could be bought back. This is exactly what happened. I didn't think I would make such an obvious target as an ambassador, but I moved my wallet to a safer spot.

  Prices for sweaters and other wool products were low. They were so low that I decided to call friends in Houston and tell them I could buy a dozen colored Ecuadorian sweaters, and airmail them to the USA for little over $100, thereby solving much of their Christmas present shopping. And I did it.

  Baños, three and a half hours by bus from Quito, is known as the gateway to the jungle. Surrounded by steep green mountainsides, it is clean, colorful, compact, and has famous hot springs from which it gets its name - an ideal center for hiking and climbing. I settled into a guest house, Hostal Agoyan so soon after the previous guest had left that the bed was still warm. The next morning I rented crampons and an ice axe from a rental shop with a view to climbing nearby Mt. Tungurahua, a dormant volcano.

  I walked from Baños to the village of Pondoa where I started up the mountain. After a steep climb on a well-worn trail, I reached the refugio Santos Ocana at 12,500 feet. Three young Germans, two men and a woman, were already there and, like most German travelers, well prepared. They shared some food with me and we agreed to travel together the next morning up to the snow line and then to the summit, four hours away.