360 Degrees Longitude (40 page)

Although the island of Bocas del Toro was a world apart from the Alps, its laid-back Caribbean lifestyle was tremendously infectious. The few cabins that made up the village of Boca del Drago, or simply Drago, were at the end of a long road on the far side of the island.

Approaching Drago for the first time, I noted the last section of road ran across the beach and was submerged. Our taxi driver waited for the precise moment for the tide to recede then made a dash before the surf submerged the road again.

There are no hotels or inns in Drago; the only place to stay is at a cabin owned by the Biological Research Foundation, which does sea turtle and other marine research. Since it wasn't sea turtle season, their cabin was available. The caretakers were even kind enough to run the generator from dusk until 10:00 p.m. so we would have electricity part of the day.

Aside from a couple of cabins, there is absolutely nothing at Drago. Nothing, that is, except for an azure lagoon and a narrow, deserted white-sand beach lined with coconut palms as far as the eye can see. It was what the eye
couldn't
see that made us leave our dream of settling on Gilligan's Island behind us.

“Something bit me!” September exclaimed. She reached down and pinched … nothing. At least that's what it looked like.

Ever heard of a “no-see-um?” Neither had we, until our arms and legs were covered with itchy scabs. I am sure that “no-see-ums” have a proper Latin name, but the locals' description of these pests seemed pretty accurate. After several days in idyllic Drago, Jordan, the tastiest of our bunch, looked like a teenager without a dermatologist.

September was quick enough to pinch one of the culprits between her fingers and held it up for me. To my 45-year-old eyes it looked like a cross between a salt grain and a sugar granule, only blurrier. I had learned that I had to trust Katrina to be my eyes when it came to stuff like this. “Katrina,” I called, “can you tell what this is?”

“Of course,” she grinned. “It's a bean sprout. Try it and tell me what it tastes like.”

When we arrived in Africa, we were ready for insect warfare. We knew that we would be traveling in a malaria zone, and so in addition to malaria medication we had the insect warfare equivalent of a thermonuclear bomb. We had REI “Jungle Juice,” with 100-percent active ingredient (DEET) and had been carrying it with us ever since we left California. Funny thing is we didn't really need it in Tanzania. We were there in the dry season, and there just wasn't much of an insect problem. Five months later in Drago, and what I wouldn't give for a bottle of Jungle Juice. No-see-ums are tinier than a flea and mightier than a mosquito, able to withstand Deep Woods Off! with a single breath.

Drago was almost everything we could hope for in a reality escape. Unfortunately, the no-see-ums drove us mad. The folklore is that the no-see-ums only bite newcomers and leave you alone after a month or two. We couldn't wait that long and did a Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

As we were to depart Bocas and make our way to Panama City, we happened upon one of the homemade candy bars made by Frankie, Neil the Pirate's neighbor, at the airport café. We bought one and it felt hefty in our hands. The candy bar was wrapped in an odd-shaped piece of aluminum foil that had been torn from a roll, and the outer packaging was plain white paper that Frankie had clearly printed on his own laser printer and then taped with good ol' Scotch tape.

We were eager to taste it. I mean, we were looking at homemade chocolate where the beans were grown on a tropical island and roasted on the spot, and made with milk that was milked that very morning by hand. It's gotta be good, right?

September took one bite of the chocolate, got a horrified look on her face, and spit it out in her hand. It was as dry as chalk and tasted like burnt ashes mixed with sand. The reality of making one's own chocolate directly from home-harvested beans was not up to the romance of it. It was a perfect metaphor for living the alternate lifestyle in paradise: Things aren't always what they seem and it's what you can't see that will drive you mad.

• • •

Before we left California we had purchased several flight segments for our trip: San Francisco to London, Istanbul to Tanzania, Tanzania to Japan, Hong Kong to Bangkok, then Bangkok to Costa Rica. Many of those segments had meaningful layovers, such as Mauritius between Tanzania and Japan. Now that we were in Central America our itinerary was like the blank pages of a new diary: We had no more pre-purchased flight segments.

“We've been looking forward to moving at a slower pace,” I said to the kids as we arrived in Panama City. “Now we can have that. We won't have to rush through a place in order to catch our next flight, because we have no next flight.”

We settled into Panama City while we were making plans for South America. There were lots of things we wanted to see and do there—visit Machu Picchu and the Amazon Basin to name just a few. The Straits of Magellan and Torres del Paine at the southern tip of the continent were both considered musts. We wanted to savor the experience, which for us meant to go overland as much as possible.

While we prepared to go south, I took the chance to enroll in a three-day intensive course in Spanish. Granny had brought us Spanish lessons on an MP3 player when she visited for Christmas, but this was unsatisfactory; when we needed the phrase for say, buying bus tickets, we had to search for a file somewhere in a device the size of a cigarette lighter. Finding the exact phrase when at the ticket counter was really frustrating.

We had also picked up a Spanish phrase book, which was only marginally better. I opened it up and started to browse through it randomly, coming to a section called “Trouble with the Police.” It had such useful phrases as: “These drugs are for personal use.” “Can I speak to a lawyer in English?” “Can I pay the fine on the spot?” “You are being charged with murder.”

We made it our goal to not need these phrases.

My Spanish teacher's name was Javier. “How long will you be staying in Panama City?” Javier asked.

“A few days. Just long enough to make arrangements to go south.”

“South? Through the Darién Province to Colombia?”

“That's the plan, although we are having difficulty finding a route description.”

“You cannot do this.” Javier was emphatic. “The Darién Province is rugged and there are no roads. More important it's a wild and lawless place. People turn up missing there all the time.”

The description of no roads was frankly a powerful attraction. However, two guidebooks and now Javier were starting to spook me.

• • •

“We are going.” I was getting impatient. “How can we spend time in Panama City and not visit the Canal Zone?” The Panama Canal is not only cool, there is a lot of important history tied up in it. It was, in effect, begging for a Science Moment. I was eager to go, but Katrina and Jordan had just received a new shipment of books.

“But I'm in the middle of a chapter!” they exclaimed in unison. I decided right there that books were overrated. At least a nice sitcom comes in thirty-minute chunks. Books, on the other hand, always have the next chapter.

On our way to the Panama Canal's Miraflores locks, I told the kids what everyone knew about the canal. “The two oceans are only 50 or so miles apart, but a ship going through the canal saves thousands of miles compared to going the long way around. The coolest part is that the two oceans are at different levels so boats that go through the canal have to use water elevators. Which is what we are going to see.”

Out on the observation deck I was mesmerized by the Miraflores locks. I could have watched the ships transiting through and being raised and lowered for hours. I tried to leverage a discussion of the locks into a Science Moment, but some people just don't get emotional about great engineering. Deflated, I accepted that in the eyes of a nine-year-old, Archemides' principle of flotation just wasn't as cool as the glowing lava of a live volcano. We left the observation area and headed for the canal's exhibits. I was in for a nasty shock.

“Dad, you are
wrong!
The Pacific and the Atlantic are at the same level. It says so right here!” Jordan was pointing to one of the displays with a description that stated most emphatically that the two oceans were at the same level, and that a common misconception about the canal was that the two oceans were at different levels.

In the space of only a week or so, two long-held and cherished pieces of playground folklore went poof. Next thing I would be informed that
F
no longer equaled
ma
, or, shudder, a human's mouth really is dirtier than a dog's behind.

However, as with most things, a simple answer is not always the most accurate. Months later, I read online that the maximum tidal range on the Pacific side is from +11.0 feet to -10.5 feet, and that the tidal range on the Atlantic side is no more than 24 inches. By comparison, the mean sea level at the Pacific end of the canal is on average about 8 inches higher than at the Atlantic end.

Suggesting yet again that things are rarely what they seem.

• • •

We went to Flamengo Island for a day of sunshine. The island is connected to the mainland via a manmade causeway. There is a good cycle path all along the causeway and you can watch the ships sail under the Bridge of the Americas on their way to or from the Canal. It was a beautiful summer day and we were doing nothing in particular.

“Katrina,” I asked, “what book were you so interested in that you didn't want to come out here and enjoy the sunshine?”

“It's called
Secret of the Andes
. It's one that Mom bought before we left and is about the Spanish conquest.” Katrina was quick to point out how evil the Spanish were, wiping out an entire culture.

“Not so harsh, Little One,” I said. “Things aren't always what they seem. The Spanish thought they were doing the right thing.”

“How can you say that? They were so mean and downright evil!”

“Perhaps, but they were also mothers and fathers who loved their children. If you had asked them, they were doing God's will, taking resources from a wild people and distributing them to the righteous. The United States did basically the same thing in the 19th century with the American Indians, moving them from their heritage lands to reservations. Many Indian nations died because the United States wanted their land. The nations that survived still lost their land and were moved to places no one else wanted to live.”

Katrina gave me a slack-jawed look. I knew I had hit my mark. Even Jordan was paying attention.

“We can look back and judge the people of history and what they did, and a lot of it looks pretty stupid from our perspective, because we ‘know better.' But really, we are tomorrow's stupid people because we don't know what we don't know. Future generations will understand things we can't even comprehend now. From their perspective, we will be ignorant and they may judge us just as harshly as we would the Spanish conquistadors.”

Walking along the causeway from Flamengo Island
back to the mainland with ships exiting and entering the Panama Canal, I had Katrina and Jordan's attention in the manner I had thought would be mine every day of our trip. I turned the conversation to a Science Moment without alerting the kids to it, explaining all sorts of things supposed “learned” people did hundreds of years ago, such as the practice of “bleeding” a patient, that we think are pretty stupid now.

At the apogee of my smugness for gaining the kids' rapt attention in such a lovely setting, I was walking into a first-rate example of how I can be pretty stupid in the here and now.

When we reached the mainland the nice pedestrian sidewalk along the causeway just sort of evaporated. We pulled out our map and made our way through El Chorrillo, a poor neighborhood that took the brunt of Operation Just Cause when the U.S. invaded Panama in 1989. We hadn't been there a 120 seconds before two people came rushing up to us, telling us we weren't safe.

“Um, sure,” I replied, and kept walking. We were, after nine months on the road, seasoned travelers. We thought we were being spooked into hopping in a taxi we didn't want. Within seconds the police showed up and were pretty clear that we should leave. Immediately.

A taxi driver whisked us away. “That neighborhood is not safe for you,” the driver told us. “Most parts of Panama are safe, but there are places you should not go. A missionary couple went missing in Darién just a few days ago. They will never be seen again.”

That was the third strike against going south overland.

The next day I asked my Spanish teacher, Javier, about the neighborhood we found ourselves in and if we were really in danger.

“Yes,” Javier replied, “the people in that neighborhood are hungry and have been ever since the United States left the Canal Zone.”

“That doesn't make sense. If they were better off when the United States was here, why are they mad at us?”