When the guard raised his gun I knew I'd have to spend some more time there. I was sure it would only take about 15 minutes to get a scolding for coming too close to the prison. I still viewed this as a brief pause in the afternoon portion of my hike along the tracks. No anxiety, but some curiosity about what they were going to do.
After going through two or three locked gates I was taken into a room about 20 feet by 15 feet, apparently a holding area. Two or three uniformed men tried to question me in Spanish, without success. I do speak a bit of Spanish, and understand it as well, but I chose not to reveal that fact. It was fun to see their consternation as I continued to repeat 'I don't understand you' every time I was spoken to. (I suspect that they did speak and understand some English, but I don't know for sure.) One of them finally said 'papers' and I produced my Panamanian visa, as well as my passport. Then the prisoner/translator was sent for, and I had to wait a few minutes. We just stood there as I admired the lack of furniture in the room, the absent paintings on the walls, and the military aura of the place. When the prisoner/translator arrived he made a great effort to reassure me that I had nothing to worry about ... I think he may have been more worried than I was, since I wasn't worried at all, and he seemed somewhat upset by this matter. By then it had become a new adventure. I was left to myself for a while during which the prisoner and the guards talked in Spanish. Then the prisoner told me I had to wait around for a while so that they could decide what had to be done. I was told I could stay in that room, or go out on the porch/balcony that overlooked the grounds. I went out on the enclosed porch, took out my camera, and then turned and asked the departing prisoner [it was only much later that I learned he was a trusty; I had assumed he was an official there] if it was OK to take pictures. That created a near panic there, and I was told that under no circumstances could I take pictures. So, I put my camera away.
After 20-30 minutes I was called in again and told to empty my daypack on the floor so they could inspect what I was carrying. As I started to unpack my daypack I was asked if I was armed. I said I had a small knife. Everyone jumped back, and one guard put his hand on his pistol holster. I was asked to give them the knife. I removed it from my leg pocket, and handed it to them. [It was later returned to me, with my passport and visa, when the central police office in Balboa released me.]
The only questionable item was a thermal blanket I had in my emergency supplies kit. It is shinny, and sealed in clear plastic, and it was suggested to me later that sometimes illegal drugs are packaged in a similar way, as are some explosives. The guards were afraid to touch it at first, but I picked it up, shoved it to them, and finally they held it, squeezed it, and gave it back. The vocabulary of the prisoner/translator did not include suitable Spanish words for thermal blanket, and he had a hard time explaining to them what it was.
My perspective had become one of 'let's live this to the fullest' so I began to ask questions of the translator, to walk over and look through windows, to smile at people walking through, etc. It was sort of like being invited to sit in the cockpit of an airplane, or ride on a fire engine, or visit a brewery -- something that was new and interesting, not threatening or scary, but certainly new and strange.
Eventually, one of the guards offered me a cup of coffee. I thanked him and declined; then I removed a soda from my daypack and drank it. I wasn't sure if he was just being friendly, or if there was more to it, but I chose not to accept the coffee, although I was as gracious as I could be as I declined it.
The only anxiety I had was that my hiking buddy Ted, who had taken the road instead of the track, was ahead of me in town, expecting me to enter the town and join up with him. He and I had spent half a day in Nova Scotia having missed each other, and there he had started down the tracks looking for me. I was afraid that he would walk down the tracks from the opposite direction and be taken into custody also.
I asked to speak to the 'captain' as the senior guy on duty was called, and then through the translator explained my concerns. The captain clearly didn't care whether he had two gringo prisoners or just one. Later, however, after a couple more efforts to secure his cooperation, he agreed that the police car that would take me to Balboa would first drive through town with me, and if we saw Ted right away we could pick him up. Fortunately, I spotted Ted immediately when we got into this tiny town, and he got to ride back with me. When the policeman went to get him he first asked Ted if he had a knife, and Ted surrendered his knife to him. I had shouted to Ted through the open window that I had found us a ride back to Balboa. Since this was an unmarked police car, he didn't quite know what was going on. When he got in I told him I'd been in prison for a couple of hours, and I'd explain the rest later. I found out later he thought I was joking, until the police car pulled into the central police compound in Balboa.
The guards were very professional in style. I was never touched or shouted at. They were professionally sloppy in that although they checked everything in my daypack, and made sure it was empty, they failed to search my pockets or even pat me down for weapons.)
The next two days were spent covering the next 25 miles, and was very difficult. The grass was higher than in the previous jungle areas, and much harder to penetrate. I had a full backpack weighing perhaps 25 pounds, there was no shade, and the temperatures were in the 90s and humidity approached 100% when it wasn't actually raining. I had a water filtration kit with me, and had expected to use it on running water along the way; unfortunately, I found only stagnant water, and choose to rely on the fluids I was carrying. That meant I had to ration myself carefully, and monitor closely how my body was handling the heat and physical stress.
I had conditioned myself for several months before this trip, walking up to 10 miles a day, and for the weeks immediately before I left also carrying a 25-pound backpack. In general my body held up very well, considering the heat and humidity. Pushing myself through the tall grass along the railroad right of way was very tiring from time to time, and there was no shade. The vegetation on each side of the tracks was dense, and impossible to enter without first cutting a path. In some places it was swampy, with reeds and other water plants covering the water. I acquired a few bruises from falls, a lot of blisters on my feet, and many insect bites. It took several days to rid myself the ticks that attached themselves to me in the jungle. Unlike Papua New Guinea (PNG), I never woke up with leeches attached to my body. I had a small supply of emergency medical supplies with me, but did not have occasion to use it. Dehydration was my greatest risk, and I should have been better prepared for it.
There was a great abundance of colorful butterflies, and many birds I did not recognize. I believe I heard monkeys screaming in the distance but I never saw one. I did see what I first thought was an anteater, but I now think it was what in Panama is called a 'gato solo', a mammal not of the cat family but more like a badger or weasel. I was standing perhaps 6 feet away from the track, silently watching the trees while I rested with my head turned away from the sun, when I saw this creature loping down the track, much as a coyote runs. As it drew abreast of me I made some slight clicking sounds to see if it would stop and look at me, and at the same time was fumbling with my camera, but although it did stop and sniff the air a couple of times, I did not get a good picture of it. At another place along the track I was startled by a snake jumping up out of the grass and twisting in the air near me. It was about 6 feet long, 3-4 inches in diameter at the fullest, and was black with egg-sized white ovals along its body. I have not been able to identify it, but locals there assured me that my description did not fit any of the poisonous snakes found in Panama, but that it may have been a boa constrictor. At night one can hear strange sounds in the Panamanian jungle, and wonder whether they are birds, frogs, insects, or something else; the night is not still and quiet in the remote parts of the jungle where I was. At one point during the night a bird or bat or something hit the side of my tent, fluttered around briefly, and was gone.
I had a very unusual experience one evening. Exhausted, I set up my tent before 6 p.m. when it gets dark, and crawled inside to rest a bit before eating. I quickly fell asleep, and then, after a few minutes, heard the very distinctive notes of my travel alarm -- a repeated 'da-da-da-DEE, da-da-da-DEE.' Slowly I reacted, wondering as I awoke where I was since I don't use that alarm at home. My mind said I was traveling somewhere, since it was my travel alarm I was hearing, and then another part of my mind became awake and reported that I was hiking in the Panamanian jungle and had left the alarm clock in my hotel. A third part of my brain spoke up then and said I must have been dreaming that I heard the alarm. Then, again, I heard the 'da-da-da-DEE, da-da-da-DEE' repeating. The part of my mind in control at that point suggested that I was hallucinating, because the sound was very loud and near, yet the alarm clock was 30 miles away in a hotel. Then, as I became fully awake, I realized that there was a bird nearby whose call was the same as my alarm clock's chime. As I continued to listen to that bird I was very glad I didn't have to get up, since I was still very tired, and then I drifted back to sleep.
Looking out my tent screen later that evening I had a deja vu experience from my days in the jungles of PNG. There, one night resting in a cave, I saw what appeared to be an airplane light far off on the horizon, and then another light far away which appeared to be on a collision course with the first airplane. I observed this again through the open flap of my tent that night, and both in Panama and PNG it was at least 30 seconds before I realized I was seeing fire flies about 15 feet away, not airplanes 15 miles away. Still later that evening I shined my flashlight out the flap briefly, and was immediately rewarded with another swarm of fire flies, coming to greet me.
I slept in my tent at night, along side the track. To avoid mosquitoes and other insects, I ate inside my tent, and remained there from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and then resumed my hike. At the end of the second day I emerged, very tired and somewhat dehydrated, a few miles from the end of the line at Colon. I left the track and started walking on a road, and was able to hitch-hike into town. I immediately went to a store and purchased two pints of Gatorade and drank them, then had dinner with two bottles of beer, checked into a hotel, and rested.
The next day I covered the final 5 miles or so, visited another set of canal locks, viewed the second roundhouse, and took a bus back to my hotel in Balboa. At the start of this 50-miles-in-five-days hike, I had walked down to the edge of the Pacific Ocean at Balboa and wetted my boots; in Colon I wetted them again, this time in the Atlantic; thus, coast to coast, I had tracked this railroad ghost.
There is a reasonable chance that this railroad will come back to life, although this time using the American standard gauge of 4' 8.5'. An American railroad (Kansas City Southern) and other investors have obtained the rights to operate the railroad again, and if the money can be raised and other obstacles overcome, the line may again be busy with trains. This has been discussed for several years, and while there is enthusiasm for the project, the money to fund it has not yet made an appearance. As proposed, ships would unload containers at Balboa and Colon, where they would be put aboard train cars for a 2-hour trip to the other port for loading on board another ship. |
