Friday, February 10, 2006

We wanted to finally make it to the Corn Islands today, but we didn’t have much hope. I didn’t sleep very well, so it wasn’t much of a hardship to wake up at 4:00 a.m. for the panga. We were provided with only one sheet spread over the mattress; it was not clear whether we were to use it as a top or a bottom sheet. I had been far too lazy to unpack and repack the sleep sack just for the few hours, so I slept in my clothes and there was very little to do to get ready to check out. We washed our hands from the barrel and brushed our teeth into the dirt at the edge of the courtyard, packed up the few things we’d removed from our packs, and were ready to go.

Except the hotel was locked up tight. We couldn’t get out. We briefly considered climbing over the wall, but finally decided we had to knock on the family’s door and get someone to unlock the gate for us. This proved to be less of a problem than we’d feared, but I felt guilty.

The panga office was right next door. This was also gated off and the man wanted four cordobas to get into the waiting area. We thought we were being taken advantage of at first, but nope, it costs 170 cordobas to ride the boat and 4 cordobas to board the boat. It was still pitch dark. Tom had said the boat sails at light, so it seemed we had a long wait.

The sloping metal ramp down to the dock, slippery wet from last night’s rain and with only small soldered ridges for traction seemed treacherous to me but the locals had no problems with it. I saw one man step over the chain barrier and start down the ramp barefoot, carrying a giant sack on his back, and smoking a cigarrette.

We were called to the panga (which is just like a lancha, a plain, medium-small passenger boat with an outboard motor) one at a time by name, handed a lifejacket and told where to sit. After we were nicely wedged in, we waited. By then we could see the black silhouettes of the trees across the river as the sky turned from black to dark blue. Just after I commented to Michael that Tom had recommended this company because the pangas had roofs, while our panga did not, in fact, have a roof, the guy in charge started calling names again.

One by one, we were called to leave the panga, trade in our lifevests for other lifevests, and get into two separate other pangas, both with plastic roofs. I should say I was in an irritated mood, and had been ever since we’d paid the entry fee. We sat in front of two Carribean black men who were even more furious than I was. Their constant bitching (in lovely lilting English) made me feel better because then I knew it wasn’t just me who thought the goings-on were weird. (“You pay extra for the roof and then they can’t accommodate you, now.”) They kept up a running commentary all the way to Bluefields.

The next half hour was occupied by the transferring of baggage from the first boat to the two new boats. Cries of “maleta negra” and "bolsa verde" and other discriptions filled the air. Our friends behind us did not rest until their various bags had been transferred. (“You relax for a moment and then your bags go in the other boat, so, and then who knows?”)

The transfer was timed well, right before another bout of heavy rain. The engine was running, filling the brightening air with fumes and hope for imminent departure, but after we had sat in our new boats for a while (“Look at that other boat, you see how they have it now, with the plastic on the sides as well…”) the engine was turned back off and we waited some more. The birds in the trees above us screamed maniacally.

At long last it was fully light and we eased out of the tight area next to the dock and took off down the river. It was 6:00 a.m. Once in the middle of the river, the driver, who was not wearing a life vest, handed back sheets of plastic for us to attach to the roof to protect us from rain coming in at the sides.

The plastic was just a plain sheet, with no holes or attached ties and was meant to be tied to the poles with bits of plastic string. Michael broke out his little plastic grip ties; he loves those things. It's not even funny. He fixed a toilet with one in Santa Rosalia, Mexico.

When the plastic was up, we took off at full speed (“He needs to go softer now, that’s how boats turn over so.”) and the plastic sheeting slipped down all the poles again and had to be held up by hand. Luckily it stopped raining shortly and we could just leave it down and enjoy the view. We passed something I originally thought was a sandbar but which turned out to be the rusted hull of an overturned boat sticking out of the water near the shore. I fell asleep, but Michael told me later that there was another half sunken boat, this one deck-up.

It was pouring again when we reached Bluefields and we had to make a run for it from the panga to an inadequate shelter already crowded with people and luggage. When the rain slacked off we set off to find out about boats headed to the Corn Islands. According to the Lonely Planet, boats leave twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. It’s Friday, but we figured it was worth a shot and at the very least we could find out exactly where to catch the boat the next day.

Well, what we found out was that boats to the Corn Islands leave only on Wednesdays. And our search had taken us a short way around the nasty mudpit of Bluefields, enough to let us know it was most certainly not a place we wanted to stay for five days. Our only other option, besides going back to Rama, which would be more or less pointless, would be to see if we could get a panga to Laguna de Perlas.

The pangas to Laguna de Perlas leave when they get a full load of twenty. We were number eighteen and nineteen, so the wait wasn’t too long. Baggage was loaded, including several giant bags of frozen chicken, which the panga man had no qualms about stepping on while loading the rest of the baggage.

We again were given lifevests and wedged into the wet boat. I was in the front row, behind the giant mound of luggage covered with black plastic, between I guy I mentally dubbed Legs McSpreaderson and a young woman clutching a loaf of “pan sandwich.” Michael was in the row behind me.

The ride was not pleasant and I tried to sleep through it as much as possible, leaning my chin on the stiff material of my lifevest. The ride was bumpy and a couple of times it rained and a plastic sheet was passed forward for us to hold over our heads. It was damp and close under the heavy plastic and when it flapped in the wind it felt like getting beaten in the head. When the tarp was pulled away, it pulled off Legs’s red baseball cap which the wind instantly whipped away.

He was angry and had some words to say, but when he saw there was no intention of going back for it, he unzipped his backpack and pulled out another red baseball cap and put it on. It was weird, like he had a little Kleenex-style dispenser in there. I secretly hoped his second hat would get taken away just to see if he had any more in there, but it stayed put.

We stopped at a place called Haulover to drop off one young woman and then fifteen minutes later we were finally at Laguna de Perlas. There was a crowd waiting to meet the boat and they helped me out, but no one tried to direct us to a guesthouse or any other services.

Everyone is black here, and everyone speaks English. We checked into a nice little hotel, had a slow to arrive but great lunch, took a cold but welcome shower and then spent the rest of the day watching TNT’s “Primetime in the Daytime” and lying around. It was early and we’d only traveled a few hours, but between the 4:00 a.m. wakeup and the general hassle, we were exhausted. This is the third day of journeying to the Corn Islands… they had better be good.

HOURS IN A LANCHA/PANGA: 6

 

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Nearing full light, Rama.

Nearing full light, Rama.

Another panga to Bluefields.

Michael and me on the panga.