Flipping Panama

The seas are always bluer on the other side .Or at least they appear to be.

But the surface of Panama city is deceiving. 

There's far too much craziness that lies beneath.

After a couple of days of acclimatizing to the Pacific, my brother arrived and a whole new adventure began.

After introducing him to the ways of the boating world, our first sibling bonding involved a day at the hospital after a minor diving accident

Fortunately he got the clear to disappear into nowhere land for a bit of sailing so we bid a temporary farewell to our new crew and prepared to sail.

Unfortunately the dinghy sunk on the way out forcing us to consume two bottles of wine to get the corks to plug the drainage holes before leaving.

It was a great start to the day and might have spiraled out of control at some point.

But after a beautiful sunrise, we found ourselves in paradise.

We met up with our Finish friends Miko and Johannah and raced them around the Las Perlas islands

They may have been faster, but they didn't get to drink pinacoladas en route.

In true Panamanian fashion (this country is crazy), Miko awoke us one morning in desperation. He had a crab in his ear. Karl managed, through much trial and many more errors, to blow smoke rings into his ear canal to bring the crab out. Celebrations were premature though because eventually he ended up with a whole family of them in there

Yes, life was pretty good.

Finally it came time to bid the brother farewell and at 5 am, the captain dinghyed him back to the main land.

Only hours later, Captian Karl had a very unfortunate run in with a piping hot cup of coffee and had to be rushed to hospital.

The next day captain Plastic (off the neighboring boat) came knocking and I had to check him in too 

And while I was at it I checked myself as well... Panama breaks people!  

Yes, I admitted four people to  hospital in less than a week. 

With the captain detained in Santo Thomas hospital, I became the stand in and boat work turned nasty.

Friends boats set off for the Pacific every day and it was really sad to see them leave 

Even Captain Plastic left despite having far too many stitches in both his feet.

Things went wrong left right and centre. The new dinghy broke.

The outboard engine fell into the depth of the anchorage and had to be retrieved the following day with some borrowed dive gear (hopefully some day it will be resuscitated)

The propeller started leaking.

The water tank ran empty.

Everything went wrong. Literally everything.

I'd had enough of being the captain for a bit.

So I was very excited when finally the day arrived for the real captain to be set free 

Because he'd been admitted to hospital for too long, his mouldy clothes had to be thrown away and he ended up leaving the hospital in true style.

It's been a rough week since with far too many things to fix, far too many things to buy and far too many new and awesome people to hang out with, but at last we are ready. 

With a crew of four on our 27 foot Albin Vega, we finally set sail. Tonight.
[As soon as this blog is done.]

Next stop Equador, let's hope it's full of only the good sort of excitement.

Cinthia, from Quebec

Michael, from the US of A

Karl, from Sweden

Me, from South Africa

And the bear too of course, only he was too busy hanging out underneath everyone else's stuff to make an appearance for the photographs.

Goodbye Panama. You're a crazy beautiful place, but I'm very excited to say goodbye!

Lucky to be Stabbed

“It hurts less if I stab the right cheek.” The door was locked. I was stuck in a corner. There was absolutely no escaping this one.

She leaned in with a fiercely terrifying smile and pain shot through my body…

It took a lot to get me there in the first place. It’s not like I woke up this morning and thought “hey, I should get stabbed”…. actually I did wake up this morning and decide exactly that… but it took 6 long weeks of suffering to get to this morning.

I don’t like doctors. I mean they are alright as people (Some of my favouritest people are doctor people), but their vocation terrifies me. I tend to see them more as prophets of doom (and please don’t take this wrong if you are in fact a doctor – or a prophet of doom, who doesn’t like to be likened to a doctor, for that matter) about to predict my imminent/impeding end.

The last time I saw a doctor was not because I woke up one day in the middle of nowhere [Laos], swollen like a balloon unable to breathe with what I thought might be a bad case of sporadic elephantitus

http://barefootedgypsy.blogspot.com/2012/03/avoiding-death-elephatitus-and-busses.html

  ...Or because I think I might have broken my foot after jumping off a building in Hong Kong

http://barefootedgypsy.blogspot.com/2012/07/injured-insanities-and-failures.html

...But only because I got attacked by a mangey dog and thought I might have rabies; and I generally prefer not to get rabies and die 

http://barefootedgypsy.blogspot.com/2012/08/becoming-vegetarian-dropping-to-bottom.html

So obviously seeing a doctor (despite being sick for 6 solid weeks) was out of the question, but my friend Jacqui talked me into seeing a nurse at a clinic and well… yes, she stabbed me (With a needle not a knife before someone reports her). Sister George locked me in a room and stabbed me. 

And then she told me to go see a doctor.

There’s people out there who can’t afford to eat or sleep or wear deodorant and here I am, able to afford being stabbed. I am truly fortunate.

Avoiding Death, Elephatitus, and Busses. (In that order)

It was a rough day watching my little Mao (the Chinese tyrant bicycle) be loaded onto the roof of an unroadworthy bus and sadder still watching former cycle buddy, Rohan, pass us three times. It was only once I was on the bus that I grappled with what I'd just signed up for - a 250 km journey that would take 9 hours. According to my googled calculator, this comes to about 27.777777777 km/hr and my Grand mother drives faster than that. I instantly regretted the decision but the rusty doors were bolted shut and the shockless bus was on the crawl.

It gets worse too - by the time I arrived a good many lifetimes later, I felt like death. And once I'd checked into my "China-Food Hotel" and found what used to be a mirror, I discovered that I looked it too. I had elephantitus or something very similar. To put it bluntly, I looked like the incredible hulk - not green or anything but swollen to the point that my eyes ears had almost dissappeared. My legs were tree trunks. My arms Oprah-Winfrey wings. My belly looked like one those African kids with the kwashiorkor and my neck had been swallowed by my shoulders. Worse still my throat had swollen shut and I was struggling to breathe. I climbed one flight of stairs and had to sit down - I was pretty sure I was about to die. Don't worry though, I didn't.

Trying in vain to find a pharmacy or some elephant tranquilizers (which would have possibly worked better) I was talked into booking a tour and I really am not sure why but for some reason it made sense at the time. Regret!!! I spent the whole night tossing, turning, gasping for air, throwing up. Repeat. The morning had me swollener still and I had no painkillers. I had no medication and I had no time to find any because I was already late for my pretty expensive tour.

I’m not sure why I thought a tour of ancient fields of clay jars would have been good anyway. Yes they were big and old and ruinsy, but they were really just pots – old school vases with stale water inside of them instead of pretty flowers. In my state I had little appreciation for the “mystical valleys of Paksovan” and even less for the never-ending bumpy dirt roads that shot spasms up my spine.

6 hours of old pots later I finally made it to the doctor. He wasn’t there. His wife phoned him for me and I tried to explain in a language that wasn’t anything close to English what my symptoms were. The wife handed me a pack of orange pills and another one full of yellow ones and told me to have one of each at every meal. I still have no idea what either are. But I’m hoping for the best…

Then I took the second set of necessary precautions for my near demising state and dragged myself on to a place renowned for recovery – Vang Vieng. It’s the kind of place where everyone has cuts and bruises and broken limbs and accidental amputations and weird drug addictions and massive life problems and well, there I was just about normal.

A couple of hard days of zip-lining, floating down the river, ladder jumping, beer pong, dancing, staying up till ridiculous o’clock the afternoon and relaxing in a hammock I was almost as good as new!

Two things I’ve learned from all of this:

1)    Busses are very bad for you.

2)    Beer is probably necessary.