Panama

As I explained to the group (as a disclaimer) the first night we were together, Panama was the first international group trip that I have led since New Zealand in 1986, where I was doing new rivers without the help of a guide book. What fun I had in organizing!

As part of the organization process I spent my first three days ahead of the group, scouting out rivers, put-ins and take-outs and talking with people. I spent and hour and a half with Kevin, from Panama Rafters, an outfitter in Boquete, getting information about many rivers. Kevin was a bit rude, even though I had pre-arranged to meet with him, he acted like it was an inconvenience for him to be there, but he did spend the time with me and at the time it seemed like he gave me some valuable information. Also I saw that the Rio Caldera through town was raging and was drooling not having the shredder with me, but Kevin said this was normal flow and there are no eddies, so it wouldn’t be a good run.

The group trickled in starting with Kristy Leduc on Wednesday, then Eric Renz and Todd Richendollar on Thursday. The rest of the nine, Michele Weigold, Carmen Cefaretti, Rose Pritchard, Lisa Begin and Pete Hilpl, (Lisa and Pete are engaged) rolled in on Friday.

Saturday was a day of touring out of Panama City, with our first excursion with our bi-lingual bus (a bus was booked but it was actually a van) driver, Junior. He wasn’t really bi-lingual, but knew enough English to make it fun for Michele (who was the best at communicating with Junior) and I to practice our espanol. That day we did a tour at the Panama Canal and also hiked at Sobernia National Park where we saw monkeys (a first for several in the group).

Sunday we headed west towards river country and with Junior’s expert packing (he had never seen anything like our group before and seemed a bit overwhelmed at first), we all fit. We had a 7 hour drive to David where there was a river we could do in a couple hours with an easy shuttle. En route one of the highlights was at a stop for Kristy to pee, we ended up talking with a the local farmer, owner of the house. He and other members of the family converse, gave us fruit from their trees and we both thoroughly enjoyed each others cultural visit.

The river put-in was conveniently at a bar and there were many locals swimming and bathing there. The Majagua, Kevin had said would be a little low, but would be a fun little river where we could “get our feet wet”. Barely. My disclaimer to the group did include the fact that we could be doing some aqua-hiking, the art of scraping down a river with not really enough water, so a fair amount of dragging boats over rocks is required. Nevertheless, we could see that it was an aqua-hike, so with a beer at the bar and myself being excited to be at a river, I said “I’m in”. Everyone else followed, though some of the folks new at the sport of aqua-hiking were a bit hesitant. I took the R-3 an NRS Otter, with Michele and Rose, thinking it would be harder, but the slick new boat seemed to slide over the rocks better than the other three shredders. The S-2’s were Kristy and Todd; Pete and Lisa; and Eric and Carmen. Our R-3 had a great time even with the rocks. Fortunately I didn’t see the trash consisting mostly of diapers at the put-in, which really turned off Pete for this run.

We stayed for two nights at a bunkhouse of a competitive outfitter to Kevin, Chiriqui Rafting in Boquete. This place was great and I spend a great bit of time with the owner, Hector, who gave me much better information than Kevin on optional rivers to run and also logistics. In fact throughout the rest of the trip, Hectors information was right on and extremely valuable, while almost all of Kevin’s was either, misleading, wrong or simply not complete. The bunkhouse, actually located on a coffee plantation was our favorite accommodation, It had a big kitchen where we cooked a couple of meals and walked some hiking trails.

The next day, Monday, we did a stretch on the Caldera River, an eddy-less continuous Class II-III, that started right outside of Boquete. It was much lower than I had seen it the week before, but still good and Hector gave us great info on logistics. I R-3ed the Otter with Kristy and Michele, Todd and Rose; Pete and Lisa and Eric and Carmen took the shredders. I love this kind of river. It was pretty low and challenging, but not aqua-hike low, there were technical routes through everything. Eric and Carmen were having some trouble in the shredder and at one point we waited a while in an eddy. Finally Pete and I carefully walked through the grass/ brush with a paddle to hopefully scare away any deadly fer de lance (a snake), when Eric and Carmen finally came cruising by.

I switched and R-3ed Eric and Carmen the rest of the way, while Kristy and Michele took over the shredder. The two best rapids were at the end. Then at the take out, as Hector had warned, a security guard at the dam where we took out, came running and yelling at us. He was fine though once Junior explained what we were doing.

Michele and I decide to run the Caldera a second time while the rest of the group went exploring Boquete. We had an uneventful and fast (35 minutes on the water) shredder run with a nice break in the middle and still got to explore Boquete ourselves.

The next day we headed to the Chiriqui Viejo, the main rafting river in Panama. Today we did the Pavon/Sabo sections, a real nice continuous Class III-IV run through the jungle. Thanks to Hector, we were set up for a four wheel drive shuttle to the river with Carlos. He took us close to the river, then we had to carry the boats down the final hill several hundred feet to the water. Carlos’ helpers would get upset if we carried the boats, as they expected to do all the work for us. If we had tried to do the river from Kevin’s information we would have been in the town of Qubradas de Vueltas without a ride to the put in. Once again Hector came through.

We paddled with tomorrow’s Class V run in mind. Eric and Pete wanted to try the Otter, thinking that as big boys they would do better than in the shredder. Pete, Eric and Carmen R-3ed. I shredded with Lisa to see if we would be a good team for tomorrow’s run. Kristy shredded with Rose and Todd with Michele since they knew the Todd/Rose, Kristy/Michele combo would already work. The river was wicked continuous. A beautiful waterfall came in to the river on the right about a mile and half down from the put in. The biggest drop called Waco Loco (Crazy Hole), was a Class IV riverwide hole. Kristy and Rose swam here. There were more excellent rapids and at an island, still having a little faith in Kevin’s info I went right (he said stay right when there is a choice). The right was a shallow Class III section. Right after the island I stopped to scout as I saw a log in the rapid. We ate lunch here and could look upstream and see that the other side of the island had a pretty good drop in it. The rapid we scouted was easy, then the gorge narrowed down (real pretty). After that we went under a cable car that carried a naked fisherman and the river mellowed some after this so we figured we were now on the easier Sabo section. Lisa and I played a lot running narrow slots and boofing rocks. There were still some good Class III rapids the rest of the way. We took out at the Pan American Highway and the best path I found brought us up onto the median of the highway. It was interesting deflating boats in the middle of the Pan Am highway. That night we stayed at some cabins in Volcan called Cabanas Haucus.

On Wednesday we headed to the Caison section of the Chiriqui Viejo, the section above the one we did yesterday which has the most difficult rapids on the river. Once again Carlos and the boys met us at the top of the road to transport us down to the put in at a bridge. Hector does not run this stretch commercially, but Kevin does. Kevin’s information was that the most intense rapid was 3 rapids downstream from the bridge and that we should walk down from the bridge on river right to scout it, but the portage was on river left. We could see a big drop around the bend, but there was no way to walk down the right as there were sheer cliffs. Carmen and Rose were undecided about doing today’s run, and thought if they could look at the big rapid they could get an idea of what we were in for, for the day. You could walk down the left side to almost the top of the drop we could see. Todd got a kayak from Carlos for the day, Lisa and I, and Kristy and Michele were in shredders. Pete, Eric, Rose and Carmen started in the Otter, only to catch the eddy river right above the big drop. From here we could shuttle Rose and Carmen back across to river left if they decided not to go. When we got to the drop, it was not too big, so Rose and Carmen decided to not go since it was still unknown what was ahead. Pete and Eric ferried them across and were set up to R-2 the Otter.

Around the next bend was a big rapid. There were walls on both sides making it almost impossible to portage. On the left it was possible to go down part way on the right side then drag the rafts over a steep shallow drop, but this too looked sketchy. The run was clearly to start left, then get right, but the end drop was blind, so we didn’t know what we were dropping into. Todd went through and from below signaled for us to go way right. He also tried to signal that it was sketchy and that there was a log over here. We hadn’t discussed these more detailed signals, so I wasn’t totally clear, but his information to go far right was clear so Lisa and I took off heading far right. There was a very tight chute far right which we ran trying to be as conservative as possible. We were a little sloppy in this tight drop but made it through clean. I tried to signal the others to start right but not take the furthest right chute, but my signals were probably even more confusing. Kristy and Michele came next and had a clean run in the next chute over (the log was on the left side of this chute, but the chute was clean on the right). Pete and Eric then came through with a similar clean run.

Two rapids later Todd signaled us to pull over. This rapid was bigger than the previous big one, but we could scout it completely and there was a portage around the very scary top drop. I knew my line immediately, which started with a portage on the right past the first drop. There still was 3/4ths of the rapid left and below the portage was still a respectable Class V rapid. The line I saw was to come out of the eddy driving left, to sort of boof the left side of a big pour-over pillow. Then we had to drive hard right going tight to a big boulder on the right, to eventually get right of a knarly pour-over on the bottom left. The run worked picture perfect for Lisa and I. Pete and Eric smoothed it as well. Kristy and Michele didn’t get as far left at the top pour-over, but made a great back ferry to stay on track for the bottom part.

After that the river mellow out quite a bit. There were a lot of Class II & III rapids, very continuous, but after the Class V the run was easier than the Pavon section below. We stopped for lunch after about 3 or 4 miles. After lunch, Lisa and I were leading, just talking, kind of la la la, when I looked downstream and saw a pretty big rapid. I eddied quickly, almost too low to get right which was where it looked like we needed to go. I did a quick scout from a boulder, could see to go right to left, pulled the shredder up the eddy (we were all in now) and ferried right. Todd was below signaling to the same line I had seen. It turned out to be the 3^rd biggest rapid of the run, a nice fun Class IV.

Another rapid with Lisa and I leading and paying more attention again, we ran a pretty good Class III-IV kind of blind and as we approached the bottom steep drop I was ready to paddle through a big hole. When we dropped over, it turned out to be a fun, deep-trough, wave, very uncharacteristic of what the drop looked like from above.

Soon after that rapid we came upon Carmen and Rose swimming around at the put it for yesterdays run. It only took us a little over two hours for this run. (Kevin had given me the impression that to do the intense upper stretches that it could even take an overnight. However he must have been referring to starting two sections upstream, still the information was confusing). The previous day I had arranged with Carlos to have mules at the take out to carry our gear up the hill that we (and the boys) carried down the day before. The price was 5 dollars. Carlos’ total price for 4 put-in or take-out shuttles in 3 days, with his four other helpers and 4 truck rides, was a whopping $75 (including the mule).

We celebrated at a local bar in Rio Sereno on the way back to the cabins,, and had a big dinner in Volcan. We let Carmen and Rose decide on the run for Thursday and they chose to repeat the Pavon/Sabo sections.

So Thursday it was back to meet Carlos for another ride to the put in at Quebrara de Vueltos. We had to carry a little more as the boys were working with commercial trips that both Hector and Kevin had on the river today. I started in the shredder with Carmen, Kristy with Lisa and Pete and Rose also in shredders. Todd took Eric and Michele in the Otter. We took our time now that we know the river. I ran probe (mostly, Todd led some) with Carmen, we had good lines except spun backwards at Waco Loco, but we kept it straight and went through fine. Pete tweaked his knee a bit at Waco Loco, so he switched with Michele into the Otter.

I still had a suspicion that the left of the island that we went right of on Tuesday might prove interesting. Hector’s guides said there were two big rapids, Waco Loco with the big hole and a real technical one. Nothing on Tuesday jumped out as a difficult technical rapid. Todd was leading when we tried left of the island and he eddied left above the steep drop. I scouted from the boat, and the only line looked sketchy, but I went ahead and ran it with Carmen. I ran it since there was only one line, since I know that the commercial rafts run a technical Class IV all the time and since I did see water moving through at the bottom. We had to drive almost directly over a pour-over at the top, but doing so set us up for a straight line at the next pour-over in the next drop of which we wallowed over but pretty clean, then ended up in a chute to the right at the bottom. Carmen was not sure about our run as we slopped over some pillows, but I was pleased with the run as it was the best possible line. Todd in the Otter came next with almost an identical line except ran the left chute at the bottom. Next was Kristy and Lisa. They went over the top pour-over more to the left, which did not set them up for the next pour-over drop and they ended up both swimming.

Once Kristy and Lisa bumped their butts over the rocks in the bottom left drop and were safe I signaled Michele and Rose to go. They too were further left at the first pour-over and they ended up jamming their boat into the left side of the lower pour-over drop. While they were working on getting it loose and we were preparing to go help, the boat suddenly sprang upward out of the water, sending Rose (and the shredder) airborne. She landed on Michele and both were now swimming the shallow bumpy last drop.

The next rapid was the one we scouted for the tree on Tuesday. Having not scouted this time Todd in the Otter and Kristy in the shredder didn’t make the move right early enough, but got out fine after a little bit of stuck. We ate lunch a little further downstream today, then switched up the boats again. I shredded with Rose, Kristy back with Michele, Eric and Carmen back together and Todd taking Lisa and Pete in the Otter. On the Sabo run, now easier water, I was looking for all possible chutes to run in the shredder. I’m sure I made Rose nervous but she trusted me and went with whatever I was going for. One cool chute we had to make a quick eddy turn left after boofing a pillow, then peel out and high side off of a boulder. Kristy said the look on my face was laughing while Rose looked scared. Simultaneously, Eric and Carmen were flipping on a rock on the right side of that same rapid, which was the final swims of the trip.

Final swim count:

Rose 3

Pete, Kristy, Eric and Carmen 2 each

Michele and Lisa 1 each

Todd and I managed to stay dry.

It rained hard at some times during the end of this run and when we got near the take out, Junior was waiting in his swim trunks. Rose gave him her lifejacket and the other boats went down past the last rapid (a Class I+) to take photos of Junior and I shredding together. This was Juniors first ever time in a raft and he said to me “I have great fear”. he evidently liked it, as after the trip Junior changed his e-mail address to junior_rafter.

We drove to and stayed in David that night, Panama’s second largest city. The hostel wasn’t too great, but worked well for our pass through night. The host Andrea as Kristy put it was “accommodating but not accommodating”. She would say “ You can do ….., but I don’t really want you to do …….”.

Our last river day was on our way back to a beach day heading towards Panama City. Hector recommended a stretch on the Tabasara River a few hours east of David. Kevin had recommended a lower stretch which I scouted the logistics on my earlier explorations and felt it would be real flat and way too long. The stretch Hector recommended was upstream but we would have to find a farmer to drive us to the put in. This was done in the town of Tole and was kind of fun setting up the shuttle with a local driver named Hector. We had breakfast, did a little shopping at some Indian stands, then met the shuttle driver for the ride in to the river at Arena. I love this, the unknown, riding in the back of a local’s truck heading to an unknown river. We found a good put-in and the river had plenty of water. It couldn’t have been a more perfect last run of the trip. No more than Class II, but fairly steady, very pretty and just a nice float to end the trip. I shredded with Kristy, Todd with Carmen, and Eric with Michele. Lisa and Rose R-2ed the Otter and Pete sat out the day to rest his knee. Pete had an enjoyable time visiting Junior’s aunt on the shuttle and we were pleased to see Pete and Junior at the take out waiting with cold beers. We headed on to our little beach accommodation at Playa Nuevo Gorgona. This small but nice place had hammocks and a small swimming pool and it was a quarter mile walk to the Pacific Ocean. Several of us went to the beach that night to walk under a half moon.

The next day was laid back with beach time, a cook out by Thomas our host from Germany and we gave Junior his tip along with a broken paddle signed by the group which made him cry. We stopped at a festival in Chorrera, were we did Bumper Cars and a sketchy old roller coaster. Also we did the mini zoo looking for a caged fer de lance, but none and some shopping for molas and other Panamanian crafts. It was goodbye to Junior when we returned to our Costa Inn in Panama City.

The next day Michele, Rose and Todd headed home and the six of us rented a mini van and headed to Portobella on the Caribbean coast for some snorkeling and diving. On the way we came to an intersection without signage, so I stopped and asked a local policeman and he said follow me, so we had a police escort for about twenty kilometers. They are really promoting tourism in Panama and they have a number of tourism police assigned to help and protect the tourist. Pretty nice.

The last day we spent around Panama City. We walked to the shoreline and bought more molas from Kuna Indian vendors, walked through the fish market, then into the old city. Before we headed back Kristy wanted to go to a cemetery, that she had visited earlier in the week, to take pictures. We again asked at the tourism office but they said that the nearest cemetery was in a very bad neighborhood, and we shouldn’t go. Being six of us and daylight we still decided to go. Getting closer we again asked the police for directions. They freaked out that we were still going, came by with two police cars and drove us back to the tourism office. When we said we still wanted to go so they brought a police van with two armed policemen and took us to the cemetery. At the cemetery we were greeted by another guard who gave us a tour of the cemetery and showed us gravesites of several presidents and generals. We saw a site for Manuel Noriega, Sr, probably the grandfather of the ex-pres. This was not the cemetery that Kristy had been to, but we weren’t about to tell them that. They even brought us back to our hotel in the police van.

The next day four of us headed back to the states. What a great trip. I enjoyed getting back to the trip planning of unknown rivers without a river guide. It all worked out really well.