Gone fishing..

Saturday, August 19th

Well well.. today is the big day! We have been mentally preparing for the big day and night that stand in front of us. Last night, as we mentioned previously, we sat down to have some rum with Don Gregorio and aside from discussing changes that the governments of latin america should implement, he gave us a lecture on Fishing 101.

As you may realize, we are not really what you would call experts in the art of fishing so we needed him to explain to us how it feels to catch a fish, how to reel in the fish, how not to get burned by the nylon thread (who needs a fishing pole anyway), etc.. However, this morning we decided to burn some of the stress that is building up by going to this area called El Valle. This small town is about 1.5 hrs from Panama City.

The drive was very quick due to the beautiful new 4 lane highway that has been built. After this, we went up some mountains and there it was, the hidden town of El Valle. Many hard-to-believe promises were made to us. Among them, that we would find a golden toad, a mountain that looked like a sleepy indian woman, and square trees!!!! We could hardly wait so we consulted our good old trusty lonely planet and set our course for the nearest golden toad outlet.

We went to the El Nispero botanical garden and zoo. The entrance was quite steep but we were so exited that not even the rejection of our student discount request kept us from entering. After going through some animal cages and beautiful gardens we came across a sign next to a cage that said ¨Rana Dorada¨. We looked and looked and finally, all the way on the inner wall of the cage, there is was! Actually more yellow and orange than golden but it was definitely something amazing to see! We stared at the thing for a long time while we tried to find a big enough whole in the covering mesh that would allow us to take pictures. We did our best but the pictures may not illustrate all the beauty of this toad.

Our next stop, the square trees. We made it a point not to ask anyone about what they meant by ¨square¨ trees because we were very intriged and wanted to be surprised by what we find. ¨Behind the Hotel Campestre there is a trail that takes you through 2 bridges. The trail is a 10 minute walk and after the second bridge, make a right and you will see a big tree. This is not a square tree. You must look to the right of this big tree and that is one. Then look across from it and you will find more square trees.¨ Those were the directions that we had.

After the beautiful and welcome walk through the dense vegetation, we saw our big tree and next to it this smaller tree that kind of had the base of the trunk in a shape close to a square. This is it!! We found our tree! To be perfectly honest, it was not the squarest thing I have seen in my life but certainly unique. We were the only tourists there in the midst of the jungle. Alexey wanted to see if he could find a more square looking one and he succeeded. We finally had find a tree that resembled a square (at least at the bottom). We were pleased.

So the only thing left to do was to find the sleeping indian. A piece of background information is that our beloved Julissa was herself a sleeping Indian. That is, she was the lead character in a Panamanian film that told the story of these mountains!! I am not certain about the whole story but in brief it states that this Indian woman had an Indian boyfriend. However, the girl then fell in love and left with one young Spanish conquistador and because of this betrayal, she fell asleep and never work up. Now she rests on top of these mountains. The actual mountain looked kiiiiind of like a sleeping woman. The breasts were large for one thing so we could see how someone can believe the story :) Unfortunately, the weather was getting worse and worse and we only saw it for about a minute before it got completely covered by clouds, hence, not pictures.

We needed to rush back to Panama City were Don Gregorio must be getting ready for our voyage. The excitement was clear on this pair of novices and I had even promised to catch a baby marlin tonight! After a couple of false starts due to my leaving my camera charging in our room, trying to find weights for our fishing lines, fresh batteries for my super powerful flashlight, and other mishaps, we arrived at the port. The family had gone there to wish us farewell. Afterall, if we did not catch anything, there was nothing to eat tomorrow :) We jumped on board with a whole bunch of stuff including a box full of alcohol and other presents from Joyce!! (Thank you Joyce!)

There we were, crossing the outskirts of the Panama Canal. The captains: Don Armando, Don Pedro, Don Gregorio (three brothers in a family of 11 children, presumably, all highly skilled fishermen and fisherwomen), Luis Xavier (Julissa´s brother), and Marcos (nephew of Don Gregorio), the crew: Alexey and yours truly. We tried to make a good impression by talking about swells and star formations but it did not seem to impress them. The sun went to bed and we were left with the HUGE boats making their way across oceans and the water next to us. After a while the boats also went away and it was just us in the middle of darkness and water. Never had I been in this situation and I must say that it was incredible! You have enough time to think about 1000 things and you don´t have to rush either, because you still have all night to go :)

But I digress, back to fishing. Soon after we anchored behind a small island I had a strike of what Paolo Coelho would call Beginner´s Luck (Thanks Jana Karla for the book). It was fish after fish.. really only 3 fish caught in a matter of 20 minutes but it pleased me that I knew now how it feels like when fish bite your bait. Baby marlin, here I come! There was a drought that lasted for a looooong time. Alexey managed to catch a fish too. It was actually pretty big. We anchored the boat next to another one that housed three local artisans of the sea. Our boat´s catching rate must have been about one tenth that of those guys. They were harvesting those greenjacks like crazy! We settled on spending more time on meditating than catching fish.. that´s it, we are more of the thinking types!

The night came down hard and we made no progress. Our cooler must have had about 8 fish. We moved on and anchored near another island. This time we could see a small town in the island diagonal to the one where we had anchored. After repeated attempts to pull in fish, we gave up. The rains started to pour and we had no other protection but to embrace the rain. If we were going to sleep at all, it would be with rain in our faces. This sounds worse than it actually is. Alexey found a comfortable place in the front of the boat. I did the same on the side. Don Gregorio had gone to sleep after setting a line with a larger hook and half a fish for bait. I asked how it was possible that he would notice if a fish got hooked if he was sleeping! He just said ¨you will know¨.

Sure enought, in the middle of the night, the whole reel of line started jumping around the boat. Don Gregorio, the captains and the rest of the crew (Alexey and myself) got up to see what was all the fuss. After a quick struggle with a great force under water, we saw this small but strong fish, a barracuda! Hmmm... ceviche tomorrow! Don Gregorio went back to bed under the small covered area that the boat had and placed the line the same way again. Less than 20 minutes passed when the line was pushed harder than before. The crew could hardly believe the pull that this creature had. Alexey held the line for a while and almost got burned by the nylon when he tried to wrap it around his arms. After the long struggle, we saw the catch of the night: A Manta Ray!!! Poor Ray, flapping its fleshy wings and trying to keep aline. Its white bottom was as smooth as Todd´s face (even when he does not shave). Repeated attempts to bring this large creature on the boat were fruitless. Don Gregorio decided to cut the line close to the hook and let the Ray go.

By this time we were pretty tired. Everyone assumed their sleeping positions and tried to catch some sleep given that it was easier to catch then fish apparently. A few minutes later, the sound of the line making the reel dance awoke us once again. This time, Alexey decided to keep sleeping as some of the other captains had done. Don Gregorio asked me to hold the line to learn how a big fish feels. It was quite interesting but it did not seem like a large fish since I was reeling it for a while. After a few minutes, the thing started swimming away. I tried to hold it back a little but this thing kept swimming as if it did not hurt it. I started getting worried after it had pulled so much line that I thought we would run out of line. At this time, everyone woke up to see what this was. They assured me that there was enough line and just keep letting it go. At some point it would get tired!

I give up! Marcos, Luis Xavier, Don Pedro, Don Gregorio take turns in dealing with the beast. Nothing yet. We have to put in the heavy hitter. Don Armando comes in with his experienced hands and tries to control this monster. He has to immerse his hands on the water and keep holding the line to avoid getting burn. The reel at this point is jumping up and down and even went out in the water for a while. This thing must be immense if it´s pulling that hard!

After about 15 or so minutes (which seemed endless) of fighting with this creature, the force of the fish broke the line and we were all left wandering for the rest of our lives, what kind of fish was that? and, how big was it? No one will ever know. At least the story will linger in our heads for a long time.

Now it was time to go to bed and rest if we want to catch some fish tomorrow. Soaked in rain we proceeded to sleep without any further fish waking us up.