Life is Good Panama: Eric's Journal Day 10

Rain drops on the leaves

Day 10
The start of day 10 wasn’t the best. We woke up in the morning to a heavy downpour and then I saw Mario and Lyn off as they went their way and had a few minutes to spare before it was 7 so I took my machete and started to drive around town looking for pretty trees and bushes that where over grown that wouldn’t mind a trim so I could take the cuttings to PL and plant them.

Hidden beauty everywhere

I hit pay dirt I found several trees and bushes some with pretty red flowers on them and wacked away almost filling the back of my van. When I pulled up to the gate the whole gang was there plus a new face and I opened the back of my van pulling out limb after limb out and telling Justo to tell them I wanted them planted all over PL.

Towering red flowers

Justo then introduced me to the person with him. He was an electrician Justo had talked to about giving us a quote. He had given us a verbal quote based on what Justo had told him and wanted to come out and visually verify. I shook his had in the rain he had his yellow slicker buttoned up tight and the hood pulled down low his glasses rain soaked poking out. Justo then told me he had come from Panama City last night; leaving at 8pm, ridden the bus to Punta Pena - an 8 hour bus ride and had arrived there at 4 am and had been waiting for us since then. The Quote was almost half of the one we had just gotten. I told him to hop in the van while we went to pick up the food and when we returned we would walk the project with him.
Justo and I went to our daily shopping trip and got some meat in a tub that looked like a large sausage but he told me it was just a chopped up meat in a tube and nodded as he bought 6 of them for what he described as a chili.

Would you buy meat from this guy? I did

I don’t think I am going to be trying her food today. Back to the entrance, Celestino's wife was waiting for us and the rain continued to come down hard. Justo had his rain coat I had bought for him and I donned mine and headed up -anxious to see how much the streams had risen with all this rain.

Water water everywhere

It was beautiful! Every one of the little water falls on the way up were magnified by two and the sound was grabbing more than its usual share of jungle noise. The entrance was looking good and the stream was a little higher but not bad at all. I was pleased seeing that the river had not turned into a raging torrent wiping out all of our work. As we approached the entrance to Punta Linda I saw Celestino looking at the base of this large tree that we had a bridge right next to so I asked Justo what was going on and he said they had a big snake.

4' 'X' snake

I ran up to see it as Celestino was telling Justo that the snake had almost tried to bite him in the rubber boots. One of Celestino’s guys was already headed up the side of the hill to cut a forked stick to pin him down so they could trap it. I looked into the base of the tree and could just barely make it out deep inside the roots. When they came back they modified the stick to a fashion they where happy with and then one of them then jammed it into the tree pinning the snake’s body about 12” back from its head leaving the head free to strike at what it could. I watched as this 5’ snake would strike out and of course had to poke my stick at it too. One of the other guys was trying to hit it with his machete but with it being so far in the roots he could hit it but not with enough force to do any real damage. After thinking for a moment he then took his machete and with a couple quick whacks had sharpened the end of a stick. Pushing it close to the snake the snake struck out at it and as he did the Indian pushed the sharp stick into and through the head end of snake. The snake writhed and squirmed and after some patience they were able to get it out of the roots. I am glad they got this one -It turned out to be over 5’ as we put a tape on it but unfortunately with the rain still coming down I was not able to get a picture of it. Well that got every ones blood pumping - okay time to get to work and make good use of all that adrenaline.
Justo, the electrician and I then started to walk up the hill toward where the bamboo was so we could show him where to end the power poles. As we walked up the electrician was almost sprinting up the hill with me 10 meters behind and Justo even further. I hollered up to him that he was in good shape; he then said he was only 24. I laughed and said I was over twice his age and Justo was almost 3 times his age so no wonder! Guess with his yellow rain coat on and the hood pulled down I never did get an idea how old he was. He really seemed genuinely interested in the project even more so than just getting the job that was very refreshing. He was constantly pulling his camera phone out in the rain and taking pictures even on the way back down, as we took a different way he was stopping and taking video of Punta Linda.. He then said he had the first video commercial of PL I told him to show it to all of his friends he said he would. Justo then told me he had to go back home cause the fire department was going to check an electrical connection he had made to make sure it was okay. I asked him to just walk Carlos down and when he was finished to return. He said okay and I watched as the two walked off in the rain at 8:30 am.
As I walked back checking progress, some of the areas that had been muddy before were not bad after they had put rock on them. I was pleased as I saw them shoveling more rock onto the path in the bad areas to solidify them as well.

Packing rocks notice the homemade tamper

The new path we had just made the day before by the large tree on the river was 24’ of water fall cascading down and washing out the steps we had just done the day before. Nothing we could do now but later we will have to come up with some sort of idea to stop this in the future. I smiled as I saw all up the sides of the trail of the steps were the branches that I had brought yesterday and they had planted them in a row up the trail 6” apart and by breaking them into smaller pieces we now had over 400 flowering plants along the path. I am going to give Buckingham Palace a run for their money.

Colors abound

After Celistino had seen how nice the benches turned out he was anxious to install some more so I showed him a few places to start putting them. He took 2 guys into the jungle with him in search of the perfect seats. Down toward the front where the two new bridges are that we installed there was one guy working on adding rock to make the path nicer. He was doing a great job picking rock from the creek laying them in the path then hitting them with a sledgehammer pounding them down and breaking them into small pieces.

lacy grace

purple tower

I started thinking that with a couple more guys I could have a road back here in two day I could drive my van down. Well that is wishful thinking but it is the thought that counts anyway. As I watched his progress I saw three guys coming down from the mountain with 8’ pieces of split palm on their shoulders tied up with vines and place them by the bridges. The guy was starting to nail some of the palm down on the new bridges but was obviously going to be short. I was wondering how come the palm they where bringing down was not the right size. Well, with Justo gone I tried to talk to them and ask what they where doing but all I could get was a smile and a “Perfecto” (I have got to teach them more words or I have to learn more). When I tried to talk to Celestino It wasn’t any better. I was starting to panic a little without Justo. How could I tell what they were doing? I checked my phone and I didn’t have a signal so I started walking toward the front holding my phone in the air turning in different directions like radar searching for enemy planes looking for just one bar of signal. At last I found the spot and called Justo to check on where he was. (Guess he was right about the need for walkie talkies.) He said he was on his way back and almost there - I said good. When I saw him I told him what was going on and that I needed to find out what was happeing. We then went and talked to Celestino and he told us they where going to use the 8’ split palm for the posts I told him it wasn’t what I had thought but I wanted him to make one demo so I could look at it and inspect it. He said okay and told the three men to work on that next. Right after that as I was in front where they were going to do the first rail I heard in the distance “HOLA” - alright Linda is here at last.
She was a site that made my eyes jump she had her shorts on and boots with her earrings and bracelets flashing. Dang she looked good. I was anxious to have any one give me their opinion of the progress even more so of Linda. She was smiling big as I brought her through the entrance of PL and showed her the snake we had killed earlier on a stump she actually took her hand and touched it later commenting on how it felt and she had never touched one of those giant vipers before. (I think she is turning native). As we walked into PL the rain had stopped and it was lunch time so we walked by the cooking tent with all the guys sitting eating their food. I introduced them all to Linda and Justo translated for me. We continued up the paths showing her the bridges, the bench we had just made the day before, and the new steps by the huge tree where there is a small cascade of 7” water falls. Then she smiled seeing all the flowers that I had planted along the path and said how good it looked. After showing her how the trails were looking and taking her to the point where the split tree was, we then showed the guys where to put the next bench and we walked down toward the entrance. Celistino said his guys had the rail done on the first bridge and I was anxious to go see it.
When I got to the bridge with the first rail I was a bit shocked. They had taken the split palm that were approximently 4” wide and had even split some of them down further and drove them in the ground and tied the bamboo onto them with vines telling me that they would be using nails. But since they couldn’t find the other hammer at the moment and the other guy was still nailing the split palm on the bridges they had to do it this way. Panama! Well the 8’ split palm for the posts were only barely in the ground 12” and the dirt was still loose around them and 4’ of the post stuck above the bamboo rail that they had tied on. I went up to it and grabbed on to it and it shook like crazy flexing way too much. They could see as I inspected it I wasn’t happy and were busy talking to Justo about why it was that way and explaining that is how they do it. Well with Linda and 7 people around including Justo I started talking about different possibilities to fix it. Maybe we can hire Ernesto to come up and cut the Almandro into the 2x4s I had tried to get Justo’s brother to do to begin with. Guess the Panama translation fairy didn’t get it right. They all nodded saying how strong Almandro was and since they couldn’t nail it cause the wood was so hard they could tie the bamboo onto the post I agreed think that might look okay.

Hidden in the groove or bamboo

With the threat of rain again and having felt a few drops I told them at 3 that they did a great job today and to wash up the tools and bring them all down for payday. Linda and I walked to the truck as the drops softly started to come down. When we reached the bottom I took Linda back to Mario’s so she could shower and then I returned to wait for the guys so I could pay them for the week. They all came down each toting some kind of tool or implement we had been using and loaded them in the van. Then they came to the side window and Justo dished out the money and had them sign the receipt book which he had already filled out.

our bamboo rails

I can say one thing - Justo is efficient. For only having worked 10 days I think we did a lot and with 5 more days to work I think we can get more gravel on the trails and the rails up without any problem. I sure hope I don’t eat those words.