When sleeping in a tent in the in Panama’s Darien forest, you need an alarm at 4 AM that stands apart from the noises of the jungle. All through the night, frogs and insects maintain a constant din, with occasional solos performed by Mottled Owls and other night birds. When the alarm goes, I think “that sounds different!” Does 4 AM come earlier when you’re on vacation than it does at home?
I got up and gathered my gear- binoculars and cameras- and met up with Chris and Steve, two like-minded adventurers who had traveled down from Florida to explore eastern Panama. At the breakfast table, our guide Oscar was waiting for us to shovel down some eggs, bacon and fruit. After a quick check for some night birds, we started on the day-long journey into the indigenous governed territory of the Emberá-Wounaan people in search of our singular quarry.
As we bounced along the dirt road which led to the Pan American Highway, something flashed across in front of the truck, red eyeshine receding into the darkness. It was indeed a Chupacabra. No, not that Chupacabra, but a large nocturnal bird known as a Pauraque, a member of the family known as Goatsuckers (Chupacabra in Spanish), related to our nighthawks and Whip-poor wills.
Chupacabra crossing the road in front of our truck!
Eventually we made our way to the PanAmerican “highway”, a paved road, one lane each direction, which connects Alaska with Tierra del Fuego in Chile, except for a 60 mile break here in the Darien. The “Darien Gap” has always been considered to be too much of a challenge to road building to be worth the effort, and travelers must ship their vehicles and themselves around the gap by boat. An hour or so later, the sun was breaking through the mist and we turned off onto another dirt road, which brought us out to the banks of the Chucunaque River, the longest river in Panama. Here we were met by a middle-aged Panamanian fellow, his teenaged son, and his wife and toddler daughter. The wife and daughter kept themselves apart from the strangers, while we finalized arrangements for father and son to transport us up the river to the indigenous village of Alto Playona via dugout canoe.
Father manned the small outboard engine at the back of the boat, while the son perched up on the bow to keep an eye out for obstacles, which in theory could have ranged from crocodiles to jaguars, but in reality consisted of logs and overturned roots. By now morning was in full bloom, and we motored past trees adorned with Neotropical Cormorants, Greater Anis and Mangrove Swallows. It took a while to feel even a little at ease with the instability of the dugout- about 20 feet long and maybe 18 inches wide.
After forty minutes or so, the village came into view. The term “Indian Village” conjures up different images for different people, but the reality was that this village did not look remarkably different than many others you might see in remote areas. Most of the buildings were made of wooden planks, windows open to the elements, and many were raised up on stilts. But there were also quite a few thatched roof homes, circular or rectangular in shape.
The village people (no, not those village people) came down to the small dock to watch us disembark, no doubt amused by our difficulty in extracting ourselves from the canoes and taking bets on which of us would fall into the river first. Our reluctance to get wet was not shared by them, as some waded in to help us with our gear and our balance, and to reconnect us with terra firma.
Our attachment to mother earth was short-lived, however, as the plan was to negotiate the rental of horses and mount up for a ride off into the forest of the indigenous zone, or Comarca Embera-Wounaan. With an efficiency that would put any Hertz Car Rental counter to shame, we made our selections, refused the supplemental liability insurance, mounted up and started on the next leg of the journey, each of us accompanied by an indigenous guide as per regulations of the comarca regional government.
I was semi-comfortable enough with being on a horse that the next hour or so was not terribly stressful. Steve, who was not at all thrilled with our jungle river cruise experience, was even less happy to find himself in the saddle. Most of the trail was covered in thick, deep mud, and our guides frequently used a lead rope to pull and coerce the horses through, while they themselves trotted along as effortlessly as a jogger in Central Park.
The heat and humidity were building. Not actually doing any work was surprisingly tiring. We passed the time looking for birds, wiping sweat out of our eyes and comparing the sizes of the many spiders that fell onto us every time we crashed through some branches. Just when I thought I had won that competition by finding one the size of a dinner plate on my arm, Chris pointed out one on his leg that was the size of a hubcap. The heat may have added a bit to our delirium. Maybe not.
After several dismounts and remounts to cross streams and makeshift bridges, our guides said that the horses would go no further and that we would have to walk the last 45 minutes or so. The head of the guiding crew, a hearty fellow named San Blas, set to cutting walking sticks for each of us with his machete. I asked if he was named for the islands, or if the islands were named after him, and got some polite chuckles in reply. I’m sure he’s never heard that before.
San Blas cutting walking sticks to help us maneuver along the trails and streams
After quite a few up and downs on the trail, with San Blas at times cutting new pathways through the jungle, the guides motioned us to silence, which basically meant reducing our huffing and puffing to a constrained wheezing. We rounded a few more bends, and the nest tree came into view. There on a high branch was the stick nest, and next to it, the grail at the end of our quest- an adult female Harpy Eagle. The eagle glared down at us and called majestically a few times. We ogled her head plumes in our scopes and took whatever photos we could manage in the misty drizzle from under the dense canopy of leaves. Our guides all pulled out their cell phoned and took photos through the spotting scopes and offered to take our pictures as well. We were a happy crew.
I know the scholars among you will take issue with me referring to the Harpy a goddess. The Greeks generally put her in the monster category, but she was magnificent up there- huge talons, legs bigger than your wrists, wild crest. She leaned forward and screamed, and I wondered how much smaller a primate I’d have to be before I’d re-evaluate her status. The line between fear and veneration is a fine one.
She flew off after five minutes or so, and we decided to wait and see if she or her mate would return. We checked out some other birds in the area, puffbirds and antbirds were calling nearby, while the guides made good use of their cell phones. I thought I heard one of them mention e-bird, but it may have been Angry Birds.
After a half hour, the female Harpy returned and we got more photos and great views, then headed back down the trail to the horses.
Before starting the ride back, we celebrated with a fantastic lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, Snickers Bars and water, a feast which we repeated once we got back to Alto Playona.
It was raining by the time we got back into the boat, and when we reached the extraction point on the river, the site had been transformed into a bustling hub-bub of activity. Boat after boat of refugees were streaming in from the opposite direction- Haitians, Cubans, Africans and others- coming through Colombia hoping to eventually reach lands north. We beached the dugout, navigated our way through the throngs of confused folks hoping for a new life, and loaded up the truck for the return to our “camp”- a site more luxurious than most of these poor folks would ever know.
Back at the camp, the open-roof, semi-walled shower never felt so good. We sat around at dinner that night, recounting our adventure, discussing how lucky we were to win the lottery of being born where we were, and deciding how much we could exaggerate when we re-told this story.
So what you have here is my tale of that day, and I’m sticking to it! Thanks for reading.