Ecuador to Panama. October 2006 to March 2007.

Songline, Rio Chagres, Panama. 7 March 2007

Dear friends

Something new this time! Some of you said that you enjoyed the photo newsletter that we sent from Costa Rica, but others complained that it took too long to download. So this time we have put an illustrated version of this newsletter onto our website. So, if you have access to the internet and like pictures with your words, stop reading here and go to:
www.johnandbarbara.com and click on “Newsletters” and then on “Ecuador to Panama – 5 March 2007.
If, however, the web is something that you, like us, only get to look at on special days, then read on...

Imagine the scene…..it’s Saturday 14 October 2006. The repairs to Songline’s hull, which started back in March, are finally finished and it only remains for us to apply three coats of antifoul paint before we relaunch her and set off for the Galapagos Islands. We are up with the sun and eager to begin. As we trim the lining paper from around the stands which support the boat we notice that something is not quite right. The beautiful smooth epoxy finish, applied just three weeks earlier is starting to wrinkle and is soft to the touch! It seems that our new hull has been absorbing water where the rain was caught against it, not a good feature in a hull that is designed to live its life in the sea! Thus it was that the “best laid schemes of mice and men went once more agley….”!!

Stewart Yachtworks diagnosed a faulty batch of epoxy hardener and prescribed the complete removal and replacement of the last three layers of epoxy. Other work was suspended while they concentrated on Songline, but even working as fast as they could it was clear that our trip to the Galapagos would have to be postponed for some weeks. So, while they set to with household paint stripper to reduce the faulty epoxy to a sticky, noxious, removable goo (what an awful job!), we got our diaries out and started to rethink.

A favourite cruising saying is that “cruising plans are set in jelly”. Well, so it proved this time. The delay would not have allowed us to spend sufficient time in the Galapagos and still be sure of favourable winds to get back to Panama before Christmas, so we decided to cancel the Galapagos trip and to go directly to Panama in the first week of December. The silver lining? At last, we had some time for travelling in mainland Ecuador! Our first trip was to Cuenca, Ecuador’s best-preserved Spanish colonial city, in the southern highland area of the country. At over 8000ft (2500 metres), Cuenca’s climate is much cooler than the coast and we spent three enjoyable days there, staying in a beautifully-restored old mansion near the central plaza.

Our second evening we were walking down a side street, looking for somewhere to eat, when there was a sudden whooshing and the air around us exploded in a shower of sparks. We had wandered up the street where they were setting off rockets to signal the start of a local fiesta! Supper was forgotten and soon we arrived in a small church square filled with what looked like more pyromaniacs! They were applying bunches of burning twigs to large bundles of coloured tissue paper. However as we watched, the tissue paper started to inflate and we found ourselves surrounded by enormous paper lanterns, some of them almost large enough to stand up in. The paper was fire resistant and the lanterns had a wire cross-piece at the base on which a small container of kerosene and wax was lit, providing enough heat to enable the whole assembly to take off. At one point we counted a procession of fifteen of them, still alight, floating high over the city across the still night sky. Quite magical!


Meanwhile, back on terra firma, the climax to the evening was being prepared - a three-tier tower of fireworks, each tier consisting of dozens of fiery fountains and Catherine wheels, plus a barrage of rockets ready to be launched alongside. This time we stood well back as the fuses were lit and we enjoyed a spectacular end to an unexpected evening.

After a brief return to check progress on Songline we set off again, north this time to Ecuador’s capital, Quito. Longitude and latitude play a major part in our lives, so we felt we must visit the monument at La Mitad del Mundo (the Middle of the World). It was here that the French expedition of 1736 made measurements to pinpoint the location of the Equator. From their survey, the Metric system of measurement was evolved and it was also established that the world is not a perfect sphere, but bulges around the middle. The modern monument has a yellow line running through the centre of it, marking what the French claimed was the Equator.

Unfortunately the age of electronics and GPS has shown that their measurements were wrong by about 250 metres and the true Equator lies a little to the north of the yellow line! Hardly surprising, you might say, and “bravo” for getting so close. HOWEVER! - in the late 1990s, on the top of Catequilla, a nearby hill, a local pilot spotted the remains of a small, semicircular, pre-Inca stone wall. His GPS told him that it was exactly on Latitude 00 degrees - the Equator!

Further investigation by a small group of enthusiasts identified a number of other previously ignored pre-Inca sites on several other hillsides in line of sight from this one. They have concluded that Catequilla was the centre of a complex and highly accurate astronomical model known to the early inhabitants of Ecuador and, later, to the Inca invaders who ruled from the 14th century until the Spanish Conquest. They not only knew precisely where the “middle of the world” was, but were able to use it to measure the passing of the seasons and other astrological events. Their system was made possible by the unique geography of Ecuador with its two parallel ranges of high north-south running mountains which allow sights to be taken with incredible accuracy. Even today the local farmers sow and harvest their crops not on particular dates, but according to the alignment of the sun with particular landmarks. Sadly the team investigating Catequilla and its associated sites has not been able to find any official backing and their work is now in danger of being suspended altogether. They have a website (www.quitsato.org). Do take a look if you are interested to learn more. For us this was one of the most exciting discoveries we have come across and it, like Machu Picchu, epitomises the tragedy of the lost civilisations of Central and South America, destroyed in their prime and rich in so many ways that we will never know.

About 125 miles (200 km) south of Quito is Banos, a small town lying at the head of a lush green valley which descends into the Amazon basin. Popular for its hot springs, which have attracted tourists for many decades, Banos is probably better know today for its dangerous neighbour - Volcan Tungurahua. This active volcano has erupted several times since 1998, with two significant eruptions in April and August last year. We visited Banos at the beginning of November. While we were there, the volcano was relatively quiet, though still belching occasional clouds of black smoke from its crater a couple of miles away. Our next destination was Riobamba, a few miles south, and the road had only just reopened after clearance of the lava flow from the eruptions earlier in the year.

Half an hour out of Banos, our bus came round a bend in the road and, looking back, we could see the whole volcano, this time emitting HUGE clouds of black smoke and ash. This was too exciting to miss, so we rushed to the front of the bus, asked the driver to stop, pulled our rucksacks out of the luggage compartment and, for the next hour and a half, sat by the side of the road watching this stupendous display of nature’s power. We shuddered to think what a major eruption would be like - and some expert opinion considers that it is only a matter of time before Tungurahua blows its top again.

Ecuador’s rail system, once quite extensive, is now virtually extinct. Today buses and trucks can transport people and goods more quickly and cheaply and the country's railway lines have fallen into disrepair. However, one section of the Ferrocarril Transandino, which used to run from Guayaquil in the south to Quito in the north, remains open, principally as a tourist attraction. This is the 50 mile (80 km) stretch from Riobamba to Sibambe. As far as Alausi, a small town about 40 miles from Riobamba, the track meanders steadily downhill through fields and rural villages, with fine views of the smoking Volcan Tungurahua and Ecuador’s tallest peak, the extinct, snow-capped Volcan Chimborazo. Between Alausi and Sibambe, however, the railway has to negotiate El Nariz del Diablo (The Devil’s Nose), a 3,000 ft (nearly 1,000 metres) drop along a steep-sided slope of solid rock to the bottom of the valley below. This is achieved by a series of switchbacks cut into the rock, each of which allows the train to advance, then reverse in the opposite direction down the next section of track, then advance again down yet another section of track. At the time it was built (the early 1900s), this was one of the most amazing feats of railway engineering anywhere in the world and it remains a unique and spectacular journey, made even more exciting today by the fact that passengers are allowed, in fact positively encouraged, to make the journey seated on the roof of the train!!. We had to do it!
Through lack of foresight, we chose a holiday weekend for our trip, which ensured that the train was packed to capacity. We arrived at Riobamba station at about 0600 to hire our cushions and bag a corner of the roof of one of the middle carriages.

By 0700, all the available space on the roof as well as the few seats inside the train had been filled and we lurched slowly out of the station into the chilly morning air. We were glad we had thought to bring warm clothes - as the train gathered speed, it got colder and colder. Speed, of course, is a relative term and the train rarely exceeded 30 miles per hour (50 kph), which was just as well. On one of the faster stretches, our carriage suddenly started violently juddering, then bucking and lurching. The regular click of the wheels on the track was replaced by a terrible grinding and cracking noise, soon half drowned by the screams of fellow passengers. We hung on for dear life as we realised that we were now riding on top of a derailed carriage with a steep embankment only inches away from the track. It didn’t take very long for the driver to react and stop the train - time enough, though, for us to contemplate the effects of rolling down the embankment with several tons of carriage in hot pursuit. Happily our carriage had remained firmly hooked to the ones in front and behind and when we climbed down to inspect the damage we found that the wheels, although off the track, were still quite close to it.

We assumed that our visit to the Nariz del Diablo was off! Little did we know that such derailments are a common occurrence, and the train carries with it the means to restore carriages to the track with minimum delay! First of all, the carriages behind ours were uncoupled from the rest of the train. Then two ingenious sections of curved rail about three feet long were placed in front of the foremost derailed wheels and alongside the track, and after a good deal of hammering and shouting, a signal was given to the engine driver to move slowly forwards. This had the effect of pulling our carriage up the improvised “ramp” until the wheels popped back onto the track again. After repeating the procedure for each derailed bogey, the train was recoupled and we were on our way again - only an hour and a half late. The second derailment happened an hour or so later (the carriage behind us this time, so we were spared the spine-jarring effects) and only took twenty minutes to fix!

At Alausi, there was a throng of people on the platform, evidently holding tickets for the next section of the journey down the Nariz del Diablo and back again. It was hard to believe that they were joining our already-overcrowded train, but they were. Miraculously, space on the roof was cleared, everyone found a patch to sit down and before long we were off again, this time at a much more leisurely pace.

The descent to our turn-round point in the valley below was awesome - steep mountainside above and deep ravine below. Not a good place for a third derailment, we thought, and we all heaved a sigh of relief when the train pulled in to the siding at Sibambe without further mishap.

The return journey got us back to Alausi at 1430, about two hours late, and we marvelled at the power of our diesel engine and, even more, the original steam engines hauling their loads up this incredibly steep slope. Once back in Alausi, we decided to take the faster, cheaper and safer (though much less spectacular) route back to Riobamba by bus!

By 27 November Songline’s new, now rock-hard, bottom was ready for antifouling and once we had done this and a multitude of other last-minute jobs, she was relaunched on 4 December.

It only remained to hold a farewell and thank you party for all the people at Stewart Yachtworks who had done such a wonderful job and become such special friends and we were ready to leave.

Our first voyage since February took us as far as Manta, a 22-hour sail up the coast of Ecuador. There we refuelled and checked out of the country, ready for the four-day passage to Panama. For two days we enjoyed some of our best sailing ever, but then we encountered our first heavy rainstorm for many months and the wind deserted us. We motored into Bahia Pinas, our first stop in Panama. On the edge of the Darien rainforest, Bahia Pinas is a delightful, sheltered bay a few miles north of the Colombian border.

The border area is generally considered rather unsafe (drug traffickers and bandits, not head hunters!), and over the years there have been occasional reports of attacks on cruising boats. However, Pinas is home to an expensive sport-fishing resort and is very secure from any would-be marauders. It was the perfect place to relax for a few days, with jungle trails, secluded sandy beaches, fresh water streams and even a trip being poled downriver through shallows and rapids in a Wounaan Indian dugout cayuco - the most unstable craft we have ever been in!

With Christmas and our transit through the Panama Canal looming, we said goodbye to this idyllic spot and headed further north to the hustle and bustle of Panama City.
We had expected to have to wait for days, possibly weeks to book our passage through the Canal, but small boat traffic over the New Year period was quite light, and our request for a New Year’s Day transit was granted. The crossing from the Pacific to the Caribbean went without a hitch and, as some of you saw, we even featured on the pancanal website’s camera for a few moments as we went through the second of the Miraflores Locks. Thank you to everyone who wrote and told us about their New Year’s Day by the computer screen! Special commiserations to Barbara’s Mum and Gordon who spent 4 hours watching without managing to see us and special thanks to Pam and Norm for taking photos of the web page to prove to us that this time we really were on camera!

Because of the way that traffic was scheduled on the afternoon of 1 January, there was no suitable ship for us to share the three ‘down’ locks with, so we and our four line-handling friends had the bonus of a night on the calm waters of Gatun Lake with only the stars and the howler monkeys in the nearby trees for company. Gatun Lake was formed at the time the Canal was built, by damming the Chagres river. The lake provides the necessary reservoir of water to supply the locks at either end of the Canal, as well as fresh water to much of the surrounding area, while the dam provides hydroelectric power to operate the locks - a wonderfully elegant engineering design. In addition to being effective, however, the lake is also an extraordinary oasis of tranquillity in the middle of one of the busiest waterways in the world! It was also a wonderful place for a cool, freshwater swim after the labours of the day.

We completed our trip down the final three locks the following day, in company with a large Norwegian bulk carrier, and were fortunate enough to have a slip waiting for us at the Panama Canal Yacht Club in Colon, from where we were able to walk our linehandlers to the train back to Panama City - much easier than having to ferry them ashore by dinghy as we did at Balboa in 2002.

Our first trip on the Caribbean side of Panama was to Bocas del Toro, at the western end of the country.

This relatively undeveloped area has lots of islands and sheltered lagoons interconnected by narrow, winding, mangrove-lined channels. The local people are Ngobi Indians who live in simple wood and palm huts and fish from dugout canoes. They are extremely friendly and very curious and time is something they have plenty of. When we had exhausted our hospitality and our limited conversational Spanish, we grew used to having a couple of canoes in attendance, their occupants wanting nothing more than to watch us. We felt a little bit like the local soap opera and were only sorry we could offer nothing more exciting than the washing up or a bit of boat maintenance to reward their attentions!

In spite of having waited for 12-15 ft waves and near gale-force winds to abate before setting off for Bocas del Toro, our trip there was one of the most uncomfortable passages we have ever made, only surpassed by the journey back a week later! Even so, we loved what we saw and we hope to go back, maybe later this year, and spend more time exploring the area.

Since then, two lots of friends have joined us on Songline for a couple of weeks each - Harald and Linda from Germany and Jan and Jarka from the Czech Republic. We followed more or less the same itinerary with each, spending most of our time in the San Blas islands off the coast at the eastern end of Panama. We had visited the area in 2001 on Island Way, but there are so many islands to explore that we had no difficulty finding new ones. What was more of a challenge was finding deserted anchorages - the number of cruising boats visiting the San Blas has increased dramatically and many of the more popular islands have to be shared with half a dozen or more others. The islands are just as beautiful as we had remembered them - wonderful palm-fringed sandy beaches, clear water and gorgeous coral gardens to explore with mask and snorkel.

The Kuna Indians who inhabit many of the larger islands were also as friendly as ever, paddling (or motoring) their dugout canoes out to the anchorages to sell handicrafts (in particular their unique style of needlework - the mola) and fresh fruit and vegetables.

We ended both couples’ visits with an overnight sail back to Colon (at the Caribbean end of the Canal) and a little beyond to the Chagres river. The seven miles or so of river which remains below the Lake Gatun dam is over 100 yards (90 metres) wide in places and is navigable as far as the dam itself, with depths from 25 to 60 ft (8 to 18 metres) . Both banks of the river are covered in lush tropical rainforest, and it is possible to drop the anchor almost anywhere up the river. The scenery is wonderful and the wildlife here is plentiful and occasionally noisy, especially the howler monkeys and the flocks of parrots as they wake up in the morning. We have seen many varieties of birds, lots of monkeys, sloths, crocodiles (no swimming here!!) and even a small anteater climbing a tree.

We have been here since 18 February and on the 22nd Barbara had to go into Panama City for an operation on her right knee. She had been having trouble with the knee for about two years, a consequence, we think, of a particularly muddy climb up and down a volcano in Nicaragua. She was diagnosed as having a torn meniscal cartilage and arthroscopic (keyhole) surgery was recommended to correct the problem. The operation, which involved laser surgery on a number of damaged areas, seems to have been successful and she was back on the boat two days later with a programme of exercises to keep the joint moving and help the recovery process. This is an ideal place to recuperate - our anchorage is absolutely flat - and we are hoping that the knee will be sufficiently recovered to enable us to move on soon. We will need to call in at Colon for fuel and water, but we’d like to be on our way to Cartagena in Colombia by the middle of March to give us time to arrange for Songline to be hauled out of the water so that we can fly off to southern Chile, Argentina and then on to Europe. We expect to be away from the boat for about four months.

As well as the illustrated version of this newsletter we have also put a selection of our photos of Ecuador onto our website. We do hope that you will find time to look at them and, more importantly, to write to us with your news.

With love from

John and Barbara