Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:57:58 -0700 From: Boris Chen Subject: Crossing Panama Chapter 14 Chapter 14: Crossing Limon Bay. Friday January 25, 2019. Day #11. The hand painted sign above the doors displayed a delicious tall burger and fries beside a foamy mug of beer, so I knew it was the place for me. Situated across the street from the water taxi pier I'd guess the clientele came from ships at anchor around the bay, some of them were thousand foot long freighters with flags from all over the world. Stepping in the door I was immediately reminded of a bar scene in an older movie (1942 movie: Casablanca. Rick's bar in Paris called: `Rick's La Belle Aurore,' this bar in Colon looked a lot like it). I saw lots of small tables and chairs, there was an antique mahogany and brass bar with tall stools along the front. The floor was worn hardwood planks that creaked under my deck shoes. All the tables were covered with red and white checkered cloths. The chairs were wicker and wood from an era when people weighed half of what they did today. The ceiling looked low too. Unlike Paris there was no dress code here, everyone wore jeans and t-shirts and nobody looked recently shaved. Instead of a well dressed musician singing and playing an upright piano the music here came from a stereo behind the bar playing a Latin dance beat station. Any spies here were CIA agents instead of German SS or French Resistance. The first person I saw that pinged my brain as a suspect was the bartender, he looked very out of place. His voice sounded like he should be narrating an educational TV program instead of pouring beers and taking food orders. I pictured him standing at a payphone on the corner, talking softly, quickly hanging up, and glancing around to see who noticed, then briskly walking down the narrow cracked sidewalk, disappearing into the fog. There was an American looking (Caucasian and overweight) couple on bar stools (with very large backpacks by their feet) so I grabbed a stool beside her and asked the Agent for a beer and a menu. A few seconds later he slid me a large frosted mug and a can of beer, a brand I never saw before. Next to arrive was a menu, it appeared to be typed on an actual manual typewriter in the back office then laminated. Prices were in Panama dollars called `Balboas,' but it said US currency was preferred. The exchange rate was 1:1, USD to Balboas. With a financial relationship like that with the USA it made me wonder just how much the two countries were still connected, but now I guess it was kept very quiet. Regardless, I was sure a lot of palms were greased with canal cash, which explained the high cost to cross. And I'm sure some of those palms were American too. Washington DC has had its nose far up the butt crack of Panama since Teddy admitted he `took it.' The TV behind the bar played a baseball game, I didn't recognize the team logos but the uniforms and the play field looked immaculate. The field was so green it looked like carpet. The stadium was small but nice. There were no outfield bleachers just ugly billboard signs and a large scoreboard. The menu selection was limited to typical American diner foods, sandwiches, steak, pork chops, tacos, soup, fried fish, fries, eggs any way, beer, wine, but no mixed drinks. They had two American beers but mostly beers brewed in Central America. Every beer came in returnable glass bottles except the one from Panama City because it was for export. I glanced at the girl beside me (drinking the same beer) and asked what it was. She said it was a lager, a local beer. The label said `Balboa, Cerveza Premium.' She said they're all lager beers in this bar but if I went to the hotel bar down the block they had American and Mexican beers on tap. "Thanks, I like lagers. Ever drink a Red Stripe?" I asked her. "Yes, at the airport in Kingston. I like lagers more than those tart Mexican beers like Tecate. I think they got it if you want one." "I like Lagers most of all but I can't do a beer big in hops, it gives me a headache," I replied. She chuckled and gestured with her thumb to the young man beside her and said `same problem.' Then the young man leaned forward and said he `couldn't drink microbrew beers because most of them were heavy with hops.' I sort of scanned my eyes around the bar again and looked at the score on the baseball game (Nationals hosting the Yankees, 4-9 in the fifth), "How's the food here?" I asked noticing that both of them looked very young, then I opened the can and carefully poured it into my mug. As I took my first sip I had to fight the urge to look at the young lady and tell her, `Here's looking at you, kid.' "We've only had burgers here but all their sandwiches look good." She gestured to the bartender who was walking towards us to get my order. "I can translate..." she offered. "Thanks." The bartender stood nearby waiting for my order, she pulled her glass away from her lips and said their hoagie was genuine west coast style, her boyfriend smiled and nodded yes as he took a swig from his glass. I turned to the bartender and ordered in Spanish: `Hamburguesa y papas fritas, por favor.' When he asked me if I wanted cheese I slowly said, `No queso.' `Por favor, doble mi pedido, tendré el otro para ir, pero solo un orden de papas fritas, y no queso por favor.' He walked away changing my order on his notepad. The couple beside me were talking about the game on TV but I didn't hear much of an accent from either of them, I leaned forward so I could see both of them and asked if they were from the States, and they both nodded, she said, "Near Seattle." "What brings you to Colon?" I asked and sipped my beer. "We're on our way home, what 'bout you?" She asked. I leaned over and looked at their nearly identical large backpacks and asked, "You're hiking back to Washington, and you're in Colon, Panama?" "Yes, we take one long trip every year." "Ahhhh, sounds like fun. Where you goin' from here?" "We're lookin' for a ride `cross the canal, we learned the Pan American Highway crosses at Panama City on the old steel bridge." I gestured to the Camarero and bought a round of beers for the three of us, they both said thanks. "I left Florida two weeks ago, I'm moving to California but I had to sail my boat, it's too big to transport on a truck." "What you sailing?" She asked as he set down his glass and started to listen much closer. "It's a forty foot single masted yacht. I dropped my passenger off on Cozumel last week." "Small world! We're looking for a ride to Panama City.'" "Well then let me see, I have three empty bunks and I'll need two rope handlers inside the locks. If you two would be ropers I'd be happy to take you across." "They both made big toothy smiles and seemed pleased and then excited." "You just got here from Florida?" "Yes, I've been at sea for almost two weeks and the boat handled it without any problems, she's built to sail across the Atlantic, but she has limited facilities." I paused to get their attention so they heard me clearly, I turned on the stool to face her and said, "There's no shower, no hot water, and no A/C. But the bunks are firm and very clean. I only have canned food, a microwave oven, and store bought water in jugs, but that's it. You'd have to do a little work to earn your way." "We like trade, when're you leaving?" "I'm supposed to be in the group on Sunday morning 8am. My plan is to sail all the way across to Naos Island and stay there for two nights to charge batteries and get supplies." Just then there was a terribly loud BOOM! All the lights went out but came right back on. They didn't react much as the crash echoed off the huge ships on the bay. Back in the kitchen I heard a plate hit the floor and shatter. The seadogs at tables around the room laughed and yelled at the cook. Her reaction to the blast and momentary blackout was to roll her eyes. "What the hell was that?" I said in a loud voice as I looked all around the bar and noticed I was the only one seriously startled by the crash. "Thunder, they get the coolest storms here!" He leaned forward and added, "Looks like lightning zapped a power line." "Oh." I looked around the bar and saw the bartender turning the TV back on to the baseball game and the radio to the local station. I told them my name was Steven Darrow and I was about to become a California resident. I offered my hand, "Just call me Steve," she reached over and shook mine and said, "Nice to meet you Steve, I'm Carly and that's Dave." He leaned his head forward and said "Hey," with a weird hand wave gesture that looked exactly like Paul Tibbets sticking his head out the cockpit window of the Enola Gay just before leaving on their bombing run. Then came a loud noise outside like the roar of the water discharge from Hoover Dam and when I looked out the windows I saw it was raining so hard I couldn't even see across the street. One of the sailor guys got up from their table and closed the windows that faced the sidewalk and the narrow brick street. Dave leaned forward again and commented, "Ten minutes the sun'll be out." He gestured towards the rain outside. I nodded at him with a smile and a chuckle. I thought to myself these folks looked pretty young, early twenties maybe. They both looked sober and innocent enough, they're definitely Generation-Z, and my gut feeling was they were safe, just road-wise baby-faced kids trying to get back to the States. Their story matched the way they looked. That was how my inner lawyer read them too. I glanced at her left inner arm for signs of needle marks or cutting scars but didn't see any. Their faces sort of reminded me of the 1960s Campbell's Soup Kids, but now they're adults and still in search of the ultimate bowl of soup. "You been here before?" I asked them. `Colon? No we're just passin' through. We started in the Falklands last year and hitched our way up here." She answered, then Dave added, "Everyone says the canal is the dividing line," Dave offered, I assumed he meant the dividing line between North and South America. If that was true then the bar was about three hundred feet inside South America. "You hitchhiked from the Falklands to Panama? That's very 1960s!" I said without looking at them because the bartender was approaching with my food. While I concentrated on my juicy hot burger and fries they watched the TV and he pulled out his cell and asked me, "What was your name again?" I pronounced it carefully and saw him poking my name into his cell. He watched the screen then asked me if I was a lawyer from Florida and I smiled and nodded yes then said, "Was." Then I told him to type in their names and tell me what he found. ---- We gabbed while I ate my dinner (with another burger in a brown paper sack in front of me). While I wolfed down my burger and fries he told me he found no results for a name search for them. "Not even a high school graduation ceremony or youtube video?" I asked. He said they shared a twitter account where they updated their progress but they only had thirty followers, mostly relatives and a couple bots. It didn't take me very long to wolf down the burger then I started in on the fries and used almost a third of a bottle of catsup. By the time I was done their beers were empty and I said I was ready to leave, but suggested we all make a pit stop in their bathroom. At 6:50pm we left the bar and walked to the water taxi pier after a quick stop in a tiny store for two bags of ice. They both carried huge backpacks with rolled-up sleeping bags and lots of bling attached outside, they looked sort of stupid-touristy cute. All the street lights were on and the sky was cloudy and nearly dark. The air smelled like ocean and diesel exhaust and there was a background rumble of large engines all over Limon Bay powering all those boats overnight. On the walk towards the end of the pier I tried to recall what I'd read about Gen-Z before. I seemed to recall they shunned personal contact, were socially awkward, blindly trusted cell phones (and technology), usually felt entitled, and were easily frightened and stressed. The water taxi boat was at the pier when we arrived so we got right on and sat down, then I had to stand up and direct the operator to my boat. Sure enough, the NAV lights were all on but the sun on the panels put out more juice than they ever used so I still came out ahead. My batteries should be fully charged or damn close to it. On the way I leaned towards the driver and told him my boat was the only sailboat with the NAV lights on, he smiled. On the ride to the boat I asked what they were to each other, she said they've been best friends since elementary school and considered themselves married. I asked if they had relatives in Central or South America and she said, `No, just us.' The boat made one stop on the way to Susan to pick-up someone, we sort of watched the sun set behind the hills of Panama on our way. When we motored up beside Susan I stepped off first (with my burger in a bag), then Dave handed me both ice bags then helped Carly step up onto the chain ladder hung over the side. I reached out my hand and helped both of them climb onboard. The difference in height between the side wall and the seat in the taxi boat was about four feet, so I had a short chain ladder that hung over the side. You grabbed the railings and stepped up the side. The taxi boat sped off towards shore again. I asked them to wait on the back deck while I went below to get the lantern then I could show them how stuff worked. Down in the cabin I lit the lantern and shut off the NAV lights but left the tiny LED lamp on the mast turned on since every other boat at anchor on the bay had at least one light left on. I stepped back up on deck carrying the big ice chest and set it on a bench where it was very dark and with the lantern I showed them the outside stuff. We opened the bags and dumped the ice inside then I carefully set my burger bag inside and held it by the railing to drain the water. I pushed it across the deck to the door and went inside first and set the lantern on the kitchen counter, then hefted the cooler down the steps to its place on the floor near the bottom of the stairs, then I urged them to carefully step down, duck their heads, and use the railing. Once inside they looked around and smiled. My cabin usually made a good first impression with all the glossy hardwood and gold trim, but lit by a propane lantern it didn't look as lavish as by the light of day. I moved the lantern to the edge of the dinette table. The first topic of conversation was where to set their huge backpacks. I suggested along the wall at the far end of the sofa. I told them the sofa backrest hinged up and hung on straps to loops on the ceiling. I said it became twin bunk beds and there was also the captain's bunk over in the far corner. They seemed pleased with the bunks. She said it was about the nicest thing they'd slept on since they set foot on the Falkland Islands last year. We all chuckled. We agreed to unload the sofa, I had them carry food cases beside the captain's bunk while I wiped down the toilet and sink and set out another roll of toilet paper. I told Carly there were sheets and pillows in the cabinets beside the sofa. While we were getting things re-arranged I asked her how old they were and she said they were both 22 years old. I smiled and said I turned 34 in May. Dave asked why the boat was named Susan. I pointed out her picture and said the boat was purchased new by her father after she drowned in a diving accident around 1980. They stepped over by the desk and looked closely at her photo. Most people looked at it and remarked that she was cute. Susan had the kind of smile and timeless beauty that never looked old, like it could have been taken last year. After she finished making their bunks I demonstrated the bathroom and how the toilet and sink worked, then I showed them the bunk room. We had all of tonight and all of tomorrow and tomorrow night until we sailed. I explained the signal horns and said we all had to listen for them on Sunday morning. While they got settled in I taped the canal permit to the windshield and offered them warm beers and cups of ice. For light we only used the propane lantern because we needed to save all the battery power for the crossing. And I asked them not to turn on any lights, please use the flashlights, even in the bathroom, just until we get plugged-in somewhere. I had one of those push to activate battery powered lights in the bathroom, push on, push off. It was glued to the ceiling above the sink, there was another one in my cabin and one above the desk too. After they got bunks arranged we all sat at the table and everyone was comfortable I got a chance to look at both of them. Everyone looked less attractive in the harsh light from a gas lantern. With the lantern on the end of the table it was nearly in the exact center of the cabin, the only dark areas were my cabin, the captain's table and the bathroom. Outside, the tiny LED red light on top of the mast was the only exterior light running, it should have been the only DC powered thing turned on, I double checked the switches above the desk, all were down except the mast light. I thought about putting a piece of tape over the NAV light switch to hold it down. Both hatches and the crank open vent were wide open with screens in place. ---- It didn't take very long for the three of us to get settled into the comfortable cabin, I sat on my usual side of the dinette so I could keep an eye on the door. I had the curtains pulled shut but there was some cross ventilation from the open hatches, but it was still muggy and hot. The kids slid onto the bench seat on the other side of the table, Dave ran his hands across the solid oak table and said it looked nice, reminded him of his grandparent's dining room. Carly looked very `fertile.' She looked like her body was fully ready to squeeze out a litter of pups. Her skin was pink and flawless. Her brown hair was natural and very thick and just a bit longer than his. Her breasts were naturally full and round (D-cups), her teeth were brilliant white and straight, and she only wore tiny earrings. Her blue eyes were full of energy and her face had that innocent girl next door look that some found very alluring. I noticed immediately as she spoke her inner feelings were also expressed by her eyebrows, which acted like a lie detector on her forehead, an unfortunate trait for her. I hoped she never played cards for real money with those eyebrows. My brain got stuck watching her eyebrows while she talked, so I forced myself to look away. Her eyebrows caught my brain so much that it made my fingers move up and down exactly the same as her eyebrows, so I kept my hands on my lap. I also struggled with not counting each time her brows went up. Dave looked about thirty pounds overweight, like he never worked out in his life and grew up in his mom's basement playing video games. He was pale and rounded. He wore a plain navy blue t-shirt and a Seattle Seahawks baseball cap, he looked healthy but out of shape. He had shaggy brown hair and brown eyes. In the face he looked like actor Logan Lerman if he put on fifty pounds. I guessed both of them were about 5'9", she was tall and large for a girl, but not really obese -- just plump. To me she looked like actress Kristen Stewart during her 9th month of pregnancy at age 30. Listening to them talk gave me the impression they didn't learn much in school. They knew all about social media, cell phones, and the latest China/Disney superhero movie but little about the world and politics or the economy, or even how to get and keep a job. And they knew very little about the countries they hitchhiked across. While they talked about themselves Dave noticed the cards and pulled them out of the box and started shuffling them. Dave's clothes were too baggy to see how he was shaped underneath but I could tell his nips were bigger than a quarter and stuck out a bit, I couldn't see what he was packing in front but his butt looked nicely shaped but a bit small for a round boy. I suspected he suffered from an undiagnosed case of M-PAL (Male-Pattern Ass Loss). He explained it was a coincidence that they both had wealthy grandparents and were given the choice to go to college or learn something about the world and life. I told them I was a fourth generation lawyer in the Darrow family, I had no choice. I was told my entire childhood I will be going to law school, or else. As sort of a joke I told them I asked my father once what happened if I didn't get into law school he said they'd kill me and have another child. That comment wasn't funny to the kids across from me. She said last year was their first overseas trip, they hiked `The Camino' de Santiago across France and Spain, it took them four weeks to cross and they learned a lot. Dave explained they've already done most of the Appalachian Trail and hiked the Royal Road (Camino Royal) but only from Juarez to Santa Fe. She said their families said they came back acting much more mature at home, that the Camino across Spain really changed her. I knew from watching TV shows that the Camino de Santiago (aka: Way of Saint James) was a religious retreat, not an exercise program. But in reality for many it was more like group therapy than a pilgrimage. (2010 movie: The Way, starring Emilio Estevez) Then she pointed out the scallop shells they had tied to their backpacks came from that trip. She said the shell was the symbol for the Camino but nobody could explain why since most of the route was far from the ocean. For this trip their grandparents purchased them one-way tickets aboard an oil tanker that sailed from Seattle to Port Howard at the Falklands with a load of diesel fuel, Dave said their fare included meals with the crew, but it was decent. When they got off the ship at the Faulklands they had to find a way to get across to Argentina and right away found transport on board a commercial fishing boat so they went along. Then Carly interrupted that the free ride meant they had to process fish below decks fourteen hours a day until they arrived. She said it was dreadful work gutting thousands of dead fish a day, day after day. When they pulled into port they discovered that getting off the ship wasn't easy, while the crew unloaded crates of frozen fish that night they got up at 2am, grabbed their packs and snuck off and ran for cover near the port. Dave said the crew tried to stop them but they out-ran the overweight crew chief and they had to hide in a trash pile until the ship sailed away. She said if they hadn't escaped then they'd probably still be trapped on board gutting fish. Dave chuckled and boasted that he could gut a two pound fish in ten seconds. Carly rolled her eyes, pointed at herself and said, "Eight." He glared at her briefly then they both laughed. From the port city of Rio Grande, Argentina they thumbed a ride to Rio Gallegos, Argentina where they caught another ride in the back of a truck hauling sheep, up Route 40 to Gobernador, Argentina. That truck continued on to Gregores, Argentina where they got off and stayed for three days, got showered and worked for the city sweeping up trash on the entire business district main street. At night they slept in a bunk house for homeless people until they found another trucker to ride with north to Rio Mayo, and on to Tecka. Eventually they made it north to the city of Mendoza in west central Argentina where they stayed for weeks working the grape harvest and milking cows. By the time they arrived in Mendoza they'd been on the road for thirteen weeks. At that point her story stopped but I could tell she had something to say about it so I asked some questions to get her re-started. But her comments so far gave me the impression they believed in the kind of social order sung about in the John Lennon song: Imagine. They felt they should be able to trade for anything they needed and nobody should be too wealthy (except their grandparents) and they should never be forced to do anything. "What was it like working the grape harvest, I've never even seen a vineyard but I love California wines." I asked Carly. She said Mendoza was a beautiful city and the people were very friendly. She described the towering snow covered peaks of the Andes Mountains and the ice cold clear rivers that sustained the rocky desert soil in their vineyards. Dave said they stayed with the migrant farmers (that spoke Spanish) and one Saturday night they were invited to a nearby party. It was something like two hundred or more men (and a few wives) around three bonfires sipping homemade booze, smoking pot, telling stories and having a great time. She said they both spoke some Spanish so they usually understood what was going on, but some only spoke Portuguese. Dave said Carly was the only white girl, which was a little creepy but they really had no problems. They described the big bonfires at the Saturday night party, they were sitting with their packs on the ground near the fire and occasionally a jug of wine went around or maybe a cigar sized joint while others played instruments and some sang. But there was another group of men along the edge of the gathering (and another beyond them) so Dave got up to look around because it seemed like a livelier group. He described a circle of guys taking turns fucking a young man that looked like he was very drunk or high. He was on his hands and knees and the guys took turns on their knees being him and fucked him in front of dozens of voyeurs. In another group of men he saw one guy wanking dicks for money and they also had a big audience, so Dave paid one coin and stood in line, he was the only white guy in the crowd. Then Dave said he'd never pulled his dick out in front of strangers before, but when he did the others applauded (like they did for everyone else), and he stood there (looking back at about thirty guys watching his dick get stroked) while the guy jerked him. He stood near the fire and all the other men watched and cheered him on. When he came they applauded then it was the next guy's turn. There were several guys in the crowd of watchers that were stroking themselves. The ones that got the loudest cheers were the ones that squirted onto the fire. He said the guy doing the jerking had a thick coat of semen that covered his right hand and arm and dripped off his elbow, it looked crazy to see that much semen in one place. David said he knew he could make enough money for bus fare doing the same thing (considering how many men happily paid then stood in line for the service) so the next night he started his own service; one ten-peso coin per orgasm. He said nobody else was circumcised and it took some getting used to jerking a covered head but he eventually figured it out and did ten guys an hour and he had a long line and a big audience. He stripped to his underwear which they seemed to like too. He said he thought a lot of them never saw a nearly naked white skinned person before. Carly said he made over $200 that weekend milking dicks. David said everyone had turtlenecks and perfect belly buttons. Then Carly said that none of those migrant field workers were skinny, the older they were the bigger their bellies were, and all of them looked to be over 30 years old. David admitted he'd never seen such a gross bunch of stinking dicks as he did with those migrant workers in Mendoza. He said some of them stunk bad from only bathing a few times a year. I reminded them that prior to the 1920s a bath was something people only did once or twice a year and what he smelled in Mendoza used to be normal around the world for millions of human years, even for royalty living in towering stone castles, that's probably why perfume was invented. Carly said she wondered what year women learned that cheesy dicks caused vaginal infections. I told her that two hundred years ago women sometimes died from those cheese infections. She said they used his milking money to purchase bus tickets and rode into Bolivia where they stopped overnight in Potosi and LaPaz. By this time she had mentioned so many towns I got up and got the world atlas from my desk and handed it to her. Carly opened it to South America and showed me the sequence of towns they stayed in. I interrupted her briefly and asked, "If you had the chance to fly to Mendoza and vacation there for a week, would you?" She glanced at Dave then said, "Yes, easily. Mendoza was beautiful and the people there were very kind and generous." Then she continued their story. After LaPaz they were back to hitchhiking, mostly on trucks across Peru, around Lake Titicaca to Cusco and Lima then up the coast to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and eventually into Quito, the world's only major city on the Equator. After Ecuador they made it across the border into Columbia where they stopped in the cities of Pasto, Cali, and then into Medellin where they had their first encounter with police since they first set foot on South America three months earlier. I asked if they had any problems crossing borders and she said the routes they took the borders were often unmarked, they just walked across and eventually found out they were in the next country. They never got passports checked and never saw any officials. When they rode in the back of trucks they were never searched and most of the time they had no idea they were in another country until the guy stopped and opened the doors. In Columbia they were told there were no roads across southern Panama they had to take the car ferry ($99 ea) from Cartagena, Columbia to Colon, Panama. According to everything they heard the only other way to get to Panama was to swim, hike, or fly, which was expensive. There were smaller boats that ran from Colon to Turbo, Columbia that took 12 hours and sometimes had a pretty rough 80 mile trip. I interrupted them, "Let me get this right, there are no roads between Panama and Columbia? I was taught there was a paved highway down the west coast from Alaska to Argentina." "Nope, they said southern Panama is impassable, but Indians actually live there today like it was still three hundred years ago," Dave replied. "And did you say you gave sexual favors to earn bus tickets across South America?" Dave shrugged his shoulders and said he did it for money. I looked closer at his face for signs of herpes sores but saw nothing. Carly looked at him and smiled at each other then they smiled at me. He noticed me checking him out and with a smile he made a jerking-off gesture with his right hand. I chuckled at his gesture but suspected I was only hearing part of that story. She laughed and said his right arm was pretty damn strong, and we all laughed again. Apparently they weren't kidding. Dave softly mumbled that he must have harvested gallons of semen, `those migrant farmers are the third greatest milk producers in South America after the cows and goats.' Again, we all laughed. Not to be out done by his joke she added, `his left arm can barely lift the Seattle phone book but his right arm can crush a Volkswagen,' and we laughed loudly. Carly added when they wrote a book about this trip they were going to leave out some of the juicy details. They both described the nineteen hour ride on the filthy, noisy, smoky car/truck ferry from Cartagena to Colon, the smells, the noise, nineteen hours on narrow plastic seats bolted to the floor in a crowded room with nothing to do but listen to people cough, babies cry, and feel the floors vibrate from the engine room below deck. She said it was one of the few things they had to pay in cash since they got off the tanker in Port Howard, and it was much worse than riding in back with thirty two sheep. In my mind I pictured the young people that hitchhiked across the States to attend the Woodstock concert in August, 1969 and wondered how many of them performed sexual favors along the way but never admitted it to this day. Carly said the eastern shore of southern Panama was dotted with small islands and fishing villages. If you weren't in a hurry you could probably get free rides from island to island and village to village with the locals. Dave said for some of their semi truck rides he had to wank the driver a couple times so they could ride in the back of the cab instead of in back with the cargo. I asked about their remaining trip, if they considered the drug wars in Guatemala, would they be safe? Carly said all her friends and relatives said they'd be fine if they stayed on the Pan American Highway. I told her that I heard the Pan American Highway went along the east coast in Central America, not the west coast. She shrugged her shoulders and said they were told to hitch rides along the Pan American Highway up the west coast of Central America. ---- To completely change the subject Dave brought up the recent news topic of Space-X putting hundreds of satellites into orbit `in the cold vacuum of space.' "Dave, anytime you hear someone say outer space is cold you should doubt everything they tell you." "Why's that? I hear people say it all the time." "Space is a vacuum, which means there's nothing there, no atmosphere, nothing can't have a temperature." "I think I understand," he said sheepishly. "It's like checking the temperature of the water in an empty bucket. Think of it like this: hot and cold is related to the movement of atoms, more movement equals more friction which equals higher temperatures. But if there is nothing there, there's no atoms, and no friction, and nothing to measure. In order for a place to be hot or cold there has to be something to measure, aside from the temperature sensor itself. If you put a thermometer in orbit the sun will gradually warm it and make it read over 250 degrees when exposed to sunlight." Our discussion went on for a while until I saw on his eyebrows that it started to make sense. He said he wished he'd known that back in science class in sixth grade when his teacher said it several times. I urged him to ask questions if he was still unsure but did he understand why the expression, `cold vacuum of outer space' was total bullshit. He said he liked my empty bucket explanation. I told him next time he heard someone say it ask them to explain why/where space was cold. And then I tried telling him that the only thing that I knew of in outer space that got cold was the lunar lander in the movie: Apollo-13, everything else was warmed by the sun. I finished by repeating what I already said, that anyone that said `the cold vacuum of space' should not be trusted as an expert. After an awkward moment of silent staring at each other across the table I decided to discuss one topic more in depth. "Let's go back to the Pan American Highway. You said the southern part of Panama was impassible. Does that make sense to you?" I asked. They both glanced at each other and nodded yes. "Think about this. Back in the 1800s when France started digging the Panama Canal nearly the entire country of Panama was impassible. Thousands of men died trying to dig the Culebra Cut, then they finally gave up. Ten years later the Americans tried and got the canal finished after hundreds more died. Last year Panama added another canal path beside the old ones using a tiny fraction of the people and enormous digging machines. They dug and blasted their way through dirt and bedrock and made new locks for huge ships, sort of like how they dug open pit coal mines all over the world today. Knowing that, what is there in southern Panama that makes it impassible?" They both sat there for a time then Carly smiled and softly said: "Money and Malaria?" I added, "Yes, probably. That and there must be a reason why both countries don't want a road connecting them. Think about narcotics, military, immigration, and self defense. If the only ways to cross the border were by ferry or airplane that concentrates people into narrow places where everyone can be inspected and approved or sent back. If there was a highway all sorts of things would cross uncontrolled. And if you think southern Panama was impassable I'd like to suggest a highway could be built across the Himalayas if someone had enough money. The Gap in southern Panama is impassible because that's what they want people to believe." To me southern Panama was a magic barrier that stopped the flow of heroin from Columbia. Heroin in the USA flowed from Afghanistan to Mexico then into the States. Carly added that Columbia and Panama used to be one country. I switched the topic back to the highway and looked at the world atlas and sure enough it showed the route along the west coast of Central America until it reached Salina Cruz, Mexico then went to Mexico City and stayed along the east coast up to Laredo, Texas and across the Midwest, across Canadia, then to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. I mentioned to them that Guatemala was almost in a state of civil war due to narco crime, murder, and organized crime. It was a dangerous place to hitchhike. They smiled and nodded but never seemed worried. And like Carlo's decision to stay on Cozumel I thought their decision to hitch hike across Guatemala was a very dangerous and based on misinformation. Carly laughed and asked me why I said Canada wrong. I chuckled and told her I thought Canadia sounded better and sort of made linguistic sense, "California, Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Canadia, it just sounds right." She giggled at me and Dave just nodded side to side like listening to kindergartners argue about cell phone brands. ---- After more rounds of beer everyone had the yawns so we decided to turn in. I mentioned the lack of privacy on Susan (she was the great equalizer) they both said they didn't care about nudity. Dave smiled at me, made the jerking hand gesture. I looked away even though I wanted to see what he looked like. "After standing by a bonfire getting jerked off in front of sixty men in Argentina I don't care who sees me naked no more." He mumbled as they slid off the dinette seat to unpack some stuff. I liked his answer. I went into the bathroom (and closed the door) and gave myself a quick washcloth bath (face, pits, naughty parts), brushed my teeth, (electric) shaved, and used the toilet then went to my room, but left the door open. My passengers had already figured out how to lift the sofa's backrest to convert it into an upper bunk, she was already up there under the sheet, head on the pillow. He climbed onto the bottom bunk wearing just his plain white boxers, I saw his love handles and his pale white legs and back. When he crashed on the bottom bunk I saw he had nips similar to Carlo's, but much smaller, his chest muscles looked like two small man boobs. Without looking like I inspected his body I stopped at the dinette and told them if something dreadful happened to the boat overnight there were two ways out, the cabin door or the hatch above the dinette table. Just stand on the table, pull the handle down, and push hard. Then I shut off the propane lantern and went to my cabin, slipped off my clothes, put on a pair of gym shorts, and climbed into bed and was asleep in a few minutes with the kitchen knife gently resting between the mattress and the wall, next to the rubber sex toys. There was enough light coming in the windows that the cabin was never totally dark. Even last week when we were 100 miles north of Cuba on the Gulf at 3am, it wasn't totally dark but the sky was beautiful beyond words. I remembered I should have told them were the lift jackets were. Saturday January 26, 2019. Day #12. Morning arrived quietly, I woke up on the soft white sheets on the V-bunk to the deep rumble of a very large container ship (pulled by two tug boats) slowly motoring towards the Gatun Locks, her wake made Susan bounce a little side to side. I looked out the bow hatch above me and saw a blue sky spotted with white clouds, the hot sun shone down on the bay. I must have slept almost seven hours, I rolled onto my back and thought about where I was, what I needed to do today. We had very little to do except wait, eat, drink, talk, and watch the hours go by. I got up and cranked my hatch all the way open. I recalled documentaries about building the canal when Teddy Roosevelt was president and the failed construction attempt by the French in the 1880s, but most of their effort was the nine mile long Culebra Cut (on the Panama City side). The original French plan for the canal was to dig an ocean level canal. France had recently finished digging the Suez Canal and thought Panama would be just another ditch, but the tropical diseases, dense jungle vegetation, and nine month long monsoon, and mud slides kicked their asses. Thousands of people died and millions in French Francs were stolen, it turned into a giant criminal enterprise. Today, Panama completed the new canal (opened in 2019), with much wider and longer locks. The original locks are 110' wide, 1050 feet long and 41 feet deep. The new locks are 180 feet wide, 1400 feet long, and 60 feet deep. For comparison the limits on the Suez Canal were 164 feet wide and 66 feet deep, but with today's ship building technology there was no length restriction on the Suez because there were no lock gates, but there were turns. There were oil tankers today that wouldn't fit any canal on the planet. ---- I climbed out of bed and quietly walked to the bathroom. The kids were still sleeping in contorted positions on their bunks. On my way across the front cabin I saw Carly's eyes were open, she smiled at me snuggled below the custom cotton bed sheet. He was motionless on the bottom bunk. I closed my door and got back into the same clothes as yesterday, shorts and a t-shirt. It was muggy and hot out already, it felt like upper eighties, the sun was still low above the Caribbean Sea. Like always when I first woke up I wanted coffee but wasn't hungry. I used the hand operated tools and ground some dark roast beans and assembled the pot. While I was getting the pot ready Carly slipped off the upper bunk and shuffled to the bathroom, luckily I left the vent fan running. I finished assembling the espresso pot and started it heating then I lit the propane lantern on the dinette table. Even though the sun was up it still wasn't terribly bright inside the cabin because the sunrise was behind us. I sat on the stairs waiting for the kettle to gurgle, then I poured myself a cup of Joe and stepped up the stairs and opened the cabin door to let in fresh air off the Caribbean Sea. Carly walked across the cabin wearing shorts and a very large baggy t-shirt with the image of a female squirrel (holding two large acorns against her belly) on the front. She walked to the bunks and leaned-in close to Dave's head and very gently woke him, then he shuffled to the bathroom after rubbing his eyes for a while. I climbed up the stairs and went out on the deck to examine our surroundings by the light of the new morning. Since I didn't have any of the stuff to make a proper girly Starbucks drink I never offered them coffee and they never asked. You gotta assume everyone from Seattle drank coffee but apparently not these two. I sat on the back deck cushion and looked all around us at Limon Bay. I counted dozens of very large cargo ships, and several enormous container ships, all at anchor around Limon Bay waiting their turn to cross. Around us, closer to shore were the smaller boats, everyone was waiting. There were very few signs of life on the ships. I wasn't sure what the local time was but judging by the sun I guessed maybe 6:30am. I could see some streets in town but there was no traffic. I wondered how different things looked here when the canal first opened. Probably no fiberglass hulled sailboats with big brightly colored nylon sails! Colon might be a smaller port city simply because of the shallower water of Limon Bay. They probably had a slave market here long ago. It's amazing how fertile the land looked here. One time I heard that cargo ships (before the canal) unloaded in Panama City, their cargo crossed Panama on tiny steam powered trains then reloaded onto ships in Limon Bay to sail across the Atlantic. Looking to the east over the Caribbean I saw storm clouds but they didn't appear to be moving. I went below and poured myself some coffee. After about fifteen minutes my passengers emerged on the back deck in shorts and T-shirts, they were quiet at first, I sat in the very back corner sipping my coffee and soaking up the warm sunshine. "What's the plan for today?" Carly asked as they sat side by side near the wheel. "Our group doesn't sail until tomorrow morning which makes today a free day to do whatever." "Are we going ashore?" "We can." It sounded like I was suddenly responsible for feeding them too. "What did you have in mind?" I asked. "Food, maybe call my grandmother with updates." "You are welcome to use my phone if you keep your call very short like two minutes tops. I pay by the second for satellite calls." I held up two fingers to drive home the point that the call must be very short. "Sure, I can do that, they like us to check in with every course change." I noticed she used navigation terms. Maybe it would be a little rude so I just asked, "Do you two have money for food or am I responsible for feeding you too?" "We have a little money but when you said you only had canned food we assumed meals were included." Then Dave added, "We're glad to work for food." I wondered what kind of work they did, aside from him pumping dicks, and probably neither of them had experience as deckhands but you never know! I figured rope handling would turn into a four hour job for the entire canal and at fifteen bucks an hour for four hours times two people is only 120 bucks. Like I said they were turning into moochers but to me it wasn't worth getting upset over so I decided to feed them and let them drink my booze too. Getting them drunk might shut down their inhibitions, and who knows what might happen then. I went below to my cabin and got my wallet and asked them if they would like to go ashore and buy enough food to cover us until we reached the Pacific Ocean, then stay on the boat until we reached Naos Island, they quickly agreed. I asked if they knew of any place we could get ice and deli style sandwiches to bring onboard to keep us fed until Sunday evening when we arrived at Naos Island Marina. Dave described a few places in town, his plan sounded workable. ---- Using the Icom marine walkie talkie I called for a ride ashore and left the radio on my desk and locked the door. Ten minutes later the small aluminum boat arrived and we climbed in and motored across the bay. It was nice to watch him carefully help Carly climb down off the gangway and onto the small taxi boat, just like a gentleman. While we crossed the bay Dave said they'd been here almost a week asking for rides across the Canal so they got to know Colon rather well. He lead us down the narrow cracked sidewalks to a store, similar to a Seven-Eleven in the States, we got three bags of ice and each picked out wrapped sandwiches and snacks. We made a major dent in their deli selection. I asked Carly if she could carry a five gallon water jug and she said yes, so we got that too. We walked back towards the pier, he offered to show us the historic old fort but I showed him the ice bags dripping in the morning heat so we grabbed the water taxi back to the boat and I dumped the ice into the big Yeti chest on the floor and added ten beers and all our sandwiches. Carly used my wax pencil to write our initials on the wrappers. While Carly was in the bathroom I quietly asked Dave how many he owed me now. He replied, "Huh?" I made a jerking motion with my right hand, he smiled and rolled his eyes up as if counting favors in his head then smiled and said, "Three." I guess their currency had become him jerking me off, one favor = one orgasm. My guess was he felt them working as deckhands pretty much covered their expenses, but I felt that was not the case. Either way it didn't matter that much to me since they were good company so far and both of them were mildly attractive, but so far they hadn't actually done any work. Even though I was twelve years older I still found Dave to be somewhat desirable and was constantly scanning his body trying to guess what he'd feel like lying naked beside me on the V-bunk. My eyes kept being pulled to the protruding lumps under his shirt. His pants mostly never showed signs of a dormant dick. His body gave off a boyish innocence and an understated sexual power. I also predicted body cheese odor was going to become an issue for me with them aboard. ---- We ate our sandwiches and talked about ourselves. They described how each of their ancestors became wealthy selling hardwood lumber from Washington State going back into the 1870s. Their stories were similar and rather interesting. I asked about them as a couple, she said they considered themselves to be common law husband and wife, she said they married themselves with exchanged vows and handmade rings made from woven palm tree leaves in the Cathedral Santiago de Compostela last year in Spain. They held up hands and showed off their matching palm rings. She said they graduated from the same high school but couldn't find jobs and their families wanted them to go to college but neither of them felt like that was something they could handle (even with designated safe spaces in every building on campus), so they agreed to go on these long character building adventures then write books and maybe later go to college when they felt emotionally prepared for such a `difficult period.' When I asked if they'd ever had other relationships Dave commented they had an open relationship, which I thought meant they were something like swingers, which was a bit unusual for people their age. People usually didn't become swingers until their first gray hairs appeared. Carly quickly changed the subject back to their relationship, she said they were super compatible, they often had telepathy with each other and refused to get involved in jealousy, regret, or secrets. Maybe I was reading more into her words than they intended but there was some sexual innuendo in their entire description of their relationship. While she described their relationship she reached over and held his hand. Although reading between the lines of their comments I sort of got the impression they were very casual about sex, nudity, and when Dave did sexual favors he did it because it had the least amount of risk for them but was enough to keep them fed and moving towards the United States without using cash. The more they talked I got the impression that he was protective of her and they considered work-trade to cover his expenses, she rode along with him for free. Buy one squirrel, get the second one free, but you still had to feed both squirrels. ---- They spoke a lot about their trip across Argentina, she said they milked cows and harvested grapes for rides, shelter, and food. Both said they spoke Spanish well enough to get all the way to Panama. She said they had a credit card but seldom charged anything, their grandparents paid their bills. I asked at what age they discovered sex and she said sixth grade, but they were not very successful. When the subject switched to sex I noticed that Dave started resting his hands on his crotch and picked at himself, she turned to face me more and became livelier in her speech. Now I'm not the smartest person when it came to relationship things but the picture I got from them about their relationship would be a sign that simply said, `Open for Business.' But in all the stories they told of their travels across South America all the sexual references were always of things that Dave did, never things she did, so maybe she didn't play around? Or maybe she had something mechanically wrong with her girl parts. Maybe it was something I didn't know about that kept her from playing along. It could be as simple as he didn't care what sex acts he did if it paid their expenses, maybe David was one of those people that saw sex as something mammals did, ain't no big deal. ---- Around 11am the wind picked up as the storm front moved closer to Limon Bay. Dave went below and returned from the cabin with no shirt on because it was gradually getting hotter and more humid. Then Carly went below and came back in very short shorts and a T-shirt that really showed how full and round her D-cup breasts were, it looked like she shed her bra too because I could easily see teats poking out but she didn't seem to care, or maybe it was on purpose. It was still easy to hear their spoken words were simple and plain, neither of them was overly bright. I'd be surprised if either of them had an IQ above 100. She told me about their long cruise down the west coast on a tanker loaded with fuel oil for a Falkland Islands power station, she said they were constantly harassed by the crew. Then she said Dave had no inhibitions about sex, but neither of them liked being stalked or afraid for their safety. He said after the bonfire parties in Mendoza one of the guys wouldn't leave him alone to sit in peace with his wife, they almost got in a fight. She said Dave shoved him hard because that guy would not leave her alone while they sat on the ground by the big bonfire listening to the music and cuddling on their sleeping bags. Then some other guys stepped over and moved the drunk away from them. I remembered suddenly and got out my satellite phone and brought it up on deck and watched Carly call her grandmother. `The money lady,' is what Dave called her. She told her they found a ride to Panama City and should be there in a couple days. They were safe, fed, and having a nice time on a large fancy sailboat with a lawyer from Florida. Her call was short, Dave leaned in and shouted "Hi Granma!" Carly laughed and turned towards him and softly said, "She said Hi Honey." It was cute to watch. While they were distracted with the phone call home thing I kept one eye on Dave and noticed he frequently reached up and touched his left tit with a right finger. I bet he was totally unaware he did that about every minute or more. ---- Late that afternoon we ate our second meal and I kept the Marine radio (at the desk) turned on all the time now since we were only twelve hours to zero hour. The rain returned and it poured heavily but with almost no wind. We discussed lowering the plastic side curtains but it might get super muggy so we left the back deck and sat at the dinette and played cards. Dave noticed my booze bottles in the rack on the cabin wall and asked if he could make some drinks, of course I told him that would cost him two orgasms but Dave just laughed. I guess he thought I was kidding. They both sounded impaired after two drinks. He started groping her anytime he could hold his cards with one hand. They had little play fights at the table which was kind of cute and kind of naughty. Sometimes he'd reach over to gently tap or squeeze one of her protruding nipples from outside her shirt. After doing that for a while she set her cards down and grabbed one of his (he didn't wear a shirt most of the day) and stretched it out as far as it would go, then he'd swat her hand from his chest. We all sat and watched his tit turn red and slowly return to the normal shape. Their play fights resembled foreplay between two school age boys. I could tell by their glances they were occasionally eyeing my body. The smell of sex was in the air, or maybe it was body odor. We switched to Blackjack and he made a third round of drinks for them, so I drank another beer. I noticed her shirt was damp with sweat and hung looser, as she got drunker she cared less about how she looked. I took off my shirt and left it on my bunk when I got my third beer and she commented about mine being big around like hers. As soon as he realized her attention was on my chest instead of his he reached over and cupped one of her breasts with his hand and rubbed the tip of her teat gently with his thumb then lifted one side of her shirt and aimed her tit at me like he was going to spray me with milk, we all laughed. I told her that breast looked very nice --she should be proud, she blushed. Dave mumbled, `She likes it.' Then she declared: "He loves my tits more than me!" Then their play fight started again. After another hand of 21 he started kissing her and slid his hand up her shirt to her chest, she laughed and told me, "He gets like this after he's had too much. He goes right for my tits!" She chuckled at his behavior. Dave appeared to be totally horndog crazy and routinely raised her shirt to fondle her exposed breast. He fingered the teat and used his fingertips to gently massage her areola. Carly sat there looking at her cards ignoring him. His attention then grew into one arm over her shoulder holding up her shirt with the other hand gently rubbing both breasts. Of course by then the card game was pretty much stalled, it seemed Dave forgot we were in the middle of a hand of blackjack. Carly shifted her position on the bench so her body faced him a little more. I could tell she was getting turned on, then she smiled at me and wiggled out of the dinette and asked me if I'd mind a ten minute break while he took care of a personal matter. I said I had no problem, `do you need privacy?' Carly laughed and said she thought it would be cool if I watched. She stepped over to the bunks and dropped her shorts and got on her back at one end, then she spread her thighs wide apart. He climbed in on his hands and knees and pressed his face into her stomach and kissed his way down to her crotch and tongued her and slid his hands up her shirt and rubbed her chest while she squirmed and moaned. He also made loud sounds into her which I thought was funny. Carly lifted her hips to grind her crotch against his mouth, at one point her butt was two inches off the bunk then she pulled his head inward and jerked her hips hard and yelled, "Oh Fuck!" a few times, her entire body tensed for a few seconds then she let out a big sigh and became limp and Dave got up off the sofa and watched her melt from the pleasure of her orgasm. I'd never seen a woman come that quickly before. It took him less than two minutes to make her squeal. Then he wiped his face and neck on his t-shirt that was laid out on the upper bunk. Without really being aware of it I had my hand down my shorts slowly stroking myself. This was the first time in my life I watched other people have sex in the same room. I was totally brain stunned and amazed by their show. I bet my mouth was hung open too! Dave got up with a very long rod in his shorts and walked towards the bathroom but stopped when he glanced at my lap and saw my hand moving in my shorts. He walked around the back side of the bench, pulled down my shorts, moved my hand out of his way, griped mine and rapidly stroked me to orgasm. I came on myself (and his hand) but most of it ended up on my belly. Dave went to the bathroom to wash-up while Carly rolled over and sat up on the side of the bunk, panting, looking like she was trying to mentally recover. We looked at each other and chuckled. I heard the toilet paper roll spin several times then the toilet pedal pumped a few times and then the door opened and he joined us with a look of happiness on his face, I think he quickly jerked off in the sink. While Carly used the bathroom Dave came back to the table and sat down but was quiet, his forehead glistened with sweat droplets. It was pretty warm and muggy in the cabin and everyone was sweaty and hot, but everyone was also satisfied and content. I noticed his nips looked a bit larger now, but just a little. Carly flushed and came back to the dinette table. She straightened her T-shirt down, apologized, and took her seat beside Dave. I told her, "This was the best game of Blackjack I've played in my life." Then I raised my hand and showed her my fingertips were slimy too. She got up and came back from the bathroom with more toilet paper and handed it to me. I thanked her, she asked about sailing on the canal in the morning. I told her my alarm clock went off at 7am and we had to be ready to sail when the horn sounded. She looked at the clock on the cabin wall, it was 11:55pm and Dave looked half asleep beside her with his droopy eyelids and crooked smile. She said, `seven hours,' then slipped out of the dinette and pulled off her shorts, she climbed onto the top bunk. As she tried to roll herself onto the top bunk I got a good look at her crotch, partially shaved but otherwise normal looking (at a glance). Standing by the table I reached over and took Dave's arm and helped him off the dinette bench and walked him over to the bunk and helped him sit down on the edge, then leaned him over, head on the pillow. Last, I lifted his legs up and rolled him on his side into a sleeping position. It gave me a chance to slide my palm across his body again. I'm sure he was still awake but didn't object to my hand feeling his chest. After shutting off the propane lantern I went to my cabin and slid off my shorts and climbed into bed. There was a small but steady breeze coming in the hatch that kept me cool all night. Despite my boner I was asleep in minutes and slept until the alarm clock sounded at 7am. Write the author: borischenaz gmail BTW, we've now reached page 272 in the paperback version. Other book titles by Boris Chen: Our Cabin in the Hills, Playing with Fire, Revenge -- a Dish Served Cold, Response Team, Response Team Prequel, Eric and Me, Man's Best Friends, My Boyfriend was a Cyborg, The Battle for Nehawka. If you are a dog person my books: Man's Best Friends, and Our Cabin in the Hills feature large dogs as major story characters. If you are a fan of AM broadcast radio (and retail music stores) my book: Response Team might be a good book for you. If you are a fan of pro audio gear (like in bars, clubs, theaters, and for rock bands), also: speakers, magnetic tape, and minidisc you might like: My Boyfriend was a Cyborg.