The Ultimate Panga Ride

Maya and I – the only American volunteers here in Bluefields right now – were sent to the US Embassy in Managua for a meeting with all the NGOs that have connections with the US. The meeting is on Thursday, but we decided to go into MGA today because we have to run a bunch of errands and whatnot before hand.

Seeing as you can either take an airplane for $130 round trip from Bluefields to Managua, or you can take a bus/panga combination for $10, we opted for the latter. The panga ride from Bluefields to El Rama is about 2 hours long, and boy oh boy, was it an experience.

Now… imagine it’s a nice hot summer day. You’ve decided to go to the beach. You have on a nice little bikini top with a pair of cute little shorts, and you’re driving along in a shiny convertible with spacious leather seats and hot wind blowing your hair back. You’re listening to your favorite tunes, and singing along once in a while. The road is straight and smooth, and you feel like you could go on for miles and miles endlessly, enjoying the simple fact of being alive. Ahhhh… how wonderful.

Now…

Replace the shiny convertible and wide leather seats with a boat crammed full of people on hard wooden benches with no backrest. Lower the temperature of the air around you about 20 degrees. Add rain. Add more rain. Change the straight, flat road with a tempestuous river that bends and dips, climbing up over the side of the boat with every blast of wind. Your bikini top and cute shorts are replaced with giant rubber pants and an oversized raincoat completely impermeable to both water and ventilation. In an attempt to escape the biting rain, you and your comrades-in-suffering pull a giant plastic sheet over the group, and as you huddle down underneath it, holding the side down against the edge of the boat, you contemplate the overwhelming scent of rat piss that has suddenly overpowered the original odor of dead fish. As you’re sitting in the front row of the boat, you have the distinct privilege of allowing your face to be pressed up against the plastic that is pushing back at you with the 45-mph winds that whip you about. Your hair is no longer blowing backwards, but forwards into your mouth and eyes. You try to tie it back, but you only have the use of one of your hands, as the other is vainly trying to hold the plastic sheet in place. Despite the wind and rain, you’re sweating inside your rain gear. You search for ways of inhaling clean air, but never succeed. Your back aches from the constant thrashing of the boat against the river and the effort required to compensate for the giant plastic sheet endlessly pushing you backwards.

Your 2-hour journey feels like a lifetime, but you arrive at your destination – which is not a beach, but a nondescript wooden plank that juts out into the river at what appears to be a completely random location – and convince your cranky back and knees to carry you onto land. Since you’re the only white person besides your friend, you’re accosted on all sides by vendors selling bus tickets to Managua. You pick the earliest bus – you only have to wait 5 hours for that one – grab your soaking wet stuff, and try to clean yourself off. Luckily you packed trail mix with chocolate chips in it. Ahhhh… how wonderful.