We started our first full day in Panama in style at the hotel pool by the Canal. We toured the canal for a bit, then headed to the jungle in our rental car, an upgraded SUV. Our jungle cabin was about 3.5 hours from the canal, and along the way we stopped off for a quick bite at Nico’s Beach Restaurant, and then snagged some groceries in the largest town near our cabin. We had about 40 minutes left to drive, the sun was setting, and the sky was darkening from heavy rain clouds. Crystal had done all the driving so asked if I wouldn’t mind taking the wheel for the last bit. Sure!
We drove out of town and into the hills as the rain began to fall and the sky became pitch black. There were no shoulders, no lines on the roads, but plenty of 8” potholes along the route. After 25-30 minutes we took a right hand turn onto what was technically a road, but which was unknown by GPS and felt more like a logging road from the 1930s. As we maneuvered our massive SUV along the path, doing our best to avoid the occasional boulder in the road – and, please remember it’s pitch black and lightly raining – I asked Crystal how much further.
“Not much past the bridge.”
The bridge, you say?
Below, you can see some pictures of this so-called bridge. I’m guessing that at some point, Indiana Jones rescued someone on this bridge, but in 2024, it was simply a swaying, bouncing, all-too-skinny path.
There was one sign on the bridge, a faint marking warning that this old beast would not handle more than mmm2 tons. I’ve done the math, and the weight of the vehicle, the passengers and the luggage adds up to 3985 pounds. GULP.
As we inched up onto the bridge our passenger mirror scraped against the concrete. There wasn’t enough room on my side, so Crystal just pulled the mirror into the car. As she opened the window to do so, we heard the unmistakable sounds of a mighty river rushing wildly below us. How far, none of us knew, because we could not see it. At this point, both Crystal and Sam unclicked their seatbelts in order to more easily jump to safety when we invariably plunged into the torrent below.
We crested the on ramp and were fully on the bridge. And that’s when we felt it swaying – both up and down and side to side. We inched along, hearing the boards and wires groan with each foot, and I believe that may have been the most frightened I have been in my adult life.
Thankfully, we made it across. As Crystal, Sam, and I all exhaled, we started to joke a little about the bridge at which point Oscar looked up from the book he had been reading to ask, “Bridge? There was a bridge?”
Leave a Reply