First things first. Pastor Abigail was a man. The name is used for both sexes
in Panama, so that’s just the way it was. Yet I couldn’t get my head roun
calling him Abigail, so I just called him “pastor”. It also seemed more
respectful. He ran the village churchin Mogue but doubled as an eagle
spotter. By al accounts, he was the man to lead me to a harpy eagle’s nest –
because he knew both the old Indian paths and how to whistle.
Whistling is an important skill for an eagle spotter. Mimicking the eagle’s
call is the best way to discover its presence. The harpy eagle is often
considered the most powerful bird of prey on earth. It’s also the national
bird of Panama, but there aren’t many left. When I told a zoologist friend
of mine that I was off to find one, he smiled and wished me good luck.
Once common in the rainforests of Latin America, the harpy eagle has suffered
as thetrees have disappeared. Ancon, Panama’s largest private conservation
body, runs a monitoring programme in its Punta Patiño Nature Reserve. There
are cash incentives to encourage villagers to report eagle sightings, so the
pastor is able to make a few extra dollars on the side.
This doesn’t mean he neglects his evangelical duties. The rhythm of the church
bongo drums had reverberated throughout the village for nearly two hours the
previous evening. Therewas no service on a Sunday, the pastor declared as he
led the way through the forest, machete in hand, wellington boots on his
feet. Sunday was usually a day of fasting. His wife wouldn’t be eating, but
he was excused because of this eagle-spotting mission. As he said this, he
paused to offer me one of his biscuits.
My harpy eagle objective had brought me to that corner of Central America
called the Darien. My heart had missed a beat when I had heard that this was
considered the best place in Panama to catch sight of one.
There is no doubt that the Darien has an image problem. Fabled the world over
as a vast and perilous jungle, it’s Panama’s wild east, a place whose name
has become synonymous with jeopardy. It’s deep, dark, dank and all but
impenetrable except, perhaps, to gunrunners and drug smugglers. Not really a
conventional spot for a bit of twitching, you might think.
But this is the sort of place where fact and fiction merge. Though certain
small parts along the frontier with Colombia can be dangerous – the
territory of smugglers and the scene of occasional cross-border sorties from
guerrillas – vast areas of the Darien, to the south particularly, around
Punta Patiño, are as safe and unspoilt as anywhere on earth. So turning down
a trip to the Darien is like refusing to visit the Cotswolds because some
years back you heard a story about skulduggery in Derbyshire. And there is
no equivalent of the M5 in eastern Panama. Or, at least, there is, but it
doesn’t penetrate the Darien. The Pan-American Highway runs all the way from
Alaska to Tierra del Fuego except for one missing section. That’s the Darien.
Turn the half-truths on their head and you are left with one of the world’s
last great wilderness areas. And you will have it more or less to yourself.
AS I DID. I’d approached along the highway as far as the road could take me,
before transferring to a boat. Ancon’s base at Punta Patiño, an old
coconut-plantation lodge, felt like the brink of the unknown. But in a
relaxing, magical sort of way. I passed a day in a hammock on the veranda,
gazing out over the hibiscus, across the Golfo de San Miguel to the point
where the explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa became the first European to set
eyes on the Pacific Ocean, in 1513. Apparently, he waded into the salt water
in full armour to claim it for Spain.
If truth be told, I probably saw as much wildlife from the veranda as in
several days deep in the jungle. Not all the same species, mind, and
certainly no harpy eagles. A few feet from my repose, iridescent green
hummingbirds, no bigger than my thumb, darted between the acacia blooms.
Lizards basked in the sunshine as butterflies conducted aerobatics over the
cashew tree. Far off, the silhouettes of brown pelicans dive-bombed for
their supper in the golden waters of the bay. As the evening drew in, the
hum of cicadas ebbed and flowed like a distant hiss fading in and out on the
breeze.
A dugout sped through towering mangrove trees to Mogue for my rendezvous with
the pastor. Inside a tropical rainforest, the great conundrum is this: you
know it’s bursting with creatures, but you can’t see any. It takes time to
get your eye in. The first things you notice are the insects. These you can
manage on your own. Beyond that, you need help; hence the pastor.
No assistance is needed with the insects because they introduce themselves,
not all of them politely. The leafcutter ants were easy to avoid. They
marched in miniature convoys, carrying their bright green segments of
foliage like banners in a mini parade. They’d cleared their own little
highway beside our track, like a cycle lane running parallel to a road.
Bullet ants don’t congregate in such large numbers so are more difficult to
see. But step on one and you’ll wish you hadn’t. Nearly 2cm long, they got
their name because the pain delivered by their bite is said to be on a par
with taking a round from Dirty Harry’s Magnum. Even monkeys aren’t easy to
spot. The pastor stopped dead on the path and pointed up into the foliage,
and I clocked a couple as they swung through the trees to watch us passing.
Swaying high in the branches, they were tiny tamarins, no larger than a
small domestic cat.
WE’D BEEN trekking for two hours before the pastor stopped to whistle. We were
both sodden with rain and sweat. He’d struck off the path to scramble up a
muddy hillside dense with undergrowth. Halfway up, he steadied himself with
the tip of his machete in the leaf mould, pursed his lips and let out a
long, rather doleful note. Standing just below him, I followed his gaze to
scan the treetops. Ascending the steep slope had allowed us to look out
midway up the thick trunk of a grand tree. This was a cuipo tree, a
favourite roost for the harpy eagle. It stood high above the surrounding
canopy, a good vantage point from which an eagle could spy its arboreal
prey.
The pastor whistled again, the same plaintive cry, and mopped his brow with
his bush hat. Almost immediately, a similar whistle came in response. It
sounded far off, like an echo.
The pastor was still craning his neck to scrutinise the crown of the cuipo
tree. Again, a whistle rent the humid air. Again, it wasn’t the pastor. An
adolescent eagle crash-landed onto a branch in full view. He couldn’t have
positioned himself better if I’d made a special request. His head feathers
were swept back and dishevelled, like a mohican haircut only half-finished.
His legs were swathed in white plumage. He swivelled his head, unsure about
the source of the familiar whistle.
We parked ourselves in the mud and watched. The eagle was about a year old,
too young to hunt for himself. He just sat there waiting for mum to bring
dinner. Every so often, he’d shimmy his tail feathers and emit another
whistle with a shrug of his wings. But his mum didn’t put in an appearance.
The youth kneaded his perch with big, yellow talons, beady eyes appraising
his surroundings, a future king of the forest surveying his realm.
Nobody knows how many harpy eagles live in the Darien, but with spotters such
as the pastor, a picture is slowly building of their status. Returning to
the village, it struck me that, to outsiders, this jungle remains almost as
unknown as it was during Balboa’s times, at least partly because of its dark
reputation.
Back in the capital, I toured another stretch of forest on the outskirts of
Panama City. The Panamanians preserve it in good condition to maintain the
water levels in their canal, so it’s also teeming with wildlife, including a
few reintroduced harpies. There are hiking trails, bird-watching tours, a
canopy tower and an aerial tramway to help you see what’s what. Everything
is slick, well organised and unquestionably safe. But, personally, I’d
recommend the Darien.
Nick Middleton travelled as a guest of Reef and Rainforest
Travel brief: Reef and Rainforest (01803 866965, www.reefandrainforest.co.uk
) offers several tours to Panama; an 11-day trip taking in the Darien costs
from £2,197pp. The trip also visits the San Blas Islands, the Canal Zone,
with a stay in an Indian village in the Darien, and includes flights from
Heathrow to Panama City with Iberia (via Madrid), domestic flights and
transfers, boat trips, accommodation, most meals, guides and park entrance
fees. Other companies offering nature tours to Panama include Trips
Worldwide (0117 311 4400, www.tripsworldwide.co.uk
), Limosa (01263 578143, www.limosaholidays.co.uk
) and Naturetrek (01962 733051, www.naturetrek.co.uk
).
