Punta Chame

John Wayne once had an island around the corner. It is now Disneyworld. Punta Chame is different. Situated at the end of a long peninsula 100 km north of Panama City, the lonely empty holiday homes of rich Panamenos withstand the strong winds. The stoner Belgian cook from our French fazienda drags us along to a kiteboarding party at the end of the road.

The glossy apartment block with Jaccuzi is empty during the week. The reggae is reminiscent of the rooftop bar on Cape Verde, but the grass smells much better. I quickly consider Jack Nicholson as a possible neighbour. I successfully combat the feeling with rum, which is the Spanish word for “grandad”. Until an Ansbach perma-traveller with a butcher’s knife pulsing in lemons tells me I’ve just eaten shark.

I don’t expect stories. I’m hoping for moments. Just like that. After a brief internet search to realise my travel dream in Costa Rica, I am discreetly thrown overboard. One of the hoped-for tree houses 30 metres high in the rainforest costs only $500 per night in February, according to the website. Despite the included breakfast, I somehow don’t manage to consider this offer worthwhile. I’m happy to eat the hire car at five times the Andalusian price for dessert, even though a Costa Rican life probably can’t be paid for with 100,000 US dollars in liability insurance. The journey will probably be shifted to Nicaragua sooner. In between there are a few hundred kilometres by bus through Panama and Costa Rica starting tomorrow morning.

A few more hours on the COPA and Condor hotline won’t bring me any clothes or luggage by the sixth day of my trip, but at least the realisation that my new three board shorts will probably have to last at least until I, as a frustrated little bike in a big plane, have wrested 23kg x 40€ compensation from the same plane. Condor, please forgive me for writing such nasty emails in red and XXL. My patience just snaps when I hear for the 27th time that my rucksack has arrived in Panama but you’re too stupid to transport it 100 kilometres north. Okay, send it to me in Costa Rica, dung flies! Until then, we’ll pass the wine to Kettcar under mosquito nets. Riding the wind. Live the life.

The web design jobs come just in time for a fierce argument between the red loafers and the bright red skin about who is the better socialist. I work through everything in the shade for a day and a half, then it’s back on the water with SPF ultra. The wind is blowing side-on at 15 to 27 knots from the north-west. The new splitboard is tough as nails and struggles a bit with the choppy waves of Punta Chame. The wind fluctuations are quite big, but the gusts are manageable. An Austrian freak goes out with 65kg at almost 25 knots with 12m² and makes gigantic jumps in front of the setting sun. Behind me in the distance, under the rising full moon, ocean liners queue up in front of the Panama Canal.