The two milk brothers and friends ate at the port, then passed the night in a cheap inn where travelers made themselves as comfortable as possible on pallets on the floor. By paying double, they were entitled to hammocks covered with filthy mosquito nets, where they were more or less safe from rats and cockroaches. The next day they started across the mountains toward Cruces on a good cobbled road the width of two mules, which with their characteristic lack of invention regarding names, the Spanish called the Camino Real. In the high country the air was not as heavy and humid as at sea level, and the view of the countryside below was a true paradise. Against the unbroken green of the jungle, richly colored butterflies and jewel-bright birds flashed like magical brush strokes The natives were extremely decent; instead of taking advantage of the two young travelers, which they had a reputation for doing, they offered them fish with fried plantain and put them up in a hut that was crawling with vermin but at least offered protection from the torrential rains. The boys were advised to stay away from tarantulas and the green toads that spit in the eyes of the unwary, blinding them. They were also warned of a variety of nut that burns the enamel off teeth and produces lethal stomach cramps.
In some stretches the Chagres River was a dense swamp, but in others the water was crystal clear. River passengers were transported in canoes or flat boats with a capacity of eight or ten passengers along with their baggage. Diego and Bernardo had to wait a whole day, until there were enough people to fill a boat. They wanted to take a dip in the river to cool off the blazing heat had stunned the snakes and silenced the monkeys but as soon as they put a toe in the water, the caimans that had been dozing beneath the surface, blending into the slime, came to life. The boys beat a quick retreat, accompanied by the hoots of the natives. Neither of them dared drink the water their amiable hosts offered it was green with tadpoles they simply bore their thirst until other passengers, rough merchants and adventurers, shared their bottles of wine and beer. The boys accepted so eagerly and drank with such gusto that afterward neither of them could remember that part of the trip, except for the strange way the natives had of navigating the river. Six men equipped with long poles were stationed on two long narrow catwalks on either side of the boat. Facing the bow, they buried the tips of the poles in the riverbed and then pushed with all their might to move the boat forward. Because of the infernal heat, they were entirely naked. The trip took about eighteen hours, which Diego and Bernardo passed in a state of anesthetized hallucination, spreadeagled on their backs beneath a canvas protecting them from a merciless sun. When they reached their destination, the other travelers, elbowing each other and laughing, had to push them off the boat. That was how, in the twelve leagues between the mouth of the river and the city of Portobelo, they lost the trunk containing most of the princely wardrobe Alejandro de la Vega had acquired for his son. It was actually a lucky stroke, because the latest European fashions had not as yet reached California. Diego’s clothing was frankly laughable.
Portobelo, founded in 1500 on the Gulf of Darien, was an essential city; treasures going to Spain were shipped from there, and merchandise from Europe was received. In the opinion of the captains of the time, it was the most efficient and secure port in the Indies, defended by several forts in addition to barriers of coral reefs. The Spanish constructed the forts with coral mined from the depths of the sea, workable when it was still wet, but so resistant when it dried that cannonballs scarcely made a dent in it. Once a year, when the Royal Treasure Fleet arrived, there was a fair that lasted forty days; at that time the population grew by thousands and thousands of visitors.
Diego and Bernardo had heard that in the Casa Real del Tesoro, gold bars were stacked up like firewood, but they were in for a disappointment: the city had declined in recent years, partly because of attacks by pirates, but most of all because the American colonies were not as profitable for Spain as they had been. The city’s wood and stone dwellings were discolored by rain, the public buildings and storehouses were overgrown with weeds, and the forts languished in an eternal siesta. Despite all that, there were several ships in the port and swarms of slaves loading precious metals, cotton, tobacco, and chocolate, as well as unloading crates for the colonies. Among the vessels was the Madre de Dios, “Mother of God,” on which Diego and Bernardo would cross the Atlantic. That ship, constructed fifty years before but still in excellent condition, was a three-masted square-rigger, larger, slower, and heavier than the schooner Santa Lucia, and better suited for ocean travel. Her crowning glory was a spectacular figurehead in the form of a siren. Sailors believed that bare breasts calmed the sea, and those of this marvel were voluptuous.
The captain, Santiago de Leon, appeared to be a man of unique personality. He was short and wiry, with carved features in a face weathered by many seas. He limped, owing to a clumsy operation to remove a musket ball from his left leg; the surgeon had not been able to extract it, and the attempt had left the captain crippled and in pain for the rest of his days. The man was not given to complaining; he gritted his teeth, dosed himself with laudanum, and found distraction in his collection of fabulous maps. These charts pinpointed the places that voyagers tried to locate for centuries, with little success, like El Dorado, the city of pure gold; Atlantis, the sunken continent whose inhabitants are human but have gills like fish; the mysterious islands of Luquebaralideaux in the Mer Sauvage, populated by enormous boneless sausages with sharp teeth that move in herds and feed on the mustard that flows in the streams and is said to cure even the worst wounds. The captain entertained himself by copying the maps and adding sites of his own invention, with detailed descriptions, then selling them for a king’s ransom to antique dealers in London. He was not deceiving anyone; he always signed them in his own hand and added a mysterious phrase that anyone in the know would recognize: “A numbered work from the Encyclopedia of Desires, complete version.” By Friday the cargo was on board, but the Madre de Dios did not set sail because Christ had died on a Friday. That was a bad day to begin a voyage. On Saturday the forty-man crew refused to leave port because a redheaded man had walked by them on the dock and a dead pelican had dropped onto the ship’s bridge two ominous signs. Finally on Sunday, Santiago de Leon got his men to unfurl the sails. The only passengers were Diego, Bernardo, an auditor returning from Mexico to his own country, and his whiney, ugly thirty-year-old daughter. This senorita fell in love with each and every one of the rough sailors, but they fled from her as if from the devil; everyone knows that virtuous women on board ship attract bad weather and other calamities. The men reached the conclusion that her virtue was the result of lack of opportunity, not her nature. The auditor and his daughter shared a tiny stateroom, but Diego and Bernardo, like the crew, slept in hammocks strung in the foul-smelling mess deck of the ship. The captain’s cabin on the quarterdeck served as office, command center, dining room, and game room for officers and passengers. The door and the furniture folded for convenience, like most things on board, where space was the greatest luxury. During their several weeks at sea, the boys did not have an instant of privacy; the most basic functions were performed on a bucket in full view of everyone, if the seas were running high, or if calm, perched on a board projecting out over the water and fitted with a hole. No one knew how the modest daughter of the auditor managed, because no one ever saw her empty a chamber pot.