Last seen on Taboga

RECENTLY, weird engine sounds and excited chatter outside the gates of the heavily fortified compound where I live announced the arrival of the latest purchase of our landlord; a used golf kart which supposedly only needed minor fixing to have it in roadworthy condition again. Golf karts and the so-called mules are the way to go here on Taboga. There are some cars, but they’re helpless creatures on the narrow streets, going slow, never reaching their full potential, looking big and clumsy. Cars are for losers on this island.

I was asked to take a look at the newest addition to the vehicular fleet and opened the engine cover. Some loose tubes, a bit of dirt, a missing air filter, nothing that couldn’t be fixed, I thought. So I took it for a test drive.

These karts, for you city dwellers who are ignorant of those things, don’t work like “normal” cars – they’re much more sophisticated. Turn a key, hit the gas, and the engine automatically comes to life and you’re on your way. Put a knob in the forward position and you’ll go forward. Brake, and the engine stops. Put the knob in reverse and when you push the accelerator again, the engine will fire up but now runs the other way around, moving you backwards. You can go as fast in reverse as you go forward, a concept first pioneered by the Dutch DAF automobiles. Because there’s no windshield, even at low speeds you feel as if you’re racing.

Things looked promising. Down the street, some of the locals just painted two golf karts in gold metallic and fitted them with alloy wheels. There are no places on Taboga where you can buy pink Blackberry covers, so one has to improvise to impress the island girls. The new kart, still factory-white, started smoothly and picked up speed while rolling downhill over the unpaved driveway. Then, things rapidly started to get out of control. The steering only suggested directions to the cart while driving a course that had little to do with my ideas on where to go. The engine and transmission seemed to have only “on” and “off” positions with nothing in between in terms of smooth acceleration or slowing down. The island girls jumped out of the way instead of all over me. Dogs barked. I made it back, sweat gushing from my forehead, before the locals had time to get their machetes.

A closer look under the engine cover only deepened the mystery of how this vehicle worked. Starting it and moving the accelerator did not have any effect on the linkages connected to the carburetor. How did this thing accelerate, then? Was there a secret valve somewhere, an alternative solution to a faulty piece maybe? After all, most of the connecting rods had already been replaced with pieces of steel wire – a clear sign of  third world mechanics at work.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a big fan of simple and old-fashioned mechanics, especially in a country like Panama where the rule is that you can buy sophisticated machinery and then there are no spare parts, and no mechanics who actually know how these things work. For me no electronic engine management, fuel injected computerized outboard engines or any of that stuff. Besides, most old technology is actually more efficient than the newly designed fancy nonsense. In these days of the Prius and other such supposedly efficient cars, engineers have not been able to come up with a car that is AND as simple AND as fuel efficient as the first Citroen 2CV – which was produced in 1949. It went downhill from there. Similarly, aircraft powered by piston engines from the fifties were as fuel efficient as today’s average jet. Most of what is sold in our times as “progress” and “fuel saving technology” is hogwash, designed to boost sales and keep specialized maintenance crews at work. On a Pacific island you want to be hedged against mayhem, against ferries going out of business, storms and failing power plants. So, you keep it simple.

Luckily, getting the golf kart to operate in an acceptable fashion will most likely be no more complicated than jacking the thing up and see what’s really going on in and around the one cylinder engine. It might take a while before we get around to that – nobody is in a hurry here. Meanwhile, I’m having some pink and purple Blackberry covers brought in. As I said; one needs to improvise.