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WARNING: the following blog post and pictures may make you sick…
Our cushy time in Panama City came to an end with David dropping us off at the bus terminal, where we said goodbye and then stocked up on some onward travel essentials (money, anti-seasickness pills and snacks) in preparation for our sailing trip to Colombia.
Our next stop was Puerto Lindo, a sleepy little fishing village on the Caribbean coast and where we would spend a couple of nights before embarking on our sailing trip. The last bit of the journey to Puerto Lindo was along a pretty coastal road, surrounded by very tropical scenery and accompanied of course by the sound of loud salsa music blaring from the bus stereo. While nearing Puerto Lindo, the bus driver spotted an iguana on the other side of the road and immediately stopped to go and get it, to much excited chatter from the locals sitting around us. The bus driver's assistant then held on to this iguana as the bus carried on, and we weren't really sure what they intended to do with it until someone behind us explained that around these parts, people eat them...that and the tropical setting made it seem like we were a lot more than just a few hours away from Panama City!
The next couple of days were spent mostly either in a hammock at our hostel, or at Hans' Place - this was about the only cafe or restaurant in Puerto Lindo, and its customers were a mix of sailors and captains, locals and foreigners waiting for their boat to leave, or food, or both. Dutch Hans was an excellent cook but ran a one-man kitchen as he liked to cook each dish individually as the orders came in, so we soon learnt it was wise to try and time your visit there about two hours before you thought you would be hungry. It was certainly worth the wait as we had some of the best meals in Central America there: a delicious octopus dish, tuna fish fingers etc...YUM.
It was also here that we met up with George, the captain of 'Cool Runnings' - not a Jamaican bobsleigh, but a 43-foot sailing yacht which would be our transport and home for five days while we sailed from Panama to Cartagena in Colombia. This is a popular mode of transport for time-rich, money-poor backpackers to get between both countries, as the overland route is not really a route but just dense, impassable jungle, and why go by plane when you can sail for five days?! We only had the minor concern that the last two days of the trip are less about sailing and more about motoring through (some might say battling) extremely treacherous waters and although we had been warned - by an ex-US coast guard living in Panama City - that this was the worst time of year to do this trip, and therefore inadvisable, we felt well-prepared with our pills and salty crackers…besides, after the tumultuous boat trip in Indonesia, how could this be worse?
The other main incentive of this trip was that we got to spend the first three days sailing through the absolute gorgeous San Blas islands.....I now think that the definition of paradise should have a picture of these islands next to it. These islands are really something else: mostly deserted white sand beaches, with the clearest and most turquoise water I have ever seen, fringed by swaying palm trees, and offering wonderful snorkelling. There are almost 400 islands altogether, so we pretty much had them to ourselves, along with our other boat companions. As well as passing some dolphins on the way, while snorkelling in the crystal clear waters we also saw loads of starfish, turtles, some generally very pretty fish, and the BIGGEST sting ray I have ever seen, just sleeping on the sea bed as we floated above, our eyes wide through our snorkelling masks at the sheer size of it.
The islands are hometo the indigenous Kuna people, the first group in Latin America to gain indigenous autonomy. Dressed in their distinctive, traditional clothing the Kuna inhabit around 40 of the islands, peddling their very beautiful textiles ('molas') on the islands to visiting boat passengers, and paddling in canoe from boat to boat selling their handicrafts, as well as freshly-caught fish and seafood. The origins of the Kuna are strongly debated, though oral tradition has it that they migrated to San Blas from Colombia after the 16th century, following clashes with other tribes armed with poison-dart blowguns.
Our hosts, George and his girlfriend Sandra, were both Austrian and what they sometimes lacked in warm hospitality, they made up for with amazing food: we were treated to great breakfasts with loads of fresh fruit, French onion soup and seafood salads for lunch, hearty Austrian casseroles for dinner. George could be quite grumpy at times but we put that down to the fact that he has done this sailing trip too many times (150+) and they weren't really enjoying it any more....it sounds like an idyllic job but I think sailing /maintaining the boat / cooking these wonderful meals for their guests is very hard work! Most of the time he didn't seem to mind us too much though and when he was in a good mood he was full of interesting stories about his time on the seas and doing this crossing....about the Kuna people and other boat captains who he claimed were all high on cocaine and/or drug smugglers; about doing a crossing north of Venezuela where he had to battle 16-metre waves crashing on him and the boat; about having to rescue other boats and backpackers from getting shipwrecked at sea due to their drug-fuelled captains etc.
We were just five passengers on the boat, Simon and myself plus three others who were travelling separately, who were mostly entertaining, sometimes annoying…There was English Alfie, the K.I.A.E.N (knows-it-all, experienced-nothing) accountant in his early-20s, who came out with such gems like: "Oh you're going to Africa? Well Ethiopia is the best place to go now....no I haven't been." "Well if you like white-water rafting then of course the Zambezi is the ONLY place to do it....no I've not done it." "I definitely won't be seasick, my grandpa is ex-navy and I basically grew up on catamarans." (We so wished he was seasick). Then Australian Stacee: "Everyone says that this sailing trip is the highlight of their trip but I've done way too many cool things already for this to be the highlight". And then German Alinda who seemed very sweet but literally said hardly anything the whole trip...we couldn't work out if she was loving the trip, or hating it, or maybe just couldn't be bothered to try and speak over the others! Still, all quite amusing really and when you are in such paradise, who cares… The islands seemed to get more and more beautiful as we sailed on, and the last one on the third day was the most stunning of all. I am just glad that I am behind in my blog writing so that those in the UK are not reading this and seeing our photos just after the wettest January on record…
As for the dreaded two-day crossing from the San Blas islands to Cartagena, well it wasn't so bad after all…or maybe it had been so hyped up that we were really expecting far worse. We'd had a little taste of what was to come a few hours after sailing out of Puerto Lindo on the first day, when out to sea the 2m waves had us already reaching for our seasickness pills. By George's face we could tell he was thinking 'you ain't seen nothing yet you pathetic landlubbers…', and despite the fact that he told us afterwards that the crossing with us was the second worst he had experienced, we seemed to survive with relatively little toilet-hugging, thanks to a mixture of the pills/staring at the horizon obsessively/sleeping through it in our cabin. Stacee went very green pretty early on and when she and Alinda retired to their cabin a few hours in, we didn't seem them until 36 hours later when we arrived in Cartagena. I managed a few hours up on deck, Simon a few more, and he was rewarded with a podof around 20 dolphins playfully swimming alongside the boat. Alfie was of course fine throughout (literally, "I am so fine with this") however we couldn't help but laugh when we found out he had got showered in pasta and other foodstuffs while sleeping in the boat's kitchen area, whenever an unsecured-saucepan fell on him. I am sure normally meticulous George might have had something to do with that…
It was with a huge sigh of relief (probably more for George and Sandra who actually had to stay awake for almost 40 hours to battle the5m waves constantly crashing over them) when we motored into the port of Cartagena about 6am, on blissfully still waters, our insides definitely shaken and probably a little bit stirred. The surprisingly modern skyline of the newer part of Cartagena toweredin front of us, and queasy stomachs aside it was definitely an amazing way to enter Colombia, and South America.
- comments
Hannah Dolphins!!! Amazing. And there was me thinking Alfie and Stacee were going to hook up, they sounded perfect for each other. Miss you xx
Jenny Loving Alfie's food shower - that made me laugh out loud! xx