Day 162 - The bus was early?

Liberia (Costa Rica) to Granada (Nicaragua)

We were told to be at the bus station in Liberia by 9am for the bus that was due to get there from San Jose at 9:30, we walked down and fortunately were early, as the bus arrived at 9:15 - that was a first, an early bus!

We are used to the Tica buses now as they are a pretty comfortable way to travel, and it wasn't long before we approached the border with Nicaragua. Just before the border we saw lots of tents on the side of the road, many of them made out of garbage bags, we were later told they are Cubans trying the get to the US but they get stuck at this border. The exit from Costa Rica and the entry to Nicaragua was fairly painless, we took the advice from someone in the queue and paid our exit tax from Costa Rica before we went to immigration, but there was a young American guy doing his first ever overland border crossing who decided not to take the advice, needless to say he had problems, not the least of which was the ATM eating his card when he tried to get money, so the bus was kept waiting for while.

We'd never get these souvenirs through Customs

We arrived in Granada around 2pm so a pretty easy trip compared to some we have made. We went up to the main square for a late lunch of bocas (tapas) before walking down to the lake and the malecon along the waterfront. This area was full of families enjoying their Sunday afternoon, though the place was looking a little rundown, and the long pier was closed for some reason. Overall the town is very colourful and colonial with lots of bright horse drawn carriages, which are also used by the locals for transport.

Granada has a a great street that was closed to traffic and lined with bars and restaurants, with many more people sitting outside enjoying Sunday afternoon food and drinks - definitely a Spanish feel to this area.

We met Trina from our San Blas boat trip for dinner, she had taken a volunteering position at a local hostel for four weeks. Free (shared) accommodation in exchange for 20 hours work a week - we thought the hostel was doing pretty well out of that, but it is a good way to save money.

Day 158 to 161 - Beach bums

Playa del Coco / Liberia

Day 158

We decided to check out some of the beaches in the area north of Playa del Coco, so we first drove to Playa Hermosa. This was a lovely beach and much quieter than Coco. There were a couple of options for lunch on the beach, we went with the recommendation of the old man who looked after parking, who told us the best food was "150m on our left".

After lunch we drove to Playa Panama, this area had lots of upmarket houses on the nearby hills and seemed geared more towards residences and holiday homes, so it was a quiet and not so touristy beach.

Day 159

We drove to the nearby city of Liberia to buy bus tickets to take us to Granada in Nicaragua in a couple of days time. We were surprised though when we were told there weren't any spots available for the day we wanted (Saturday), or for Friday either. Up to now we've always been able to buy tickets on the same day or the day before, so it was unusual to find a bus that was fully booked. We had no option but to extend our stay by another day, though we couldn't extend where we were staying, and we also had to return our rental car. We ended up booking a hotel in Liberia, that way we could drop off the car and be close to the bus terminal for the 9:30am departure on Sunday.

We spent the rest of the day swimming at Playa Hermosa and sipping happy hour cocktails.





Day 160

More beaches today, this time heading south from Playa del Coco. Playa Ocotal was a quiet beach in a lovely bay with patches of black volcanic sand, we spent the morning swimming there followed of course by lunch on the beach.

After lunch we drove onto Playa Matapalo. Here we found the massive 700 room all inclusive Riu resort on 380 hectares. We decided to try and enter from the beach and surprisingly there wasn't any security. We wandered around the many swimming pools and also watched a beach wedding. It was tempting to use the pool and try to order a drink, but the place is all-inclusive, and as we weren't wearing a white wrist band like everyone else was we didn't like our chances.

We made it back to Coco in thunder and lightning, just getting in the door before a tropical rainstorm hit. It lasted a couple of hours and was very heavy for a while, that still didn't stop us heading down the street for more happy hour pina coladas.

Day 161

It was a shame we had to return the hire car today, as we have enjoyed the freedom of being able to drive anywhere, especially after months of catching buses. It's always a relief though to get the car back without any problems, especially when we don't usually take the expensive insurance option, though in Costa Rica there is a minimal level of mandatory insurance.

After dropping the car off we took the local bus in to Liberia, and lazed around the hotel all day, the weather was overcast and rainy but we still took advantage of the pool. We walked into town and scoped out the location of the bus terminal then had dinner, goodbye Costa Rica and back to bus travel again, next stop Nicaragua.

Day 157 - Bounced!

Montezuma to Playa del Coco

We were moving on to Playa del Coco in the Guanacaste area of Costa Rica, so we decided to go via Tamarindo for lunch. We put the destination into Google maps and started following the route it suggested. The road was in pretty bad shape, worse than the one we were on yesterday, we had to cross a few creeks along the way, so we were pleased we had hired a 4WD. It took us almost two hours to reach a sealed road, and we'd only covered about 60km by then.

It's deeper than it looks!

We arrived at Tamarindo around lunch time, we were a bit surprised to see that it larger and busy compared to the more laid back places we'd been in, and it was also very hot. We wanted to have lunch near the water so we walked down to the beach and found a place, but after waiting a while for someone to take our order we gave up and moved on. We tried to get back to the main road through an expensive and pretentious looking hotel complex, we were having trouble finding a route between the buildings when a security guard decided to stop us. We walked back and tried another way, we were almost at the front of the building when the same guard stopped us again, he wasn't going to let us through! He called for backup on his radio so we headed back to the beach - another first for us this holiday, we have been thrown out of somewhere, and it was really quite petty as we were so close we could see the road and what harm were we doing?

We gave up on the beach lunch, M settled for an ice cream while K bought a chicken skewer from a roadside stand. We resumed our journey, with not the best impression of Tamarindo, we're glad we didn't stay there.

We arrived at our airbnb a couple of kms from Playa del Coco, then drove into town. The place was much more to our liking, it seemed pretty casual, lots of fun places for happy hour and a nice beach as well.

Day 155 to 156 - While we were reading they were raiding!

Montezuma

Day 155

There's a lovely view of the beach from the house so we headed down to the village to grab some breakfast and check out the place. The town has a lovely laid back vibe to it which combined with the great house we're staying makes us regret slightly that we've already paid for our next booking, we could easily spend more time here.

We had a long swim in the ocean and spent the afternoon relaxing in beautiful, peaceful surroundings, watching the capuchin monkeys playing just near our balcony, stripping and eating mangoes hanging in the trees.

Day 156

Today we decided we to explore the surrounding area, as there are supposed to be some very nice beaches and beach towns not too far away. The roads are all in pretty bad condition, all dirt, lots of ruts and bumps, but maybe that helps to keep tourist numbers down.

We drove through Mel Pais and then stopped at Santa Teresa for a nice coffee and cake at a bakery with incredibly rude staff, before taking a walk along the beach. Based on our extensive survey of the area (all of about 30 minutes) we decided we preferred Montezuma, where even the ferals selling trinkets on the street have a little bit of charm and are quite friendly.

It wasn't me!

After some heavy relaxing back in the hammock on our veranda we could hear some monkey business nearby. We watched the monkeys scrambling around the veranda and the trees while we tried to work out what they were eating, it looked like peanuts. Then K spotted one monkey running along the wall with her peanut packet in his hands, the monkeys had snuck into the kitchen downstairs and taken the plastic container containing the packet from the kitchen bench. There also seemed to be a packet of noodles missing, confirmed when we found the empty packet lying on the ground, and not far away was the empty packet of chicken flavouring. We had thought it was strange that there were so many monkeys around .... now we know why, it was a coordinated raid!

Day 154 - Relaxed queuing

Monteverde to Montezuma

Our time in the mountains had come to an end so we spent the morning driving to Punta Arenas, where we were to catch the ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya. We planned to catch the 2pm ferry, but as we arrived around 11:30 we thought we had plenty of time to check out the town and get some lunch.

First thing we needed to do though was to check to make sure the ferry time was correct - lucky we did, because there was already a long line of cars all the way along the esplanade waiting to board. We had to drive around again to find the end of the queue a long way back, and it was very hot by this time as well.

The ticketing system is unusual, drivers have to wait for a staff member to come to your car and give you a laminated card, only then can you go to the ticket office to buy your ticket. Then once you have your ticket, you need to wait near your car until it's time to move.

Queuing for the ferry (that's our car)

We were fairly lucky that our part of the queue was across the road from quite a nice restaurant/pub where we could cool down with a drink while keeping watching on the car. Enterprising locals were serving food and drink along the way, so lunch was some quite nice pork kebabs with tortillas cooked on a barbeque on the footpath.

We had our ferry tickets and were in the pub finishing our drinks around 12:45pm when we saw the car line starting to move, so M sprinted to the car to drive it on to the ferry, while K sorted out the bill and met him at the entrance of the boat.

The hour or so trip on the pretty packed ferry to Paquera on the Nicoya Peninsula was very pleasant, and from there we drove to the small beach town of Montezuma and checked into our house on the hill overlooking the beach.

The house we had booked ended up having three bedrooms with a huge upstairs veranda, with plenty of comfy chairs and a hammock, as well as a great kitchen and eating area downstairs. The house was similar in style to what we'd call a Queenslander back home.

Day 152 to 153 - Our head in the clouds

Monteverde

Day 152

The Monteverde area is known for its cloud forest and rain so we expected cooler wet conditions, instead we woke to a lovely blue sky. We jumped in the car and drove for about 20 minutes to the mirador at the end of the road, it was such a beautiful day we could see across Lake Arenal to the volcano on the other side.

Next was Selvatura Park where we signed up for two hours of zip lining. There were twelve zip lines of various lengths flying over the forest canopy. We got the hang of it pretty quickly, and were experts by the time we reached the last few ziplines. Just before the end was the Tarzan swing, where we were dropped from a platform with a brief free fall to swing on a long rope, followed by the final 1km zipline, where M tried out the "superman" harness, meaning he was able to fly along horizontally. Overall it was all excellent fun and well worth doing.

From there we drove to Monteverde to the Hummingbird  Cafe, where we could see lots of hummingbirds drinking out of hanging containers. They are incredibly small attractive birds in different colours and sizes and watching them hover was really interesting.

After lunch and more sightseeing we went on a chocolate tour where we were taken though the process and tasting of chocolate from the cocoa bean through to the finished product, all very interesting.

There was a small wholefoods shop in Monteverde where we managed to buy some Thai red curry paste and coconut milk, so we had quite a tasty dinner.


Day 153

Back to the Hummingbird Cafe for breakfast, we were surprised at how many people were there, yesterday afternoon it was empty. Many of the people had guides, not sure why they were needed, it's pretty hard to miss the hummingbirds as they are there right in front of you!

There are a few cloud forests to visit in the area but as were so close to the Monteverde Cloud Reserve we decided to visit this one. We paid our entry fee (US$20 each) and hiked for an hour up to the mirador where the view was obscured by lots of cloud. We walked back via the hanging bridge, the weather is so quickly changeable that we crossed the bridge in thick cloud, turned around to go back and it was clear! As this is the cloud forest of course the weather couldn't last and we were caught in some pretty heavy rain on our way back to the entrance.

And that's why the call it a cloud forest

From there we stopped briefly at the Quaker Cheese Factory which had a viewing window where we could watch the back breaking work of dragging the curd up to the sides of the long troughs.

The roads are up this way are generally unpaved and incredibly rutted, real bone shakers. Our hire car was a 4WD (which we got mainly for the ground clearance, knowing the roads weren't great), but the ride was made a little more uncomfortable as we were continually stuck behind other tourists who drove way too slow, they didn't seem to realise that the slower you go the worse the bumps can be!

Day 151 - Crocs

Quepos to Monteverde

Time to move on today so we hired a car and headed for the hills. Along the way we stopped at the seaside town of Jaco before reaching the bridge over the Tarcoles river, a place we had read that we should stop at. This is one of the advantages of renting a car, if we'd been on the bus we would have have missed the amazing sight of more than thirty crocodile under the bridge basking in the sun (and probably many more under the water). One of the locals there told us that this was a slow day - there can be over a hundred at times, and this is said to be one of the most heavily populated crocodile areas in the world.

We continued on into the mountains, eventually leaving the bitumen for a pretty rough dirt road. After enduring the rough ride we finally reached the small town of Santa Elena, where we checked in to our "rustic" country cottage home for the next three nights.

Day 148 to 150 - Tico Tico

Quepos

Day 148

We hopped on the bus this morning to go to Playa Espadilla, the beach just outside the entrance to Manuel Antonio National Park. The town was small but quite busy with restaurants across from the beach. The beach was quite rocky and strewn with junk and rubbish, not that appealing to us but there were plenty of people (including lots of Americans) settled on the beach and swimming in the water.

After checking out the area we hopped back onto the bus and went all the way back in to Quepos and walked down to check out the new marina. The marina was very modern but seemed to be a bit of a white elephant, it was quiet, with expensive restaurants and almost no one eating at them.

Another bus ride, this time to Cafe Milagro for coffee and cake, then to a bar across the road with great views of the ocean while we waited for the bus. The landscape is not only tropical but with plenty of jungle and very attractive.

We were expecting it to rain in the afternoon as it had yesterday. The rain finally came around 7pm, and from there it continued heavily through the night.

Day 149

The rain continued through the morning and into the afternoon - possibly the most rain either of us had ever seen. The national park was closed on Mondays, so we had planned to visit a few rental car agencies as we intended to drive from Quepos. We tried to wait out the rain but eventually picked up our umbrellas that we'd bought in David and headed into the rain and onto the bus. We visited a couple of agencies in Quepos, but neither of them could match the price we'd already found online.

Day 150

Today we awoke to sunshine, it looked like the storm from yesterday had rained itself out. Another bus ride, this time to visit Manuel Antonio National Park - along with everyone else in town it seemed. The queue for buying tickets was fairly long in the hot sun but we eventually we made it into the park.

Lots of people had paid for guides to spot animals for them but it was pretty easy to see animals without a guide since the guides all spoke loudly to their groups and everybody stopped to stare. We saw a sloth in the distance as well as a pair of coati doing the sort of things that animals do. The park can only by accessed by walking so we visited a couple of beaches. M walked to one of the high viewing points, seeing monkeys along the way, before we headed back out, seeing the same sloth that we had seen earlier but in a closer, slightly different place, that's a big move for a sloth in only a few hours. Just outside the park we saw more squirrel monkeys running along the phone lines - more than we'd seen inside the park.

On the way back we stopped off at the El Avion restaurant, which is built around the body of an old plane. Once again the views were lovely overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Costa Rica is very beautiful even if everything in the tourist areas is expensive compared to the rest of central and southern America.

Back at our airbnb we went for a swim in the pool, while a group of squirrel monkeys played overhead, running along ropes and jumping from tree to tree.

We headed out later on for a drink and dinner, just making it in time for happy hour as the sun set.

Day 147 - "Abandoned" in the rain

David (Panama) to Quepos (Costa Rica)

We arrived at the bus station in David at 8am to buy our ticket to Quepos and met Trina there, she was going all the way to San Jose. The border crossing leaving Panama was quite strange as they inspected our bags - first with a sniffer dog, then by getting us to open them up - since when do you need to have your luggage inspected when leaving the country?

We saw a couple entering Panama who were dressed in very old fashioned clothes, K later read that a group of Quakers had settled in Costa Rica in 1951 to escape conscription for to the Korean War - they obviously liked it so much they decided to stay.

After the Panama border formalities we walked across to the Costa Rican side, dragging our bags from the bus and getting them checked again, this time though we were just waved through - we also didn't need to show our "proof" of onward travel - that's the second travel document in a row that we've faked and didn't get to show!

After a lunch stop at Uvita we drove into a heavy rainstorm right at the time the bus dropped off at a petrol station on the highway outside Quepos. We said our goodbyes to Trina, its unlikely we will cross paths again on this trip.

Bye ....

We stood stranded in the pouring rain wondering how we were going to get to our accommodation (we were told to just wait for a taxi to come past) when a man in a tourist van filling up with petrol said he was heading our way and he could drop us off.

A short while later we arrived at a nice little studio apartment on the main road between Quepos and the Manuel Antonio National Park. After settling in we took the bus into Quepos to do some shopping. There was a bit more variety in the supermarkets, with a lot of imported goods from the USA available, though with USA prices too.

After dinner our great airbnb host Eugene gave us some coconut pie that he'd bought from the Quakers at the weekly farmers' market - our second Quaker encounter of the day!

Day 146 - Freezer bus

Panama City to David

A bus trip through Panama today to the city of David for an overnight stop before pushing on to Costa Rica. It was a comfortable, newish bus but for some reason the air conditioning was turned all the way up, meaning we ended up freezing - last time we get on a bus without a jacket!

We arrived into David around 5pm and in the middle of a rainstorm, the hazards of travelling during rainy season! By the time we checked into our hostel and went for a walk to the town square it was dark and the rain had settled. The town square wasn't that interesting, a bit dark, grotty and unappealing, however we did find a shop that would print the onward travel document (which M had "faked" from an old plane ticket) that we needed to enter Costa Rica.

While investigating the bus route we were taking into Costa Rica the next day we discovered that the bus to San Jose goes via Quepos, which is one of the places we had planned to visit, so we changed our accommodation plans and decided we'd give San Jose a skip.

Day 145 - Planning day

Panama City

Today was a bit rainy and we had pretty much seen what we wanted to in Panama City yesterday, so we spent most of the day doing some planning for our next country, Costa Rica. 

We ended up eating dinner at an Indian restaurant not far from our hotel, continuing our tradition of eating Indian food in unlikely countries! It was very tasty with huge portions, although the price was on the high side, especially the rice, apparently basmati rice is very expensive in Central America.

Day 144 - A man a plan a canal - Panama

Panama City

We jumped in a taxi to the old city, and on the way in we spotted Trina from our boat trip walking along the road. We stopped and picked her up, then once we reached the old centre we found a nice place for a coffee before visiting the Canal museum.

We'd read good things about the museum but for us it was a little long and dry, though still interesting. We then wandered the streets of the old city in the rain (we should probably invest in some umbrellas if we're to visit Central America in the wet season). The old town had some great old buildings, many of them still being restored, so it will look even better in a few years.

After lunch we caught an Uber to the Miraflores Locks to see the ships going through the canal. We hadn't used Uber at all before this trip, but in places like Panama City where you never know whether you're paying the "gringo tax" it gives you one less thing to be worried about, even if it is a little more expensive than the "real" rate (which you hardly ever get anyway).

At the Locks we watched from the viewing platform as they were filled and emptied so ships could move to between different water levels on their way through the canal. The reason for the different levels is that the canal makes use of mountain lakes, which are higher than sea level.

We caught the local bus back to the central bus station, then a taxi from there to our hotel - we should have used Uber there as well, since the taxi driver made an obvious attempt to overcharge us, we ended up giving him less than he asked, but we're sure it was still way too much!

Day 143 - Immigration blues

Panama City

The plans were for us to move on at first light about 5am to head to Puerto Lindo for immigration into Panama. We were woken during the night to a storm overhead, so we quickly closed our hatch and went back to sleep.

Around daybreak we were woken by the engine being started, so we took our sea sickness pills and went back to sleep, hoping that we would miss most of the rough seas we were expecting. We woke a little later around 7am to no engine running, and a quick look showed that we hadn't moved since last night. There was a problem with the transmission so we weren't going anywhere. Poor Mike was shaking as he told us, he was worried we would all be upset with him, but we we were quite happy to be stranded for another day on the beautiful San Blas Islands!

Mike made some calls and arranged for us to be picked up by a Kuna speed boat and taken to El Porvenir, the "capital" of San Blas where we could clear customs and immigration into Panama. At El Porvenir we were told to wait on the boat while our paperwork was processed as Mike had phoned ahead and it was all arranged. After waiting about an hour Mike came to collect us from the speedboat, explaining that the person who had to give the final OK was now "unavailable" - all very strange since he'd already been told it was all fine.

Finally after a nice fish lunch we had our passports with Panama stamps. Interestingly there was no request for proof of onward travel which we had read was a requirement, so all that work M did to forge a realistic plane ticket had been wasted!

Onto the speedboat again, and after a while we reached the coast, where we travelled  a short distance up a narrow river (feeling a little like drug smugglers) to a small jetty, where a 4WD was waiting to take us to Panama City. The road through the mountains from the port at Carti (complete with police stops) was probably the worst paved road we've ever been on, very winding and steep in sections, with potholes everywhere, but we finally made it into Panama City in torrential rain.

We hadn't booked accommodation as we knew there were so many variables on the boat trip that we might not arrive on time. We were dropped off at our first choice of hotel only to find that they were booked out, we must have looked a sight after all the time on the yacht without a shower as the staff asked "have you just arrived from San Blas?"

We ended up checking into another hotel just down the road, where we were able to shower and get into some clean clothes ... bliss!  The trip to San Blas was a great experience, but five nights was probably enough for us.

Day 142 - Stormy weather

San Blas Islands

A little cramped

We woke up to stormy weather, with a bit of rain lashing the boat. As a result Mike had to change our plans, and directed the boat away from the storm. We were able to escape the worst of it and ended up at another quite busy island, this one was quite large and had a restaurant/bar, which is where Mike cooked us lunch.

We settled in for yet another afternoon of swimming and reading, though the weather wasn't quite as nice as the previous couple of days. K had mentioned to Mike at one point that she had expected we would have eaten more seafood, so that evening Mike surprised her with some more lobster after we thought dinner was over.

We reluctantly headed back to the yacht after dinner for our last night at sea.

Day 141 - La cerveza está caliente

San Blas Islands

This morning the winds were up so we were able to do some sailing, it was a real treat after using the motor to get around, though the yacht was at quite an angle for most of the trip, making it a little uncomfortable at times.

We ended up at quite a busy island, lots of yachts anchored nearby, along with a number of motorised boats that we guessed were being used for day trips. While we swam and relaxed on the beach, Mike prepared a barbeque lunch. We stayed on the island until dinner, where we had part two of our barbeque - lunch was chicken, dinner was meat.

We'd been told that there was a bar on a nearby island, so after dinner we all hopped into the dinghy and were taken across. There weren't any lights on when we arrived but two guys in hammocks informed us that "la cerveza está caliente". As no one felt like warm beer and they didn't seem to want our money anyway we headed back to the yacht. It was a pleasant night with the sea being calm and a nice breeze into our cabin through the propped up hatch.

Day 140 - Lobster dinner

San Blas Islands

We woke up to a slightly calmer sea with islands in the distance, and toasted ham and cheese rolls for breakfast - our appetites were returning. We had made it across, and according to Mike the roughness level of our crossing was about medium. We learnt that Mike is also affected by sea sickness and needed medication, so it made us feel better knowing that even the captain gets seasick.

Once the anchor was dropped we jumped in and swam to our first San Blas island, this one was uninhabited. We walked around the island, on the way we met a man who was cleaning up the beach, he lived with his wife on a yacht anchored not far off the island and had been here around 10 years. He spends part of his day gathering and burning the accumulated rubbish. The amount of rubbish washed up was quite surprising and we were even more shocked when we were told the local Kuna people who own the islands are the worst culprits when it comes to the dumping of rubbish.

Back on board lunch was waiting, while we were relaxing some locals came by in a canoe to try sell us lobster but Mike decided they were too small. After lunch we sailed on to another island near a small reef (there are 365 San Blas islands in all). We tried to snorkel but here the current was quite strong, so we made our way to shore and lounged on the beach, sipping drinks out of coconuts. This was our final stop for the day, so we had dinner on shore. Mike had been a chef in Italy, and using the Kuna kitchen he had prepared some lovely lobster and fish.

Day 139 - Not much happening here

Somewhere in the Caribbean (Panama)

After a pretty rough night, we awoke to a rough day of crossing the open sea to get to the San Blas Islands. The sea was choppy and the yacht was moving continually, forward to back, side to side. Doing everything was an effort, especially going to the toilet - everything was kind of OK until you had to concentrate on something, at which point the queasiness would start.

Captain Mike

We dragged ourselves outside for a bit of breakfast before heading back to lie down again, then again for lunch. The other Aussie on the trip, Trina was doing it rough and spent the whole crossing (night and day) just lying down outside. We had a window above our cabin, though the dinghy was tied over the top of it. This ended up working well for us as normally it wouldn't be possible to have the window open as water would get in, but the dinghy worked as a canopy and we were able to prop the window part way open to get some fresh air.

It was like this all day, swapping between sitting outside for a while, then going in and lying down for a while. Dinner was a tasty soup, just what we needed given the condition we were all in. We didn't last long after dinner, even though we'd been dozing all day we still managed to get to sleep pretty quickly, perhaps it was the seasickness tablets.

Day 138 - Setting Sail on the Koala II

Cartagena

We spent our last day in Cartagena preparing for our boat trip to Panama, which meant putting everything we had in plastic bags to go inside our cases, and putting the essentials for the trip into our small backpacks. We decided to be extra cautious - so we had bags within bags within bags - just in case.

We were to meet the captain of our boat Koala II at the marina at 8pm, and fortunately had a a late checkout at 6pm, so we were able to fit in another lazy day before we had to leave. Once at the marina we enjoyed a nice dinner at the restaurant there, while we watched other groups get ready for their trips.

Just before 8pm we were met by Captain Mike and his son Juan, who we followed to our yacht that was moored nearby. Our large bags were stowed, then we were given a brief talk about the two rules we had to follow -  no drugs, and no drinking on the open sea. We were expecting some sort of safety talk as well, but that never happened.

Then on to the allocation of our cabins. The other couple were Swedish, and we were given the choice between the front cabin which had a lot more motion, or the back cabin which had the engine (noisy & hot), and since there was little wind we would be motoring all the way. The other couple jumped in first and chose the back cabin - which worked out well, since we wanted the front cabin.

Mike told us we'd be leaving around 10pm so we had time to go to the supermarket to stock up on supplies. However we ran into him on the footpath a little later and he told us we'd be leaving at 1am ... so we had three more hours to kill! It was very hot on the boat so we spent our time wandering around the marina and chatting with our travelling companions. In addition to the Swedish couple there was an Australian woman, and a younger Swiss girl who we initially thought was a fellow passenger but we later found out was Juan's "friend".

We sat around and shared our travelling war stories, strangely enough the others had also had bad experiences in Ecuador with robbery, and the subsequent poor police behaviour. We finally set sail a little after 1am and it was lovely sitting on the front of the yacht as it headed out of the bay, but once we left protected waters it quickly started getting rough so we all took sea sickness tablets and headed to bed.

Day 131 to 137 - Slowing right down

Cartagena

Cartagena is our last stop in South America - next stop Panama. You can get to Panama by air, sea or land, however the land crossing through the Darien Gap is known to be difficult and dangerous, and is not recommended (unless you are a drug smuggler). We've decided on the sea option, it doesn't cost that much more than flying, plus we get to spend 5 days and nights sailing the Carribean and visiting the San Blas Islands - it almost sells itself! After doing a bit of research we booked places on the yacht Koala 2, which takes up to seven passengers, and leaves from Cartagena on July 7th,

This means we've had seven or so days to relax and soak up the tropical sun to finish off our travels through South America. Our 41st floor apartment has been great, we've been able to relax on the balcony, or when it gets too hot relax inside in air conditioned comfort. It gets quite hot and humid here during the day, almost too hot to be out at times, but later in the day it cools down and it's quite pleasant walking around at night.

Nice view from "our" pool

The place is full of tourists, mainly Colombians from what we can tell, so the place is generally pretty busy, even early in the morning there are people out there on the beach. One thing we've seen in the evening are the chiva buses. Normally used for transport, here they are also known as "the party bus". These chivas drive around playing music and trying to get people to go on them to take them to a nightclub. However there's a real mix of ages on them, and the people we've seen on the busses don't seem that excited. Apparently taking a trip on one of these is a very Colombian thing to do, but we decided we could do without it -  and from what we've read we think we've made the right decision.

Instant millionaire (it's about $400)

We haven't just been laying around and drinking coffee though (M has been drinking three flat whites a day from the Juan Valdez outlet next door to our building)! Cartagena has a great old town, surrounded by walls, and with some beautiful old buildings. Most gringos seem to stay in the old town area, but we've been staying in Boca Grande, further down the beach in the really touristy section. We ended up getting a taxi into the old town a few times and walking back. A couple of times we needed to visit the company that we purchased the boat trip through, but we did do some sightseeing as well, including an attempt at another free walking tour that we dropped out of after a half hour or so due to boredom ("here's the police station ..... here's a restaurant ....").

We'll be a little sad to leave Colombia, it's been a really interesting and beautiful country, and a good way to finish off the South American part of our trip!