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.