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!

Day 130 - Hot hot hot

Medellin to Cartagena

Another flight, this time from Medellin to Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast. Medellin airport is another one that's way out in the countryside, so the drive to the airport took a while but we had great views of the city as we climbed out of the valley.

We arrived into Cartagena in quite heavy rain and were met at the plane exit with large umbrellas to get us down the steps to the covered walkway - great service. We were straight away hit with the hot steamy temperature, this was different! We arrived at our apartment block still trying to come to grips with the change in weather, we had been asking for hot - and that's what we got!

Our apartment is on the 41st floor right across the road from the beach with of course a fab view. After going for a couple of walks the little we have seen seems to be a cross between the Gold Coast (think lots of development, lots of tourists) and Goa (chairs on the beach, people selling all sorts of stuff).