Time to Travel

After a wonderful few days of fun and sun in the San Blas Islands, our official arrival in Panama was a soggy affair. We disembarked in the tiny little town of Portobelo in the pouring rain, which made the tricky business of getting our heavy backpacks on and off the little rubber dingy used to ferry us from the yacht to the shore even more difficult. Our group must have made a hilarious sight – perched on top of our piled-up backpacks, trying our best to make sure they didn’t soaked from the rain above or the waves below as the hopelessly overfilled rubber boat struggled to make any headway on the choppy water. But we made it to land without any of the bags ending up in the bay, and after some ‘interesting’ negotiation between our captain and the very relaxed looking woman in the little room that served as the immigration office, we got our entrance stamps and thus officially entered Panama.

Travelling in such a small country certainly has its advantages – getting all the way from the Caribbean to the capital on the Pacific coast only took us about 4 hours; two on a lovely old, colourfully painted school bus (Bluebird) which took us on a beautiful drive along the beachfront, then another two on a more modern bus with an air-con set to ‘refrigerate’. We arrived in Panama City partially frozen and very tired (the sailing trip was great fun, but completely exhausting!) and took an overpriced taxi to a hostel in the second oldest part of town – Casco Viejo. After a big bowl of pasta and a much-needed shower, we fell into bed and slept away our sailing weariness. The next day, refreshed and relieved of our salt-crust (but still feeling as if the world was rolling on invisible waves), we set out to explore the old part of town (built on a peninsular surrounded by reefs to protect it from attacks after the original city was destroyed by pirates in the 1500s). It is an amazing place - a jumbled mixture of old, crumbling ruins of colonial buildings and beautifully refurbished villas. While locals still inhabit the run-down (but not the falling down) buildings, the refurbished ones have generally been turned into boutique hotels and chic restaurants. The result is a wonderfully eclectic atmosphere combining authentic creole vibes and quiet colonial elegance. And of course there are palm trees everywhere, which makes any city feel relaxed J

The skeletons of old colonial houses crumbling in Casco Viejo

One of the chic promenade restaurants

The remnants of an old church

The impressive sky-line of the new part of the city

Children's murals - 'if you can imagine it , you can do it' :)

One of the many lovely little squares in Casco Viejo

Another lovely square - the vultures love perching up high on the old buildings to get a better view :)

Beautiful old church - sporting a tree as decoration :)

Prefect place for a cool drink or two..

One of the renovated old buildings

Colourful Panama street

Who says you can't make a ruin look good?

More aesthetic ruins - glad we got to see it before everything is renovated and the charm is hidden under glossy paintwork

In addition to wandering around exploring the lanes and alleys of Casco Viejo, we of course also paid a visit to the country’s icon – THE Panama Canal. Despite the quite high entrance fee, we decided to go to the brand new (and very impressive!) visitors’ centre built right on the canal above the Miraflores Lock – and it was certainly worth it! Although some of the displays and presentations were simply blatant advertising for the canal, there was also a lot of interesting information about the history and construction of the canal, as well as the way it actually works. Some interesting points we learnt: 1) The United States expedited Panama’s independence from Colombia in exchange for being allowed to complete the canal 2) More than 20,000 people died building it (mostly due to yellow fever), 3) the only bits that actually look like a ‘canal’ are at the locks on each side – the middle is a huge man-made lake system 4) each cargo ship has to pay an average of 200,000 US dollars IN CASH to pass through the canal! After spending a few hours in the extensive museum, we were even able to watch a British oil tanker passing through the lock – a surprisingly fast process involving the displacement of up to 101,000m3 of water! We were not sure what to expect from the canal, but we left suitably amazed by the incredible feat of engineering (Mic especially :) ).

Old Panama City

Some of the thousands of workers from all over the world who helped construct one of the world's most amazing feats of engineering

An oil tanker being pulled through the Miraflores lock by the 'mules'

Opening the gates to the Pacific

The next day we headed north to the lovely little mountain town of Boquete – crossing the canal for the first time on the way, and thus officially leaving South America! What a wonderful six months it has been…..but we are just as excited about exploring Central America too! And Boquete was a good place to start – a very, very relaxed little village (it has actually been rated one of the top three places to retire by a US magazine and is thus a mecca for the over-sixty) surrounded by cloud forests and coffee plantations. We accidentally ended up in a wonderful hostel – Mamallena – which had the most well-equipped kitchen we have ever seen in a hostel, including a brand new oven, a coffee machine, heavy-duty frying pans and pots with lids that fit (!) and, best of all, a huge gas-powered barbeque grill! :D As soon as Mic saw it he was off to the supermarket to stock up on steak. J In addition to making the most of the great kitchen facilities by cooking ourselves delicious meals, we also celebrated our third wedding anniversary by treating ourselves to a couple of bottles of Chilean wine, which we enjoyed with some cheese, ham and olives….mmmm! :D

When we weren’t lazing around on the comfy patio chairs at the hostel listening to the myriad of birds flitting around between the trees in the garden, we did some hiking in the cloud forest around town. The forest is different again to any other forest we have seen on this trip – the cool, damp night air combined with the hot sunny days have created an interesting mixture between temperate and tropical rainforest which includes everything from moss-covered mountain pines to feathery bamboo groves. A great area to spend a couple of chilled out days before we head off to do some more serious sight-seeing in Costa Rica.

Crossing over the canal on the bus north - leaving South America after 6 wonderful months!

Grilling in the Mamallena hostel in Boquete

Hiking in the cloud forest - prefect little spider web

'Furry' trees in the cloud forest

Steep escarpment in on the Queztal Trail

Towering mountain forest at 2200m above sea level

The lower the altitude, the smaller and bushier the forest plants get

Paleta del pintor (the painter's palette), beautiful ground-cover

Crossing a jungle stream

We left Bogotá on the 20 hour bus ride for Santa Marta on the Colombian Caribbean coast with great anticipation – we had checked out the weather forecast and, after 6 months of almost perpetual mountain chilliness, the 35° - 45°C temperatures on the coast seemed like a dream come true! And after the refrigerator-like air-conditioning on the bus, stepping out into the moist heat of Santa Marta was a huge relief. But that only lasted a few minutes – as soon as we were plodding along a furnace-like street towards our hostel, dripping sweat and feeling like our brains were being boiled in our skulls, we decided that 47°C was perhaps just a tad TOO warm for us. :) Thankfully our hostel had a pool, and as soon as we had dumped our bags, we jumped in. I was slightly surprised that our skin didn’t make a sizzling noise when it hit the water :P We spent a fun couple of days in the cool ‘party hostel’ (La Brisa Loca), swimming, drinking in the bar and watching the constant mating dances of the various other young guests. :P When we felt we had acclimatised at least slightly, we decided we were ready to do some exploring, and headed out to Tayrona National Park, a small park not far outside the city renowned for its fabulous beaches. Despite the fact that it is more like a city park than a national park (full security check before entering – no alcohol, drugs, plastic bags, knives etc. allowed – the guards had collected a nice little pile of contraband, including a litre bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label which we were sure they were going to sample themselves that night!) and pretty crowded, the beaches really lived up to their reputations! After a hot but very beautiful hour-long walk through the rainforest, we rounded a rocky headland and were treated to our first real glimpse of the Caribbean Sea (the narrow, crowded and dusty beach in Santa Marta didn’t really count). It was just the way the postcards depict it – white sand, brilliant blue water, coconut palms….heaven! J We walked another hour or so along the beautiful cost line to Cabo San Juan de la Guía camping area. Although it was horrendously overpriced, the amazing location right on the beach in a sheltered little bay convinced us to stay the night in tent, and the sunrise swim was definitely worth it :)

Our first glimpse of the Caribbean Sea after a hot walk in Tayrona National Park

Beautiful beaches as far as the eye can see in Tayrona

The expensive put wonderfully located campsite in Cabo San Juan

Sunrise over the beach in Cabo San Juan

Sunrise over the prefect little bay in Cabo San Juan

The lovely little bay in Cabo San Juan

Does it get any better than this?

Upon our return from the park, deciding the constant partying in La Brisa Loca was making us feel old, we headed to Taganga – a tiny fishing village-turned-tourist-town just outside Santa Marta. Set in a brilliantly blue little bay, the little town is an interesting mixture of run-down fishing village and hip party spot. The waterfront is lined with bars and outdoor eateries, but many of the streets are unpaved and the bay is full of old wooden cutters in need of paint. We loved the town’s eclectic feel from the beginning and spent a couple of relaxing days swimming at the nearby beaches, drinking beer on the promenade and wandering the dusty streets. We were even treated to an impressive tropical deluge one day – the skies opened and the rain fell in sheets, turning the roads to muddy rivers which then flowed into the bay, turning it the dusty red of the surrounding hills.

The tiny little village of Taganga

After a few days in the northeast during which we had well and truly settled into the relaxed pace of the coast, we headed west to the amazingly beautiful old city of Cartagena. Arriving in the old part of town is like steeping into a Pirates of the Caribbean movie - cobbled alleys, vibrantly coloured colonial houses, balconies shrouded in bougainvillea, palm-fringed squares and kilometres of impressive stone walls to protect against the would-be pillagers of yesteryear. We stayed in a tiny little hostel in the middle of a more run-down part of town where crumbling colonial buildings were slowly starting to be re-furbished, but many rustic ruins remain. We loved the flair of the place, where life is lived on the street – everyone has chairs outside their houses, kids play soccer and baseball while their elders sit in the shade, fanning themselves, gossiping and sipping cool drinks. There was one man who was very obviously the self-proclaimed king of our little lane – a very tubby middle-aged character who, perpetually shirtless, half in and half out of a road-side window, guzzling can after can of beer and bellowing cheerfully at everyone and everything at regular intervals. J

The main entrance to Cartagena's old town through the city's defensive walls

Wandering around in down-town Cartagena - every corner invites a picture

On top of the walls built to keep pirates out - didn't stop Sir Francis Drake!

Flying the national colours on the city walls

Fútbol! The life-blood of Colombia.

Great street art in Cartagena

The 'king' of our street - flaunting his stuff :)

Who says vultures aren't cultured? This one is a very cultured vulture - sitting on top of the theatre :)

Although we loved the city itself, we had come to Cartagena mainly because it was the starting point for a journey we had been looking forward to for months – a sailing trip to Panama. So, after some shopping around (we discovered that the captains seem to have made a deal with each other to all offer exactly the same – very steep – price), we booked a lovely little cabin on a 16m, twin-mast yacht by the name of ‘Spray’. Owned by a crusty old Italian named Claudio and a smiley Colombian called José, the beautiful little boat was to be our home for the next 5 days. We lugged our baggage on board the next afternoon and met our shipmates – two young Swiss boys, a girl from Holland and a guy from Israel (luckily we all go along, or the trip could have turned out to be horrible!). We left port just after sunset and set sail for the open sea – 40 hours without sighting land, surrounded by nothing but endlessly rolling blue waves. It was an amazing feeling to sit on deck, feel the salt breeze in our faces and the rolling of the swell beneath us, imagining how incredibly tiny our nut-shell of a boat was compared to the immense expanse of water surrounding us. The first night I was feeling a little woozy and so slept on deck, and I woke sometime in the early hours of the morning to the most amazing lightening show I have ever seen – the sky over us and all around us was illuminated every few seconds, and the dazzling flashes were reflected double-fold in the waves. I felt literally like I was sitting in the eye of the storm, inside a dome of light – amazing!!

Luckily the storm passed without causing us any trouble, and the rest of the trip on the open ocean went smoothly. After two nights and one day of sailing, sunbathing and sea-gazing, we finally spotted our destination on the horizon – the series of tiny, palm-studded atolls that make up the Archipiélago de San Blas. If you close your eyes and imagine the Caribbean island of your dreams, then you come pretty close to imagining what the islands in San Blas look like. Perfect little uninhabited sandy islands full of palm trees and ringed by the most brilliantly turquoise water. We spent two amazing days moored near two consecutive islands, swimming, snorkelling, wandering over the tiny islands, practicing our diving style from the yachts railing, sunbathing (in my case a little too much – ouch!), beach combing, fishing, drinking and generally having a wonderful time. To make things even better, we got along really well with the others on board, and were fed wonderful food every night by our fantastic hosts – no tinned meat and crackers here – we had everything from roast pork and gravy to marinated ribs with salad! And luckily we had also stocked up on alcoholic supplies before leaving port, so no-one ever had to utter the classic Jack Sparrow line; “Why is the rum always gone?’ :) All in all, the prefect Caribbean sailing adventure!