Waterfall Hike Picts
Monthly Archives: September 2014
Cabinas Garibaldi & Caribe del Sol
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Fish and Sick…
So the next day as mentioned before was a different story on deck. Several of the guys were leaning over periodically (they were nicely polite about it at least!!!) and vomiting into the ocean. Usually just the sight or sound of someone else vomiting would be enough to send me over the edge, but luckily with the sea air coming at me on force I was able to prevent any sympathetic vomiting! The worst of the bunch was sadly the man from Britain. He had opted to stay out on deck and sleep and lord knows what happened to him because when he woke he firstly felt terrible and second looked terrible! His eyes were swollen and almost looked like he had been punched as several colors were also surrounding his eyes. He staved off being physically sick until…
One of the Aussies decided he wanted to do some deep sea fishing! Men! Anyway, right off the bat one of them got injured because he put his thumb on the line that was getting cast in the ocean and he ended up burning his thumb pretty well! It swelled into a huge blister that looked quite painful! Anyway, another of the guys left his line out and ended up actually catching a fish! There were cheers all around until he found out that he had to clean the kill himself… Well, apparently he’d never done that before so what ensued from him trying to do so literally looked like a scene out of a seriously sadistic horror flick! There was blood absolutely everywhere!! Mind you at this point the Brit was still on deck trying to sleep of his overall feeling of absolute horrible-ness and right next to his head was the bloody massacre of a fresh fish… needless to say he had to get up and finally succumb to sea sickness by vomiting overboard.
Joys…
Anyway, after that rather rough morning start, things went well. The fish massacre was all cleaned up and we were heading toward the immigration offices to get our exit stamp from Panama before heading through the San Blas Islands. The islands themselves are absolutely breathtaking!!! My only regret is that I didn’t take down the coordinates of each island we visited… Anyway, once getting to our first island all there was to do was swim, swim, swim, snorkel, walk around the islands and swim some more! The waters were so clear and warm and just so darn beautiful!! It’s easy to see why the Kuna people fought so much for them!
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3 Brothers
The Crew of our sailboat consisted of 3 brother. Interesting story about them though is that they were somewhat separated when very young. I’m honestly not entirely sure they are all full brothers (same mother but different fathers if memory serves) but basically one was taken to the States and raised there while the other two were raised in France. They all lead separate lives until adulthood when as chance would have it they came together again and decided to live on the ocean taking tourists from place to place.
They were all quite knowledgeable about the sail boat. The American more than the others as I believe it was he who had all the initial experience, and then his brothers simply learned along the way. What was funny about the three of them in particular however was that the American only spoke English and some Spanish. One of the other brothers only spoke French and some Spanish and the third brother spoke some English, some Spanish but mainly French. So needless to say communication at times was… well… rather interesting to say the least! Generally everything was fine, but during one storm in particular it was a little nerve wracking because one would yell out a command in one language, the receiver wouldn’t understand, so would yell back that he didn’t understand, then the first wouldn’t hear what he said (the storm winds were hard to talk over) so would yell back “what?!?!” and, well, you get the picture! Definite loss in translation!!!
They were all three quite interesting characters and really nice people. At first, as it is first meeting any new people there was a bit of awkwardness, especially since we (the tourists) were essentially their house guests for the duration of the entire trip, but any awkwardness was soon over and all went well.
Oh, one more specific note to mention… Because we did have two French men on board our meals were absolutely delicious!! Breakfast, lunch and dinner was cooked when required and was pretty much made from scratch! How in the world he pulled off half of te stuff he cooked from that teeny kitchen and oven I will never know but it was dang impressive and delicious!!
On to Storms, Glorious Storms! And a sparrow?
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P.V. Beach Picts
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P.V. Critter Picts
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Catamaran Disaster
Before leaving Portobello we were also informed of a little recent change… Up until 3 weeks before, by law, no boat was allowed to sail to Columbia with tourists aboard unless the Captain or skipper of the boat was Columbian. This was not the case for any of our crew (one was American, the other two French). So instead of spending 2 days in the San Blas Islands, then another 2-3 days on the open ocean heading to Cartagena, Columbia, we were diverting through the San Blas islands all the way to the Columbian border with Panama (Cartagena, Columbia) and were essentially “smuggled” in… Honestly though this was great news for us because instead of only spending 2 days on the islands we spent basically 5 days (one day was added due to a storm…) on the islands!!! And we heard from other people who were on boats that went to Cartagena (since they had a Columbian crew member on board) but they said it was a miserable time!! 😦 Sucks for them for sure!!
Anyway, why? you may ask was this law suddenly changed?? Well, just 3 weeks prior to our leaving, a guy (not Columbian) basically lent his boat to a friend of his to take tourists back from Cartagena to Portobello, Panama. The boat was a catamaran and had apparently done those sorts of trips quite often before but with the real owner as the captain of the boat… So as the catamaran owner sat at a beachside bar having food and a drink, just 50 meters off the coast of Cartagena was his catamaran sailing off toward Portobello… Until it sank! It literally sank just 50 meters off the coast including all equipment and all tourist baggage! Luckily no one died from the incident, and honestly I can’t recall what exactly made the catamaran sink, but I do recall it was due to an idiot captain at the helm… Anyway, Columbia’s response to the incident was simply to not allow any more of this kind of tourist traffic to occur unless a Columbian was on board… How that would help indefinitely I’ve no idea, but so be it!
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San Blas Islands
I’ve never seen phosphorescent water before. Not until night time did we board our 38′ sailboat barefoot (no shoes allowed anywhere on board) and headed out of the harbor waters into Caribbean waters to the San Blas Islands. We headed out at night so that in the morning we would be near to one of the islands and would be able to spend a lovely day there. What seemed like light glistened from the ocean in the otherwise absolute darkness. Only when disturbed did the water glisten and glow, so as the sailboat motored its way through the harbor it left sparkling and shimmering water in its wake. Absolutely mesmerizing!! Nature always seems to find a way to shock and awe me around every corner, and on this night once again it raised the bar!! I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the beauty that stirred in the water as we coursed through it. Now to be fair, it really is the algae in the water that actually make the water glow with light, not the water itself. The algae soak up sun rays during the day and in a sense emit the light caught by the sun when they are disturbed. So amazingly beautiful!!!
The San Blas Islands are 380 plus islands that run from the southern Caribbean coast of Panama to Columbia. The people that inhabit these islands are called Kuna. The Kuna indigenous tribes are and historically have been known as peaceful people. Being peaceful people, only once did they ever in their history rise up and fight. And that was a while back now when the Panamanian government tried to claim the islands as part of their government. Up until that point, all the islands and the law of the islands were governed by the Kuna people. A bloody battle ensued over rights to the islands, however when Panama tried to take control. Ultimately Panama lost and left the islands to be governed by the indigenous tribe. To this day, no other government has any rights or control over the islands. They are simply governed by the Kuna indigenous tribe members. There was even talk that the Kuna people were known for “harboring” drug smugglers on the islands; for as long as the smugglers were invited onto the island they were safe from any other marine government agencies waiting on the water in hopes of catching them once they left. Permission granted was a huge deal there too. No one was allowed to ever stay or sleep on any island overnight unless invited by the Chief of that island. Just about every island had its own Chief. Sometimes a single Chief would be needed for a cluster of smaller islands close by to each other. And every so often the Chiefs of the islands would get together to discuss affairs.
Kuna fishermen could be seen going around in their wood canoes around the islands in search of conchs or lobsters or other fish to catch and consume. Their way of fishing however only involved a homemade spear “gun” and being able to swim to very deep depths! They were very adept at their trade however and the funniest thing to me about it all though was the bucket they each had in their canoes. It wasn’t for holding caught fish but rather to scoop out water from their canoes! You see, the canoes were wood and untreated wood at that, so they were constantly taking in water… hence the bucket! Women of the area went around in their wood canoes (bucket in tow) to each of the tourist sailboats selling bracelets or homemade woven cloths with various images on them. I eventually did buy an anklet from one of the women when we were invited for a lobster dinner that I wear to this day because it still hasn’t fallen off!! But I’m getting ahead of myself…
We were warned well in advance about sea sickness. We were all instructed to take sea sickness pills the night before departing and the morning and night of taking off. While I believe we all did adhere to that advice, sadly the sea sickness pills did not quite work for all… I was not a victim of sea sickness thank goodness though after a few beers and passing out in the front bunk for myself and the German woman, I did wake up feeling a little queezy… I made my way to the open air and just had to focus on my breath REALLY hard… and thankfully the nausea went away! I could not say that is how it went for the rest of the crew…
Well, of course the crew themselves (3 brothers) were just fine. But the new crew were struggling! I honestly blame most of it on the booze consumed because as mentioned before there was quite a bit on board and the drinking started the second we got on board!! After having my near sea sickness episode I opted to stay on the top deck in the fresh air just in case another episode arrived. People seemed to be just fine that night. Lots of jovial drinking around me and star gazing. It was the next morning that the real “damage” began…
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Portobello, Panama
It was here that I would find passage to Colombia via a sailboat. You see, though Colombia and Panama are connected by land, the land is impassable. There are no roads that connect the two and I’ve heard story upon story of people either legally or illegally traveling from one country to another on foot through the dense jungle and while they lived to tell the tale so to speak, it didn’t sound like anything I’d ever want to try. So instead I opted to go to Portobello to seek alternate passage. Again, I could have flown to some part of Colombia, but then I would have missed the beautiful and exotic San Blas Islands!! More on that later…
Portobello, named by an Italian when he landed on the land and exclaimed “Beautiful port!” in Italian of course, and well as you see by the name Porto (port) bello (beautiful) got it’s name quite literally… It too is a sleepy little town. It was once a defense port for Panama and it does still retain parts of forts and walls to protect the area, but of course it’s been damaged considerably. Not a whole lot goes on per se in Portobello now except one of the largest businesses there is the transport of tourists via sailboat to and from Colombia/Panama. To be even more specific, if you plan to do that type of travel, the only way to do so is to go to Captain Jacks hostel and wait for information on boats traveling through…
Captain Jacks, man what a fun place! And if I recall, the ONLY place for tourists to sleep! Not kidding either! I seriously don’t think there was any other hostel or hotel in the entire place!! Captain Jack’s is run by, well, Captain Jack! A retired sailor, Captain Jack moved to Portobello and opened his restaurant/hostel and really the main traffic to and from his place is from tourists again simply seeking passage to Colombia. Of course he did have some regulars (i.e. sailboat captains and staff would frequent the bar in search of finding perspective tourists to take to Colombia).
I found out quickly that just about every person who entered Captain Jacks was after the same thing… Or they had already booked their passage (smart people!) and simply needed either a place for the night or to get in touch with their boat. So it wasn’t very soon after arriving and settling that I started meeting people with like needs. I met a woman from Germany, a man from Britain and 4 Aussies who all ended up being on the same boat as I picked out. Truth be told, the woman and I, since we both were travelling alone chose to pick the same boat so that we at least had a “safe” companion to travel with:) Not that the trip was unsafe in any way, but we were the only females on our boat, and we were the only solo females traveling at that point, so it was nice to have some company in that way.
Anyway, picking the boat and captain/crew was also an interesting time… We did have some reservations about the captain at first of our chosen boat because he showed up at Captain Jacks drunk and only proceeded to get even drunker as we attempted to get our various questions answered… But Captain Jack seemed to vouch for them and after we took a tour of the 38′ sailboat, we thought “safe enough!”. Plus, boats were not coming and going all the time, so if a decision wasn’t made fast then we could have been stuck in Portobello for quite a while more! I believe in total I was already there for about a week just waiting for boats to arrive and then getting info on them and when to leave, yada, yada…
The trip was not cheap, but once again an experience of a lifetime in more than one way!! All food was provided for us and cooked as well so all we had to provide (aside from payment to board) was booze for the trip if we wanted any. I didn’t end up buying any booze, and well as you can see from the picture below, you will see why… The four Aussies opted to buy several cases of beer each, plus several gallons of rum and other assorted liquors for the 5 day trip… It was by far enough for a whole Army of people!!
With bags packed, booze packed and passages paid, we were ready for the San Blas Islands!
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Panama City
I made my way from Puerto Viejo back to David where I once again stayed at La Casa Marada (the purple house) and after turning down a temporary job there as the hostel receptionist, I made the long bus ride to Panama City, Panama. I didn’t stay there long and honestly don’t have a ton to say about it… Like every other large City, it was hustling and bustling with activity and modern buildings, sky scrappers, and lots of business. This sort of scene doesn’t really interest me quite frankly, especially after having lived in the serene and quirky small town of Puerto Viejo for so long. I’d easily grown accustomed to the laid back beach life and wasn’t terribly impressed to be back in such civilization. To each their own! In any event, I did spend one night there before booking it back to the small town of Portobello, Panama.
Ramblintraveler 