Tuesday morning woke up still feeling like shit at 5am. Id spent most of Monday been weak and sick and it took a few days to recover. We ended up sitting around the streets of Panama waiting for this jeep to come pick us up to drive us to Carti. Driving through Panama city at this hour of the morning, watching the sunrise behind the skyscrapers, the traffic start and the city come to life but we were heading into the middle of nowhere. The San Blas islands where the indiginous people, the Kuna live. So after a few hours of driving around random mountains and windy roads a number of jeeps stop and we get on a small little plancha or boat down this random muddy brown river which was to bring us onto our ship the Stahlratte.
I wasnt too sure what to expect from this ship. It was meant to be 22 customers so I was kinda expecting it to be similar to what the Whitsundays trip would be. But no, its a 120ft massive yacht with loads of space. The crew were there to meet us and what an amazing crew they were. Two german, one Swiss and an Austrian. Over the next few hours we got to meet the rest of the people doing the journey as well. Funnily enough most people are heading to Argentina and have started up north as well like me. And most people have the same sort of time frame as well, want to be there before Christmas which is cool. There are an English couple that are cycling from Canada to Antarctica, a Swedish couple driving a motobike from Canada to Argentina, another Canadian driving his bike down and also another couple that had shipped their car on ahead but also going the whole way. Everyone else is pretty much busing it like myself. But it was a good mixed crowd, three or four Irish, Swiss, English, Canadian, American, Australian etc. We immediately all got on and started sailing. Ludwig our captain is hilarious. Told us a bit about our boat and the plan and was very easy going.
Within three hours we had reached the San Blas islands where we were to stay for a few days. There are thousands of these islands in the Archipelago some of which the Kuna people live on. And they are well interested in coming to visit us on the boat. A lot of them wear these really colourful clothes and they are small, an average height of about 5ft. There are hundreds and hundreds of deserted white sand islands with Cocunut trees surrounded by pristine blue water. It is literally the picture you think of when getting stranded on an island. And they are small as well. We snorkelled a bit for the first day before the floating bar came out and people started drinking. We saw across on this other island the Kuna people making some sounds and they had caught this massive massive fish. A red snapper. Our captain said in Europe for the size of it, it would be worth about 1000 Eur. He bought it off them for $30 plus 12 cans of beer. We spent the first night BBQing on the island and drinking in the light of the full moon. Was crazy how cool the island looked when the full moon was shining down.
The second day was spent pretty much doing the same thing. Five of us went to a traditional Kuna village to see it. I was surprsied to see phone boxes in this town. Children running around with smiley faces and wearing modern clothes. Apparantly they all learn Spanish in school as well but we tried to learn a few Kuna words off the locals. After a few weeks of not trying any Spanish Ive lost it all but luckily there was a girl with us on the boat from Costa Rica so she helped translate. After this trip we went back to the boat and snorkelled out to another deserted sand island. To give an idea how small these are we had a race around it. You had to race just on the water line. I got 26 seconds. The record was 24. And half an hour later one of the guys from the boat comes over on the dingy again with the floating bar to start it all off again!
Another amazing dinner that night again. Lobster and the red snapper with loads of salad rice and more. The food on the boat was amazing. Non stop huge meals and I ate enough but didnt have my normal appetite at all cause of the sickness. We were even told that we could help ourselves to food outside of meals. This was the first time in three months as well that wed had proper cheese and butter. Diary products are hard to come by. And thank god for the Germans we had amazing bread as well!! So another night staying up till about 5am chatting with the others and having fun.
The third day on the boat was a bit of a hungover and mainly seasick day for a lot of people. We just chilled out on hammocks and sunbeds and sailed for 24 hours to Columbia. Waking up at 630 the next morning the excitement was amazing. We had just arrived in Cartegena and were in the bay, posh apartments and skyscrapers all along, boats everywhere and looked like a really amazing modern city. I know I shouldnt judge a book by a cover but I always go on first impressions and within a day in Columbia its in my top five countries!! And saying that Im actually going to make it a top 7 list!!! Panama is also on it. Just cant get over how amazing both Panama and Columbia are. For the record the other favourites are Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, Hong Kong and New Zealand in no particular order. We hung around on the boat in the bay for another few hours eating more food, actually two more meals while someone went on shore with our passports to sort them out. Easiest border crossing ever.
By now we were all good friends on the boat so decided to bunk up together in hostels. Good sized group so split up a bit but 8 of us joined each other in my hostel with a pool. We all have pretty much the same plan as well so should stick with each other for a while.
Photos up at San Blas Photos
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