Before Panama City awakes at the unnatural time of 5am more than 30 eager backpackers from our hostel were awake awaiting their transport to paradise, us included. I knew that the journey that day wouldn't be easy - who sends several 4 x 4s as transport instead of a minibus unless they are needed?! But I came prepared with over 60 travel sickness tablets, wristbands, water, etc just in case. As the only 2 in our designated jeep so far we eagerly awaited to see who would join us on our boat trip. The passengers from the next hostel in the city had clearly overslept and the driver had to dig them out of their beds. Another hostel later and with 7 people in our car we set off towards the San Blas hills. We were disappointed to find that no one with us was in our boat but made friends with the chatty Canadians.
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| Sailing boats in the San Blas |
Within an hour we hit the San Blas hills, and what appeared to just be some rocky terrain soon turned into my ever-so-favourite twisty turns as experienced in Tobago. All I could do was to close my eyes to the green jungle we were passing through and pray that we would get to our destination soon. Every now and again the 4 x 4 stopped along the trail for the local people to check our passports and stinge money off us. $20pp for the tourist tax, $2pp for something else and it went on. Within minutes of getting out of the jeep (and the the relief of the drive being over) we were ushered away from our group by a man who only seemed to know the word “Baruffa”, the name of our boat. We climbed upon his speedboat with a local family transporting their wooden bird cage and put on the well-worn life jackets provided. The man sat on a spare one which at the time seemed odd but I figured he didn’t want to get his bottom wet. The slow ride from the shore lead us into a false sense of security and regret for not getting our cameras out, but soon enough we were off at full speed in the open water. With every wave the boat lifted (us with it) and crashed back not absorbed in any way by the sea. At first it was novel but it soon wore off as our bony bottoms got bruised and spines crunched. I glanced behind us at the local family for reassurance assuming that they had done this many times before but they looked equally in shock and uncomfortable. After about 30 mins when our bottoms were finally broken (the man’s life jacket cushioning made a lot of sense), we got our first look at some of the San Blas Islands. Some were small islands with pale sand and palm trees unoccupied, others had huts and were owned by individual families. We approached the Baruffa our sailing boat and new home for 5 days where we met Rudy our Captain and fellow back-packer Alex for the first time.
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| The Kuna tribe selling their catch of the day |
Happiness for reaching the boat and the start of our adventure was short lived. Whilst Rudy took our passports to the immigration office on one of the islands, we decided to explore surroundings and get our sea legs. Descending below deck we both resurfaced within seconds due to the unbearable heat and rocking of the boat. Needing to take our malaria tablets we decided to eat the peanut butter sandwiches prepared earlier and chill above deck as Rudy returned. The Kuna’s tribe at immigration wanted us to provide the receipt of the tourist tax paid earlier which was given initially to someone else in our jeep. Rudy after finding out that we didn't have it cursed the locals claiming them to be always stealing money from tourists and decided to set sail ignoring them. As we approached a beautiful snorkeling area my body decided it wasn’t prepared to be a sailor - cue the travel sickness and the remains of the peanut butter sandwich. Hoping that was the end of it we jumped into the sea prepared to see the wreck and the exotic sea life which now inhabited it. Unfortunately once again this proved too much and it’s fair to say that my love for peanut butter was temporarily destroyed. As I sat on the sand grateful to be briefly back on land I started to panic wondering how I was going to survive the next 5 days. Thankfully, that afternoon and the next day were a breeze - mainly due to the drowsy effects of our new travel sickness pills! Luckily enough I was able to stay awake to able to snorkel, get lost in a coral maze and explore a new island on the second day. To avoid going below deck as much as possible we slept above it in the hammocks :)
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| Mike holding up our dinner |
One of the highlights of the trip was definitely the range of fresh seafood! Local people on their canoes would approach the boat hanging on to the sides selling the fish that they had caught that day. On one particular day we got 3 lobsters, 4 groupers and one other fish all for US$25 (approx £16!) a considerable bargain to the prices back home! On other days Rudy would trail his fishing rods from the back of the boat effortlessly catching tuna and mahi mahi later concocting amazing seafood dishes every meal time. The downside to this (and it's unfortunate that there has to be one) if that since we started travelling we now only eat twice a day meaning that we both often struggled at meal times to eat it all and felt incredibly rude to our host.
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| Our boat at a 45 degree angle! |
As dawn approached on day 3 the 25 hour sea crossing was upon us and we knew that we were in for a rough day. This time we both made travel sickness preparations after hearing horrendous experiences from other blogs. My plan to survive (which had been working well for me so far) was to sleep the whole time and not eat anything. 6 Hours in I awoke to find the boat at a 45 degree angle to the sea and Mike missing. In sudden panic for what I thought would be inevitable I clung to the side of the boat for dear life ready to be sick. As waves threw water over the deck I looked at over the sea wondering how on earth I was going to get through the next 19 hours and hating every minute. Unknown to me whilst I was sleeping Mike had gone below deck to pee. Trapped and swaying in our shower cubicle sized bathroom sea sickness had overcome him and he had to make that awful decision on whether to be ill or pee first. Its just as well he didn't pee as when his head was over the bowl it splashed back in his face! Unable to get back on deck quickly he lunged for the bed in the cabin and tried to sleep. Needless to say that both of us fell victim to sea sickness as I too had to make the dreaded trip to the toilet. Clearly Germans’ have stronger stomachs as both Alex and Rudy had no problems and happily just carried on with catching fish and drowning them in rum.
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| Me with my Coco Loco looking out to sea |
By midday on day 4 the crossing was over and we sat up properly for the first time. We were on our way to an Aquarium on an island off the shore of Colombia. Unsure about now getting on a dinghy right then, I reluctantly agreed for the promise of being on land. As we got off the dinghy we continued to sway walking along to the ticket booth. For most of our time here we kept to the benches overlooking the shark and dolphin enclosures trying to regain some normality, debating whether the sea life would eat the vomit struggling to escape us. I am pleased to report that it got much easier from then as later that day we found a smooth area of water to float in and spent the rest of our afternoon relaxing. Rudy tried to tempt us with raw tuna for lunch but after seasickness the last thing you want to see is fish. Later that day when we had almost recovered we ventured to the nearby island where a local chopped into a coconut and poured in rum for the most rustic Coco Loco we have ever experienced.
On our final day we continued traveling smoothly for another 3 hours to reach Cartagena and go through immigration. Now there is always something about waiting at immigration that makes you feel guilty, and I assumed with Colombia’s history of drugs that this one would be intense. We were warned back in Panama that should we have drugs these should be consumed beforehand! Upon arrival we got back into the dinghy and Rudy navigated it through the yacht maze to shore and we were directed into air conditioned laundry room. Although surprised, we were grateful for the cool air and waited for further instruction. 4 Men came to check our passports, injection lists and fill out forms but never asked us any questions or wanted to check our bags which were back on the boat. We had to leave our passports there for further checks so we went back to the boat for one final meal of fish together. An hour later our passports were returned to us and with our backpacks in tow we wandered through the open gate into South America vowing to stay away from boats for a while!
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