Panama to Colombia via San Blas

Portobelo itself was a pretty little colonial fortress town, once the main caribbean gold store of the Spanish Empire. The gold would be shipped from South America up to Panama City and transported overland and up river to Portobelo to await final transportation back to Europe. The recently restored counting house once had over a third of all the gold in the world passing through it´s vaults:

The Counting House seen from one of the fortresses

Of course all this gold made Portobelo a prime target for pirates and the town was sacked many times, necessitating ever grander fortifications, some of which remain to this day

After spending the afternoon relaxing in the town hostel we boarded the boat for some dinner and a briefing. Our Captain Bob was a semi retired American who spends his days cruising around the Caribbean, however a recent replacement of both motors on the boat meant he would be doing the Portobelo/Cartagena route for a while to raise enough cash for a Canal transit back to the Pacific side. Our group also contained Arnold, our Colombian chef, two Israeli guys, two Irish girls and an American couple, just finished a two year stint in the Peace Corps in Honduras.

We set off in the morning, first to stop at Porvenir to sort out our passport stamps then out to a spot amongst four perfect little caribbean islands

That day was spent snorkelling, drinking beer, eating Arnold´s delicious food and just generally enjoying being on holiday in paradise.

The next day we cruised off to another little group of islands to settle in for two more days of the same, this time enhanced by a visit by some dolphins, a trip around the islands in the dhingy and some brief but welcome sunshine.

In the dhingy with Arnold

Sunset on the Caribbean


Chilling on the deck at night


Unfortunately that night a big pack of rich Panamanian powerboats swaggered in and proceded to try and outdo each other with the loudness and vulgarity of their music, although the bright lights did attract a lot of fish (we still didn´t catch any).


In the fading light of the second day we upped anchor for the two day ocean passage across to Cartagena, and South America. I was a bit worried how my stomach would handle the crossing but we all seemed to find the perfect preventative for sea sickness; we slept at least 18 hrs a day each. Something about the soothing, gentle rocking of the boat and the lack of anything else to do meant I got probably the best sleep in of my life. We were visited by more dolphins along the way, this time a big pack of at least fifty, who entertained us for an hour with jumps, barrel rolls and the usual cool dolphin things.

Battening down for a little wild weather




We arrived in Cartagena in perfect time to see the sun rise over the city and I must say I was shocked at how big, modern and developed it is. I started liking Colombia already, this place is modern but still cheap as chips, excellent.....



We made it!

After a farewell breakfast and goodbye to Viva, Bob and Arnold we were now on our own in a new country and a new continent; hairier, smellier and a just little tired (still!) but all with big smiles on our faces.

Panama City and Canal

I arrived in Panama city at 5am and after waiting around in the bus terminal for a couple of hours until it got light (and safe) enough to travel into town, I caught one of the Diablos Rojas the ¨red devil¨ buses that serve as public transport in the city.

How come Aussie buses are so boring?
I arrived at the hostel to find out that I needed to wait until 11 for a bed to be available but that turned out to be not so bad as there was a bunch of aussie guys out on the balcony with a big bottle of rum, the grand final having been played the night before....

The view from the front of the hostel...

.......and the back.


After a couple of days of hobbling around with my dodgy foot feeling sorry for myself I went out to check out the Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. I saw it from the observation deck at the Miraflores Locks, the last set of locks lowering ships down ten metres to sea level on the Pacific side.

One of the gates ready to lower a ship down to sea level, the original gates from 1913 in fact

Ship comes in

Gets tied to the small locomotive ¨mules¨ that guide it through (it moves along under its own power)

Drops down ten metres

Gates open

Ship passes through


Ready to go


Those engines ROARED


Next ship moves into the parallel lock

All up it took about 20 minutes for each ship to pass through, the first one paying $184,000 US and the larger car-carrier paying over $200,000 for the 11 hr transit. This is actually a significant saving for the shipping companies as it costs more than a million dollars in fuel per ship to sail all the way around Cape Horn.

To fill and empty the locks which contain countless millions of litres of water actually takes less time than it does to fill a standard bathtub......

The next day I caught the bus out to Portobello to rendezvous with Captain Bob and his yacht ¨Viva¨ for the trip out through the San Blas Islands to Cartegena in Colombia.

Costa Rica

I met up with Inga in Liberia, Costa Rica, a large town near the Nicaraguan border after a particularly painful border crossing (is there any other kind??) which involved my passport not being correctly stamped on the Nicaraguan side meaning I had to go back over, and the bus promptly dumping my bag on the footpath and taking off without me. Damn you Tica Bus!!!

Our first stop was Rincon de la Vieja, a national park with a volcano, bubbling mud and steam vents and some beautiful waterfalls.

Lovely spot for a swim but bloody cold

A Coati

Next was Volcan Arenal and la Fortuna to watch the volcano spit out some lava and swim in the hot thermal river nearby. Upon checking into our hotel Inga noticed her credit card was missing and when I looked into my bag the pocket where I always put my passport and credit cards was also empty. hmmmm that´s not good......

We frantically raced down to an internet cafe to call our banks to cancel our cards (which ended up taking over three hours with a dodgy connection) and then unfortunately had to check into a much cheaper hotel for the night and as we had almost no cash on us and prepared to leave in the morning for San Jose and Ingas place.

That morning I reached into my bag for some clean socks and lo and behold, wrapped up in a pair of underpants(??!) was my passport and cards. No idea how they got there but at that stage I really didn´t care as I´d just dodged up to a grand in wasted money and at least a few weeks of lost travel time waiting around for replacements. And the nearest Australian embassy was in Mexico City.......

That evening we went on a tour to see the volcano (and a fleeting glimpse of some lava) and hot river and jump off a waterfall (out of the 20 people who jumped I was the one who landed on a rock. My ankle is only just better now, more than three weeks later) .

The volcano seen from Lake Arenal

the waterfall

We caught the bus to Monte Verde the next day to check out the famous cloud forest and also for me to have a go at some ziplining, which included a 1km ¨superman¨ over the valley and 16 other lines of various length through the canopy.

Apperently these forests are among the most biodiverse places on earth:

This line is about 560m long (for a brake you grab the cable with a gardening glove!)

On the way to Monte Verde we stopped at a little local restaurant for some really good comida tipica, a set menu lunch of typical local food:

Beans, rice, meat and salad, with drink for 4 dollars

As it was now Sunday we headed back to San Jose for Inga to go to class the next morning and myself to get out to Tortuguero national park on the Carribean coast to see some turtles laying eggs on the beach. That night we headed out for a few drinks and dancing with some friends of Ingas from university and got an earlyish night in preparation for a big day.

The trip out to Tortuguero was half the fun, with an hour long boat trip through the myriad small streams and rivers that criss cross the area

The actual turtle tour was at night with no photography permitted (it blinds the turtles) which was a little disappointing as seeing a 200kg turtle haul itself out of the sea, lay a nest of several hundred ping pong ball sized eggs and shuffle back to the ocean is a pretty cool thing.....

Every year over 40,000 turtles come to this one beach to lay their eggs, it looks a bit like a warzone with craters everywhere

After another night in San Jose it was goodbye to Inga and Costa Rica and hello to Panama, courtesy of yet another 24hr bus ride........

Corn Islands and into Cost Rica

Well the trip out to the Corn Islands was a mission and a half:

Up at six for a bus out to Managua (good so far) then on arriving in Managua I found out that I´d just missed the bus to Rama by 5 min and had to wait 4 hours for the next one (sigh....) That bus ended up taking eight hours for a five hour trip (why must we stop for half an hour in every tiny town along the way???) meaning I´d missed the boat out to Bluefields on the coast and have to stay a night in Rama.

Arriving in the frontier port town of Rama at night was not an ideal situation so I jumped on a bicycle taxi to take me to the hotel I´d chosen from the guidebook. Probably not entirely necessary as the hotel was only three houses up from the bus station but it´s always good to feel safe.

Pretty sure the hotel was a brothel (I was asked if I wanted a single or a ¨matrimonial¨) but I actually had a surprisingly peaceful sleep. I awoke at six to the news that I´d just missed the morning fastboat to Bluefields and would have to wait for another 19 people to show up for the next boat to leave, which it eventually did. At two in the afternoon.......

In Bluefields I was informed that the boat across to the islands had left an hour ago and the next one was in two days time so I just gave up and taxied out to the airport and forked out 100 bucks for a return flight. If I had have just done this in Managua it would have only cost 65 dollars more and saved me two and a half days frustration, live and learn.

The next morning was the flight, another taxi and the final boat over to Little Corn Island. As soon as I saw it appear on the horizon I new it had all been worth it. Absolutely beautiful.

The port side

the beach in front of my cabaña

one of the many trails criss-crossing the island

Found a bed sharing a room with three girls I´d met on the boat and then went and sat out under the coconut trees on the pristine white sand beach with a few beers and guitars to watch the light fade over the caribbean......

The next morning I went diving with Eva and Maga, two Icelandic girls from my cabaña out to Grant´s cave (had to go to Grant´s cave!) and some other tunnels nearby. The water was amazingly clear and whilst there was not a whole lot of marine life about squeezing through the narrow, jagged tunnels with shafts of white light piercing the darkness at strange angles was a truly memorable experience.

The girls joking around

That night was a big party with many bottles of rum, a bonfire and swimming under the stars until 5am. The next day was unsurprisingly spent lounging around in a hammock and unfortunately not doing any more diving, although with no ATM on the island money was becoming an issue :S

So after just three days (I could have spent a month there easily) it was sadly back to the main Island and the airport.

Three days of travel later I was at the border of Costa Rica, where I find myself at the moment. Have been travelling around for the last week with Inga, a german friend from my New Zealand hostel days, more soon......

Island Party, Casa Kiwi, into Granada

Kinda waited a bit long before making this post so I have a bit of catching up to do!

So the party..........

The party was awesome!

It was on a tiny little cay (less than 100m long) surrounded by pristine white sand beaches and reefs with a kind of house set up with a big kitchen, a couple of private rooms, a big lounge/sleeping area and a bathroom. Got there at 2pm and were all straight into the water with a drink to soak up the views and catch some rays (sunrays that is, not stingrays)

Drinking in the sea



The house is in there somewhere.....

It was a great evening and night and in what was actually probably a good move I forgot to take any more photos.......... There was a snorkel in there at some point too for the newly qualified divemasters and from memory it involved rum, tabasco sauce, coke and beer, mmmmm tasty.........

A couple of days later I arrived in Trujillo to check out Casa Kiwi, a hostel that I had emailed from Oz regarding getting a job after the trip has finished. Was a really cool place on a lovely stretch of beach and the staff were really friendly, down to earth people so the next three days involved chatting away at the bar at night, sleeping til midday, laying in a hammock all afternoon and going back to the bar for the nightly sunset. On the last night it was my turn for the obligitary yard glass attempt and I can now share some wisdom in regards to this:

1. Leaving the beer out for 15 min beforehand warms it up and lets some of the bubbles out


2. Its ok and actually essential to burp into the glass every now and then


3. take off your shirt before you start

4. If you think your up for another one straight afterwards give it 20 min, you won´t be then

Thanks to Barry for an excellent pour and Chaz for the pics

off to a nervous start

into the neck

halfway through the bowl

almost there.....

Success!

Some pics from around the hostel:

Casa Kiwi

The Beach
Sunset on the beach

Casa Iguana, how many can you spot?

Jesus Lizard, about a foot long and it can run on water (like Jesus but faster)

After Casa Kiwi it was back on a bus to Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) then Managua (the capital of Nicaragua), both pretty ugly second (third?) world cities, and on to Granada, once the rich and magnificent capital of the spanish colony in Central America.

This is where I have been for the last four days, not doing a whole lot really. It´s a pretty nice city, lots of grand old architecture to keep things nice and enough grit and bustle to keep it interesting, but no real reason to spend four days here without leaving town. I´ve been hanging around with Alicia and Dave a nice Irish couple, having a few drinks at night, watching the odd movie, strolling around and generally just hanging about talking shit, not really doing much at all. And have actually had a great time doing it.

A few shots over town from one of the church bell towers:

Cows hanging out by the lake (the impressively huge but filthy lake)

I guess after moving around a lot and being constantly on the go from one place to the next it´s nice to just chill out for a bit and recharge.

Tomorrow morning I´m up at 5 for the bus back to Managua and on to Bluefields on the Caribbean coast for a boat (9hrs in a small panga, ouch) over to the corn islands for some more beaching and diving. Have heard it´s great and after the fun I had on Utila I´m really looking forward to it........