Panamania

Portobelo, Panama

So it turns out the boat dropped us in Puerto Lindo, a 15 minute taxi ride from Portobelo, our intended drop off point in Panama. The 6 of us bailed into a taxi and Virgil made his way behind us on the bike. The prospect of finding somewhere to stay in Portobelo was much more likely compared to the tiny village we were dropped in. Or so we were led to believe by our crew. Little did they know however that there was a fiesta on in the town that day and everywhere was full. And it was now raining!

Luckily a man around town who I think worked at one of the fully booked hostels took pity on us and squeezed us all in his van and drove us to a place just outside of town which he thought might have space. And so it did. This is because it was only half built! It was the current ongoing project of Tom, one of 6 middle aged brothers from a Pan-American family. He lived on site with his older brother Angel, their slightly senile Dad, a couple of their own dogs and about 8 strays. The sister lived across the way and no one likes her.

For $10 each we had the use of a big but basic room that contained 4 beds. Seeing as though there were 7 of us, we thought this a little steep, especially given the lack of any bedclothes, running water or working toilet in the apparent ‘ensuite’. Still, it was shelter for the night, and after 7 nights on a boat, we found pleasure in the smallest of things, such as being able to wash with un-salty water, albeit from a bucket. In fact, a few of us got lucky and had just enough water pressure to stand under a narrow stream of cold water in the shower. To be honest though, the rain from earlier had been harder.

Sander and Alison missioned it back into town with Angel and bought back culinary delights such as fried chicken, chips and cornflakes for breakfast. When we combined this with all the other bits of leftover foodstuffs that people owned, such as the odd can of tuna, bit of bread or popcorn, we had quite a dinner, sitting out in the courtyard of the hostel to be. 

Tom, whose family bungalow was directly opposite provided us with bottles of beer for $1 but this came at the price of having to sit up with him into the night and listen to him continuously slag off his sister, who he seemed to be in a long running feud with. The drunker he got, the more intense the slaggings became, so it wasn’t long before most of us politely excused ourselves and made our way our beds or blow-up mattresses on the floor.

Our first dinner in Panama - fried chicken, followed by popcorn cooked by Virgil and Alison

Panama City

The next morning, after a bowl of cornflakes and a bowl of coffee (we didn’t have many cups between us), we all headed to Panama City. 

Boat gang leaving the half built hostel and heading off to Panama City

Waving Virgil off, who was cycling to Panama City

Two short bus rides and a taxi later and we were outside the chosen hostel in the old part of the city, only to then find out it was fully booked! Being a group of 6 makes finding beds together a lot more challenging, especially in high season. We eventually found a hostel with space and jumped back into taxis as it was right across the other side of the city.

This gave us a good chance to see the city and I enjoyed gawping at all the impressive looking skyscrapers and hotels. One skyscraper has been modelled on the famous hotel in Dubai that looks like it has a sail. Another building looked like a huge badly built jenga tower. It was really cool and such a contrast to the previous desert island landscapes I had grown accustomed too.

Casco Viejo - the old, nice part of Panama City

On route by foot after refusing to pay the high taxi price, to the other side of the city in the hope of finding a hostel with space for us all

One of the crazy looking skyscrapers (apologies - taken out of a taxi window, after accepting the fare!)

After being dropped off at the wrong hostel initially (the taxi drivers don’t have a clue where anything is), we walked a few blocks and found the right one. It was spacious and clean, with A/C, hot running water, even a sandwich maker. It was the best kitchen I’ve seen since leaving England. This part of the city seemed quite wealthy. Everyone drove around in big SUVs and it was hard to find a pavement anywhere. There was a huge mall with a food court containing every fast food option you can imagine. Although this is where most people opted to eat for the night, me and Tim conservatively went to the supermarket to find a healthier and cheaper option. In fact, we even tracked down some baked beans! It was like being in Walmart in North America, right down to the yoghurts they stocked being those exact ones we eat each morning storm chasing. This then resulted in me getting all excited about storm chasing again this year!

The next day, whilst we were awaiting Virgil’s arrival by bike, the rest of us, with the exception of Suzi, who was on some personal missions, did the whole Panama tourist. Firstly we visited Parque Natural Metropolitano, a 2.65 sq km park right in the heart of the city. With the draw of being a great place to spot birds and other wildlife we set off late afternoon. It way exceeded expectations. We saw leaf cutter ants, an unidentified mammal, butterflies, birds, lizards, tortoises and can you believe it, Tim spotted a toucan! A keel-billed one this time. I again got so excited that I started jumping up and down like I was a Toucan myself. Unfortunately though I couldn’t really get a good shot of it, but the image is still strong in my mind! Toucan number 2! 

Mr Toucan hiding in the trees. This one is a keel-billed toucan. Known by us now as the Kill Bill.

Leaf cutter ants hard at work

Tortouise basking in the sun

Lizards that can run across water

After the park, we visited Miraflores docks on the world famous Panama Canal. It was huge and very impressive but unfortunately we got there a bit late, leaving only 45 minutes of time available to wander around the visitor centre. Also, we found the $15 entrance fee a bit steep, so a few of us just opted to take photos from outside through the fence! Walking back from the docks we spotted an alligator in the damned waters, shortly after laughing at the sign warning that alligators may be present in this much industrialised area. 

Miraflores docks in Panama City, through the fence

Shortly after that, in a tree at the side of the road, toucan number 3, 4 and 5 were spotted! I’m not kidding. They were just flitting about in the tree, as regular as blackbirds in England. I was a bit sad to be honest, because their presence seemed a little out of place in such a built up zone. The trump card of ‘man invades nature’ has to be seeing a vulture circling above us, using the rising hot smoky air billowing out of a chimney to gain height; a kind of dirty man-made thermal. I wanted to give him a little mask, poor thing. 

I understand that it’s all in the name of progression and engineering and I know that often this is done at the expense of certain animal’s natural habitat, but it was just a bit weird to see such ‘exotic’ animals larking around near main roads.

That evening, we succeeded in hunting out Panama City’s only Irish bar to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. It was funny suddenly being surrounded by people with Irish accents talking in English. The pub itself was like a small social club, with a bar at one end, set just in front of a Holiday Inn on the main road and across from the Canal. After a number of rounds of drinks, some food and an awkward situation with the waitress charging us too much or us not putting in enough money, we grabbed taxis back to the hostel, where Virgil was waiting having completed the trip to Panama on his bike. 

Panama's only known Irish pub

Getting into the spirit of St Patrick's Day

Finally the full boat gang were back together again, but not for long as the next morning, me and Tim were flying solo and heading to Boquete in the Chiriqui highlands for a bit of hiking and bird watching in an effort to spot the elusive resplendent Quetzal (affectionately renamed to Pretzal) – the sacred bird of the Ancient Mayas that lives in the jungles of Central America. If we’re lucky, we may catch a glimpse of one. I’m going for a feather.

Boquete, Chiriqui highlands

The journey to Boquete was easy enough but took most of the day. This is because it is all the way across the other side of Panama, which I’ve realised is wider in a west-east direction, than north-south which I previously thought. In fact, one of the most interesting things I’ve found so far in each country is learning the geography and layout. The penny only dropped yesterday with Panama as I questioned why the country had been rotated 90 degrees on a flag I saw, only to then realise I’d had its orientation the wrong way around in my head.

Our plan was to spend a couple of days here before heading either to a jungle lodge 2 hours north or the Bocas del Toro – a group of islands in the Caribbean that had been recommended by a Canadian couple we met and were likened to the San Blas islands but with more to do, more infrastructure, more trampolines in the sea, that kind of thing!

But before the second bout of island life debauchery, we needed to get some walks in and Boquete seemed like a good place to do it. We were surrounded by hills leading up to cloud forests. Trails included the chance to spot Pretzals and passed by many waterfalls and watering holes where you can swim. The area sounded beautiful. 

Unfortunately however, our first day hiking started much later than planned as we both ignored the 6am watch alarm and every 30 minute repeat thereafter for at least the next 2 hours. The reason for wanting to start so early was for a better chance of brighter skies and increased early morning bird activity. So instead, we opted for a shorter hike around some nearby waterfalls that were more accessible and closer to town. The early stages of the walk were fun, but after 3 hours of walking along a road away from town, in the constant drizzle and still not finding the entrance to the trail we gave up on the day’s hike. Instead, we headed back into town to play some pool with the aim of trying again the day after.

I have never seen so many onions

Natural rock formation where basalt has been pushed into curved horizontal lines. In front of this is a carved wooden trunk featuring the Questzal - sacred bird of the Mayas

 The next day we only slept through one hour of alarm ringing and were on our way up to the longer hike to hunt for the elusive Pretzals! We had spent some of the previous evening listening to recordings of their call from different birder sites and researching what they feed on in the hope of arming ourselves with enough information to hopefully spot one without the need to hire a guide, which people are encouraged to do if they want to catch a glimpse of one of these birds.

After about an hour of walking, we heard its call. We stopped in our tracks and told the woman from Finland who was just behind us to also be quiet. We moved slowly along the track, our eyes scanning every branch in the direction of where we heard the call. Then I spotted it, sitting there on a branch much closer than we expected it would venture. It had its back to us, but it occasionally looked around, showing the full profile of its super cute head and little yellow beak. It stayed there long enough for us to get a few photos before flying off towards where we saw another playing in a tree very far away. Bosh. Pretzal photo no 1.

Sendero Los Quetzales

We found a Quetzal!

We carried on up into the forest, stopping at a mirador point for lunch, before heading back down slowly to hunt down more Pretzals. Again, we heard a call and stopped to look and listen more intently. At this point, it’s good to watch out for big movements up in the canopy as it jumps between branches. Then all of a sudden one swooped down to near where I was standing and I took a quick snap. Then he was joined by another before they both flew off in a flurry of squawks. Pretzal no 2 in the bag!

The amazing colourful scenes of the cloud forest

Quetzal number 2!

The rest of the walk was quite uneventful after this, partly because any previous drizzle was now turning into quite heavy rain, lowering our chances of spotting anything else due to getting an eyeful of rainwater and wincing every time you looked up to the sky. We were over the moon with the result though. The whole walk had taken 7 hours there and back and we’d caught sight of 5 Pretzals. Two instances of two of them and one mid-flight through the trees but we only saw its underside. Still no feather, but their habitat stretches all the way into Mexico, so there’s plenty of time left. You never know, I may even come back to England with one perching on my shoulder.

From Columbia to Panama - The Boat that Rocked

We were due at the docks about 5pm on Saturday to head onto the sailing boat for our first night. As the departure was delayed until Sunday, it was only going to be 2 of the crew on board that night, together with ourselves. All the other guests, although they had been offered the boat for the night if they wanted, were going to arrive the following day.

Unfortunately we managed to coincide our departure weekend with a freeze on the selling of alcohol. This was to ensure that people concentrated on voting in the current elections rather than getting drunk. However, we managed to find one sidestreet off licence that would sell us cans under the counter so to speak. In fact, it still ended up being over the counter and blatantly in front of a policeman who was also in there buying a beer!

After filling a rucksack with cans, twice, over Sat night and Sunday afternoon me and Tim were ready with a small day bag and 25 cans of beer each, some dodgy looking sun cream, a rubber-ring, a bottle of rum and gin respectively, some sea-sickness pills!

The only thing that would have scuppered our plans was if the shard of glass I trod on through my flip flop had been even half a mil further to the right, so that instead of leaving a little white scuff line along the whole edge of my big toe, it would have pierced right through it. But it didn't and with his pen knife, Tim managed to pull out the piece of glass that was now stuck fast in my flip flop,with an evil looking spike sticking out either edge. Lucky!

Practising rubber ring with drink in hand manouver before getting on board

Our bedroom aboard the Delfin Solo

Taking in the views above deck

We had chosen to put our lives in the hands of a Turkish couple who owned the boat and had been sailing around San Blas for the last 4 years. San Blas is an archipelago of around 378 islands and cays in the Caribbean, east of Panama and is the main reason for sailing from Columbia to Panama. Alongside our caption and his wife, was newly hired deckhand Cuorta from Argentina and one of the other guests, Virgil from France who also had some experience sailing, was going to also lend a hand.

By 6pm Sunday all the guests had arrived. So had the wind. In fact, conditions meant that the departure was to be delayed once more until the early hours of Monday morning. This gave us time, to head back to the mainland and grab a few pizzas together in a ‘getting to know you’ kind of way. We also had chance to show Sander from The Netherlands and Suzi from London where to buy beer, as the dry law had scuppered most other people’s alcohol purchasing plans that day. The remaining guests were made up of Karissa and Alison, travelling together from Canada and their friend Virgil, who has been travelling the world by bike now for 3 years. The bike came too.

The cockpit where we spent most of our time - Tim here with captain dickhead, crewhand Cuorta and Sander

It wasn’t long after getting back to the boat that I retired to bed, planning to re-awake when we set off. I slept through the setting off but shit me I woke with a start at 4am to the noise of everything being tossed about below deck. I tried to climb out of my cabin bed which was also below deck at the bow of the boat, but the amount the boat was rocking not only up and down but from side to side was too much and it hurtled me back into my room. I tried again and through the latch thought I could see people sitting out above deck but it was hard to see in the dark. I stabilised myself on the stairs that lead up onto the top deck. I was white as a sheet at this point and scared shitless as I had not counted on their being this much rocking! 

I shouted to Tim that we had to secure the stuff in our room as it was all about to start flying everywhere. As we ventured back towards our cabin room, the basket of fruit went flying from one side of the boat to the other, just missing the on-board cat, but now there were loads of lemons and oranges rolling around everywhere blocking the way to our room. After 10 minutes of trying to pick up rolling fruit in the dark on a boat that is rocking so hard you can’t stand up we got to our cabin and I very quickly took a sea-sickness pill. I remember laying there, feeling so ill, counting down the minutes until I felt some relief! I think, within 5 minutes I was asleep. They work by knocking you out it would seem!

The next day I woke up late, feeling extremely groggy from the pills. The boat was still rocking but not as much and by 4pm I felt OK enough to eat a bit of leftover lunch and have a beer. With sun setting around 6:30pm, my day was very short and by 8pm I was tucked up in my cabin bed once again. Well, lying on a sheet at least as it was very hot and there was so little airflow around the inside of the boat as all windows had to be closed below deck to stop big waves coming in. 

It was another rocky night and half the guests were up with bad stomachs for the majority of it. This was most likely attributed to being at sea, but it could have been all the cat litter flying about, or perhaps the state of the pretty unhygienic kitchen. Who knows? Anyway, I’m very grateful though as once again, pills knocked me out until about 4pm when it was time for left over lunch and a beer!

The difference today bought however, was land! It had taken so bloody long to get here. Partly due to too little wind and partly due to them breaking 2 sails in the process. But hooray for land! We even managed to fluke an arrival at the islands for sunset. We anchored up, ate some lentils in the dark and went to bed for a calmer night’s rest in shallower waters with the anticipation of desert island bliss tomorrow. The plan being a pre-breakfast swim across to the nearest island with my Pina Colada in tow!

Approaching land - our 4th evening on the boat

San Blas islands now in view

Our chosen island (I think, although they did all look quite similar from afar!)

I can’t remember the last time I woke up so excited. I poked my head up above deck and was surrounded by turquoise crystal clear sea and desert islands. I could even see one desert island that was so small it only had a single palm tree on it. Just like I used to draw as a kid! Within 10 minutes of waking, me and Tim were in the ocean. I had managed to squeeze myself into my kid’s rubber ring – this only worked when inflated for some reason – and it allowed me to swim using only one hand, leaving the other free to hold my bottle of cocktail. Tim swam at my side trying to keep afloat whilst holding up a dry bag that contained the essentials – drape, camera and my ciggies. I have never seen a beach like it. It was the stuff of dreams.

Post dip, palm tree and Pina Colada and it's not even 8am!

Life being all sweet

Then it was back for scrambled eggs on the boat, before returning to the island once again, for a tame morning of snorkelling and beach time. After some lunch on the beach it was time to sail off to a different island. This one held promises of a bar, some other boat revellers and a bit of a party.

Our first island by day

The essentials - drape, music, ciggies and rum!

Things didn’t quite go to plan though. The other boats that were due there didn’t show up immediately and in fact only one showed up later that night. In the meantime however, our boatload had arrived on the island and by then most of us were sufficiently tipsy with the exception of our captain and his wife who were well on their way to being completely battered. 

In fact, so battered that after hurling abuse at me and Tim for having rum on the boat during the day and not sharing it with him, the captain had to be carried off the island and was left in a heap on the deck of his own boat, for us to find later. Being unable to find any reason for the captain’s outburst, I asked his wife what his problem was. Her answer made no sense either, something about him being angry with her or something. I then had to try to comfort her as she looked close to breaking down whilst threatening she was going to leave him. Anyway, after a bit of dancing and more drinking, I think these thoughts soon left her and then it was back to the boat, attempt to move the captain to somewhere he wouldn’t be trodden on and then warm up the spaghetti that had been previously made for tonight’s failed dinner. 

Disgruntled clanging around in the kitchen due to having to provide both a vegetarian option and a gluten free option from the captain’s wife, led us as the guests to apportion out our own dinners, which made for a much less confrontational affair, whilst the captain and his wife slept it off.

The next morning was shocking. Everyone felt pretty hungover and the place was a state. Tim was massively sunburnt as a result of the dodgy sun cream, the cat appeared dead and there was spaghetti everywhere. After a combined effort from me and Tim and Suzi, we managed to get the place cleaned up before the crew woke up. We again did this mainly for our own benefit as we were soon starting to realise life was much easier if we sorted things out ourselves and avoided any unnecessary interactions with either the captain or his wife!

The painful morning after

Kitty must have got caught up in the mess too

Not a sight you want hungover

We had a bit of breakfast on the boat and then sailed to a collection of islands where the indigenous Kuna still live. The dingy ferried us over in 2 hits from the boat and apart from having to spend the day, in the far from humble hungover captain’s presence, it was a really fun afternoon. We watched as the locals gutted and prepared a selection of fish for us to sample for our lunch and we explored and took in the sights of the islands. Sadly, the erosion of these islands has resulted in much of the sand being washed away, leaving buildings floating on stilts in the water, whilst the Kuna’s attempt to rebuild this lost land with garbage used as landfill.

One of the Kuna islands

Chilling out on the island

Fish as fresh as you can get it!

Later that afternoon, we sailed to the biggest island in the archipelago. In terms of these islands, ‘big’ means it will take about 20 minutes to walk around its edge! We anchored there just before sunset and together with the other guests walked the extent of the island and ate fruit until the sun went down, then took photos of our moon shadows! The captain attempted to get a BBQ going. The meat worked out fine, but once again, the vegetarians were left with some fish still trying to be cooked at gone 10pm as we were being ushered out of the cooking area on the island. With the firepit now nearly out, we might as well have just been holding the fish to try to warm it up! Eventually, they burnt it enough on one side that it was just edible.

Doing my best with a melon

It's the lilt man!

You don't get water much calmer than this

Sunset on the island

My awesome boat friends!

On Friday morning we went back to the same island. It really was a special island and the beaches were just amazing. There were starfish at the shoreline and the sea was as warm as a bath. We spent the morning together with the other guests, talking, chilling on the beach, recounting previous escapades and finally airing all our concerns about the crew and not only their lack of responsibility at sea but their inability to show any respect to their guests, especially after 2 bottles of rum! 

Another hard working day on the beach

Important job for the day - reorganising the order of my bracelets

We then headed to the hut on the other side of the island where we were to have our last BBQ. Left over bits from the last few days were re-heated and served up, and uh-oh another few bottles of rum were plonked on the table. It was good fun though as all the other guests were great and we ended up chatting together with some of the other frequenters to the islands too. 

Lining stomachs for rum binge mark 2

Starfish in your face

What we did realise very soon though was that, it wasn’t only ours, but all captions appear to be complete dicks! If they aren’t sitting around massaging each other’s testosterone fuelled egos, they’re pouting at, groping or chatting up any girls they come into contact with. It must work on some girls I’m sure, but lines from one captain such as ‘you have beautiful eyes, they are green, with little stars in and lovely black bits’ isn’t really going to wash. By ‘lovely black bits’ I assume he is talking about my pupils, a feature of everyone’s eyes and not really anything special to comment on. I think the English vocab needs improving a little there. Maybe he can learn some from his poor English speaking girlfriend who we met back in the agency before we left. Douchebags. The lot of them!

As the sun set for our final night in San Blas, we headed back to the boat. The rum continued to be washed down and we had a great last night with the friends we had made on the boat. We avoided, where possible any further interactions with drunk, sleazy captain, his drunk, flirtatious wife and the other pervy captain who had made the eye comment, who was also invited back onto the boat, by his now new best friend, our captain.

Although I have to say, it was quite lucky the other captain was there as he managed to stop our captain attempting to move the ship through a really shallow coral filled area late at night whilst drunk. Apparently manoeuvring boats with a blinding hangover is no problem, but the line is drawn at completely hammered. 

By not clearing the reef the night before, this resulted in us being late to port in Panama the following day, which was no surprise really. What was a surprise however, was being dropped at a completely different port that planned. Not having a real clue where we were, we said our goodbyes to the captain and his crew, thanking them through gritted teeth, as us English do, for their help and hospitality. Their crew hand Cuorta had been an angel though and if anything we viewed her more as one of us than one of them. Luckily she would have a break too as she wasn’t due to return with them to Cartagena for at least a couple of days. 

San Blas islands are spectacular and it really was a true tropical paradise setting. The captain looked like Gollum and was a nasty little man and his wife was a head-case, but it made for an interesting time that’s for sure. The other guests were all amazing and made the trip for us. It was great sharing stories and even making further plans together. It was also the case that we all had a rough plan of getting to Panama City at some point in the next day or so but first things first, we had to get over any land sickness, find ourselves a bed somewhere local for the night and fully debrief our trip over a couple of beers.

Lovely boat friends again!

A tale of two cities

The last part of our Columbian adventures took us to 2 cities, the first, Medellin, for a doctor, the second, Cartagena, for pleasure.

Medellin

Under the violent rule of Pablo Escobar, Medellin was the capital of the world’s cocaine business and had a reputation as the most dangerous city in the world. However, after Escobar’s death in 1993, things started to change, and now it is apparently both accessible and safe for tourists.

But even when the rest of the world manages to turn around its view on a place, I’m often left with the thoughts of what the place once was. As we approached the large city of Medellin, evening was drawing in, it was absolutely pouring with rain, making the only things you could see out of the steamed up windows of the humid bus seem grey, dank and oppressive, making it hard to shake off any previous negative pre-conceptions of the place.

No sooner had we stepped off the bus and grabbed our bags from the hold, we were approached by a tourist official who lead us to a kiosk where we were given a map and directions to our pre-booked hostel. I wasn’t sure what to initially make of this. It was an extremely efficient approach to tourism, but with us being the only tourists in sight, I couldn’t help thinking it was probably because if I were spend any longer than a second looking lost, I could get robbed and mugged! I’m the first to admit, I massively overthink things in these situations and I do need to chill a bit, but I’m still getting used to the stares westerners get out this way, and if anything it keeps me vigilant and aware.

So anyway, our only reason to actually come here was so I could visit the doc at the travel clinic. It was too late to arrange anything that day, so we concentrated on exploring the El Poblado area of Medellin instead. This is the place that most backpackers head to and although this keeps it pretty safe, it unfortunately has also drawn in the likes of McDonalds and other fast food joints, the funniest thing I saw being KFC, but seeing as though it was in Columbian, served up with the statutory rice and beans. We found a hot wings gastro pub where we managed to piss of the waitress by ordering 2 salads, and then headed to a couple of street side bars, before retiring to the hostel for a few games of pool before bed.

The next morning, I was up early and managed to make an appointment with the English speaking MD of the travel clinic. We grabbed a taxi, driven by Medellin born and bred Georgie, who gave us his number should we require further services, and headed up the hill to the dizzying heights of Poblado Alto – an area weirdly full of condos, plastic surgery clinics, frozen yoghurt joints and a mall housing boutique type clothes shops and posh hairdressers. The wealth in the area was blindingly obvious and all the women had dainty handbags and good hair.

Medellin from Poblado Alto

The doctor, Dr. Julio Sanin Robledo, now referred to as ‘Cornholio’ due to the rhyming thing, was a great guy who was obviously clued up on travel safety, travelling 6 months of the year himself, partly as fisherman, partly as orchid collector. He was charismatic yet totally professional and within 10 minutes had convinced both myself and Tim that the risks associated with taking anti-malarials, given our potential destinations and timings, far outweighed the benefits. I left, £30 poorer but armed with a new found knowledge on how to stay safe without the need to take anti-malarials. All the doors to the previous countries we had worried we wouldn’t make it too due to my anti-malarial issues were now officially re-opened. Hooray!

To celebrate, like true Medellinites, we bought frozen yoghurt, I got a haircut and we went out to buy some new clothes. I was a bit worried about going into a hairdressers not speaking the language, but I used the international sign language for ‘fringe’ and hoped for the best. The haircut was a success but the clothes shopping just had us trawling around an area not dissimilarly priced to Covent Garden in London and an unnecessary extravagance, so we opted for the cheaper pastime of beers and travel planning at the hostel.

The best frozen yoghurt, covered in white chocolate

With the docs now done, we were ready to head to Cartagena, a city on the northern coast of Columbia where the next thing on the agenda was to find a boat to take us to Panama. This meant that within a week, we were likely to hit the shores of Central America. Apart from the obvious white sand beaches, jungles, temples, fantastic wildlife spotting opportunities, out of this world seafood and other local delights, we had no idea of what any of the countries really held, so planning was needed.

The next morning, we headed to the bus station to get tickets for our 14 hour journey north to Cartagena. With an overnight journey making most financial sense, we spent some the day trying to clothes shop in the bus terminal and then headed up to ARVI Park. This is a large park area high above the city and accessible by cable car. Unfortunately the marked trails weren’t very well marked, some were closed, some we hadn’t time for and the others were a bit roady, so after a couple of hours we decided to head back down. We did meet an awesome dog on route which made it worth it though.

Cable car view of Medellin on the way up to ARVI Park

Our cute companion for our Park ARVI walk

Sharing some biscuits with the hound

With four hours left to kill before the late night bus, we hoped off the metro a little earlier than necessary to sample some further parts of Medellin’s commercial district, but after 10 minutes of nearly being deafened or run over by the mobile empanada sellers with megaphones combined with the stares, the darkness and the general hecticness of being a white westerner in such a circus of a city, decided to head back to the bus station to wait there.

In summary, I did like Medellin. The disparity in wealth was notable and some places were nicer to hang around in than others. All the girls have the same blond highlights. It only took a day and a half before I wanted a haircut and new clothes. Maybe the plastic surgery is necessary to hide the blindingly obvious cocaine habits of people, new noses, that kind of thing, who knows. The poorer, dirtier areas I’m sure could be sold as fast paced and edgy, and to top it all, there’s an 18sq km park at the top with a lake, zip lines and hiking trails for when the city gets too much. So it seems there’s something for everyone. And to top it all, it’s got a KFC. Medellin, tick.

Cartagena

We arrived in the old town of Cartagena on Thursday morning. The 14 hour stretch from Bogata to Cartagena bus station had been in an overly air-conditioned, but comfy coach. In contrast, the following hour long journey to the old town was in an extremely hot and humid local bus, on frantic roads filled with taxis, bikes and other buses. Ticket boys hung out of the doors on the sides of the buses hollering destinations at passers-by in the hope of an acknowledgement which would result in the boy jumping off the still moving bus and encouraging people on. It bounced a lot and it was really hot. At one point I think I even dreamt back to being in the shed in the mountains!

As expected, within the walls of the old town, the colonial architecture was abundant and the cobbled streets were filled with horses pulling bored looking tourists around. It was very pretty though, if perhaps a bit bubble-like.

After checking into the hotel we set out to find both lunch and a boat to Panama. We headed out of bubble-ville and into the more genuine appearing streets of Getsemani, another part of the city. We found a cheap place for some lunch, but weren’t expecting the cheapness to show itself so obviously as to have the waitress take our order, leave the restaurant and walk back in 20 minutes later with the respective ingredients for Tim’s now seemingly overpriced spaghetti and tuna in a shopping bag!

Sneaky beers in a Cartagena restaurant

We would have laughed but we had also just been told they were also out of beer. Why couldn’t they have bought some of that from the shop too? Anyway, it lead me to furiously go out and buy 2 cans of beer which we then disguised in our sprite bottle and juice glass. I can’t complain about my bowl of beans and meat though. Local and very yummy!

Within an hour of lunch, we had also managed to book ourselves onto a sailboat to Panama for 2 days’ time. The number of agencies and boats now offering this trip through the Caribbean San Blas Islands and into Panama keeps the price fixed at $550, but for a 6 day trip with all meals included, it’s pretty good value.

One agency offered us space on a party boat of 20 leaving Saturday, but another gave us the option of a smaller 8 man boat where we could have our own private cabin, so we obviously opted for that. I was so excited. So, after a quick clean up in the hostel we headed out that evening to sample the sights of the old town, including sunset from Café Del Mar and make our boat list!

Sunset from Cafe del Mar 

The following day, our prep for the boat continued and we shopped for things like new shirts and for me, a bikini, seeing as though I’ve had mine now for nearly 10 years and it’s kind of starting to show it’s age a bit. On visiting the agency again that afternoon to settle up, we found out the departure was going to be delayed 24 hours, but we were still welcome to stay on the boat Saturday night if we fancied which was cool.

Knowing that it was most likely going to be fish on the menu for the next week or so, we visited an amazing restaurant that night where I was able to get one of the nicest steaks I’ve ever eaten, which I accompanied with a glass of Malbec. It was so perfect. We followed this up with a big drunken night out in Getsemani together. Something we rarely do on our own, but the cocktails were going down so well. We had a great, long, memorable night out for what we realised was actually our last night out in South America. For that reason, it was a night to say no to nothing and our night concluded talking on the terrace until about 5am.

Wine and a massive steak to line my stomach before our last night out on the town

 Drinking juice and yoghurt in an attempt to right our insides, the next morning was spent packing and nursing hangovers. We sent a few emails and lounged on the sofa in the hostel before shrieking groups of American girls forced us out to face the world.

Looking somewhat bedraggled and vacant we ventured out of our hostel and into the streets of the old town. It was only the afternoon, but even then, drug pushers on certain corners touted whatever we wanted, they have ‘everything’. They couldn’t help me out with a sandwich though, as I replied this is all I wanted.

We walked around the same part of the city a few times before eventually locating the sandwich restaurant we had spied on our first day. However, it soon became apparent that this was the most pretentious sandwich shop on earth, offering only 4 options of sandwich, with one being some concoction of falafels and red cabbage and others containing weird stuff like cheese liquor. Unfortunately having only noticed this after ordering drinks we were committed and I went for the Turkish pitta thing, which ended up all falling out everywhere in a sloppy mess. Being far too much to handle in my current state, I disguarded the sandwich, but I had a bottle of beer, which went down well in a hair of the dog kind of way.

So this was the last beer in old town Cartagena. Soon after, we jumped in a taxi and headed for the port, for our first night on the boat, albeit docked at least for tonight. Cartagena had been hedonistic and fun and a great place to say goodbye to South America in style.