Sailing and Trekking

Made it to the Lost City

      Last time I updated this, I was 24 hours from leaving Central America for South America. Well, plenty has happened since then and I’ll try to cram all 3 weeks into this post. I spent my last day in Central America exploring the town of Portobelo; the former hub of gold trade in Panama. I hiked up to the fortresses that defended the port from the pirates of the Caribbean where I could see the Mintaka, the boat where I would spend the next five days.

            That evening we boarded the boat and had an excellent Italian dinner, prepared by the German captain and his wife. Petra and Manfred had been living on their boat for the past twenty five years and unlike some of the other boats that made the same trip, they cared about the state of their boat. The boat was run with German efficiency and throughout the tip we were reminded of that. Besides for the captain and his wife, we had 4 Swiss and 3 English, so most conversations were a mix of English and German. After dinner on the first night, we pulled up the anchor and set sail for the San Blas Islands. After sailing for ten hours, we reached our first island where we would spend the next day.

The following day we snorkeled for a majority of the day before taking the zodiac to one of the surrounding islands. The San Blas islands are comprised of about 400 islands, inhabited by the indigenous Kuna people. The Kuna’s had been forced from Panama when the Spanish conquistadors arrived and have lived there ever since, speaking their own language and ruling themselves. We went to a local island where they use a mix of Panamanian currency and coconuts for trade. We played beach volleyball and relaxed before returning to the boat with our recently purchased lobsters.  After a fantastic lobster dinner and restful night aboard the Mintaka. We spent three hours in the morning sailing to a different group of islands where we spent the day snorkeling on a beautiful coral reef. Afterwards we swam to an island where we traded for coconuts so that we could make Coco Locos, which is just rum and fresh coconut. After a steak dinner we set sail for a final group of islands where we would spend the day snorkeling and relaxing before setting sail for Colombia. We had one last meal on a level boat before spending the next 38 hours at a 30* tilt at the open sea. Half the people spent the next two days sick in the bunks while I slept soundly and ate well. I awoke after two days in the beautiful port of Cartagena where I would spend the next few days.

Lobsters for Dinner

Sunset from the Mintaka

One of 350 San Blas islands

40 hours at sea

The port city of Cartagena is considered one of the oldest cities in Colombia. The colorful walled city is a popular destination for Colombians, and backpackers alike. Therefore it was a great place to interact with local Colombians and swap tales of with backpackers heading in the opposite direction of me. On our second day it began to rain, and I mean rain. I thought I was still on the boat, as I was surrounded by water, with over a foot flooding every street and not dissipating for two days. We walked in knee-deep water throughout the city which was a pretty disgusting feeling.  After three days swamping through Cartagena, I headed to Santa Marta with a German guy I had met in Cartagena. After a day in Santa Marta we headed to the small fishing village of Taganga. Someone had recommend a hostel to us, Casa Moringa, so we booked beds there for the next few days. The hostel was the villa of a Colombian governor who had been arrested for corruption. He rented his villa out in order to make some money so we had the opportunity to stay in a beautiful house overlooking the beach. After a few days lounging around the villa and sitting on the beach I decided I needed to be a little more active. So we went on a trek to Tayrona National Park. A beautiful Caribbean reserve with white sand beaches. We rode in on the backs of motorcycles and spend the afternoon cliff jumping and snorkeling before returning to Taganga. That trek had not been enough for me so I signed up for another trek to Cuidad Perdida, the Lost City.

Flooded streets of Cartagena

Cartagena's wildlife

The walled city of Cartagena

Arepas

It rained a bit

Some rain

The next morning I packed up my things and set off for the Lost City. While I expected the adventure to begin after we reached the jungle, it began about an hour prior. Our van was stopped and immigration asked for all of our passports. The passports that we left in Santa Marta because the guides said they would bring copies. They didn’t. Luckily the police let us go on without too much hassle and we continued towards the jungle city of Machete. The final leg of the van ride was an hour of off-road driving until we reached Machete. After a quick lunch we set off on the first leg of the trip. The trip would be a four-day trip into the Colombian rainforest to the ancient lost city and back to Machete. The trek to the Lost City had only become available in the past decade, as the FARC guerillas had been pushed out of the area for the most part. The total length of the trek was about 30 miles but on the first day we only had about 7 miles to hike. Well, we got a late start and torrential downpours because after an hour. These turned the hills into slick mudslides where we all slid down and struggled to clamor up. Soaked to the bone including my backpack we made our ways to the first camp under the cover of night. We had a warm dinner and climbed into hammocks for a short nights rest before leaving camp at 5AM. We hiked 16km on the second day, including over mountains and through rivers. We reached a camp only an hour from the Lost City where we cooled off in a river before resting for the night. We woke up at 4AM for a hot breakfast before climbing 1500 steps to the first terrace of the Lost City. My knees were just about done when I reached the top and was disappointed by the city at first. I learned that we were only at the location of the poorer village. The city was founded about 800 years prior to Machu Picchu (visiting shortly) on a series of terraced mountains. We hiked up to the summit of the city, where we were greeted with breathtaking views.  We explored the city for the next two hours before hiking back down the steps to our basecamp. After a short lunch we headed back towards a camp where we swam and slept until 4 AM when we hiked 18 kms out of the jungle. After a lunch in Machete, we all crawled back into the van, exhausted but happy. Our trip almost over, but that would have been too easy. We reached a tollbooth where we were pulled over and after half an hour the police had been paid off for the extra people in our van and we headed back. After getting back to Santa Marta, I needed sleep and rest so I found a hammock on the roof of a hostel and slept. Next up was Christmas in Santa Marta and probably Peru afterwards.

On the trail to the Lost City

One of many rivers crossed

Traded berries for a photo of the indigenous children but my camera fogged

Map of the Lost City

Our guide

Our trek group

Over 1500 of these stairs

Indigenous

Camp

Take me down to Panama City

The following day I reached Panama City where I would be meeting Beth in the afternoon. I spent the morning exploring the city, which was a culture shock after the past month. Panama City is frequently called the Dubai of the Americas and I could see why. The city was full of skyscrapers in various stages of development and businesspeople in suits closing investment deals. After putting my bag in our hotel at the Grace Panama, I went out to the airport and picked up Beth. It was great to see Beth after being away for a while. We tried to find some local cuisine that night but we found that Panamanian food is fairly undefined. Panama apparently means “abundance of fish” so we focused most of our eating around fish. The first night we got some great sushi from Sake, a restaurant overlooking the mobs of Black Friday shoppers in the city. Afterwards we ventured into a casino and tried our hands at the penny slots, I managed to get up thirteen dollars but that quickly disappeared. Beth brought home the loot with a ten-cent payout. Afterwards we went to grab a drink at what seemed like a normal bar but Ora-Le was anything but normal. I can’t exactly describe it but for example, once they sat us down they used a staple gun to attach our brown paper tablecloth to a table.

Fish Market

The following day we headed out onto the Cinta Costera, which is a boulevard that laces along the coast of the city, tying together the skyscrapers with the old panama located on the point of the city. The Cinta Costera was very lively with bikers, soccer games and families. We walked down to the old part of the town, Casco Viejo where we explored the buildings that were built by the Spanish Colonists four hundred years ago. Eventually we stopped at the fish market where we got the closest thing to Panamanian food, ceviche. It was an amazing sight, about forty vendors all selling Styrofoam cups packed with ceviche for a dollar each. I ate mine and half of Beth’s. We had a great dinner where we started our addiction for

Before

After

caprese salads as we could get fresh tomatoes down in Panama.

The next day we splurged on brunch and went to the Waldorf Astoria for brunch. After my diet of rice, beans and a meat variant over the past part of my trip, this brunch was amazing. We dined on foods from every corner of the earth until our stomachs hurt. We decided the best remedy to a stomachache was swimming in the pool. After a tough afternoon at the pool we headed back to Casco Viejo because we felt like we had not explored the aged part of the city. We walked around and found all of the layers of the city such as a very old church sandwiched between churches that were two hundred years old. We found a beautiful square in Casco Viejo with musicians patrolling and tables scattered throughout for hungry patrons. We did not think that we would get a table until they unfolded on, plucked it down amongst the others and spread a tablecloth over it. We had a delicious dinner before watching the twinkling lights of the city from a rooftop bar.

On Monday, we found the city to be closed down. Apparently, they moved their Independence Day (from Spain) to Monday, as they did not want it to interfere with Black Friday. Therefore most of the city was shutdown but we managed to find some great food throughout the day. Additionally we went and visited the Panama Canal. After a harrowing thirty-minute drive where our cab driver appeared to be falling asleep we reached the canal. After a brief movie at the museum we headed out to watch a ship enter the canal. It was amazing to see an enormous freight ship lowered almost thirty feet in ten minutes and navigate through the canal. If you ever visit Panama be sure to get to the canal, considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

On Tuesday, our final full day in Panama City we tried to get up the coast to the beaches but the torrential downpours hampered our effort. We ended up poolside until the rain cleared when we went out and wandered around the sprawling city. We found a great place to eat where we dined on pistachio crusted sea bass and smoked salmon. Afterwards we went and checked out the nightlife at one of the local clubs where we were greeted with loud salsa music but a lack of people dancing. After sometime dancing, we headed back to hotel. On our final day, we packed things up and I sadly sent Beth off to the airport.

After gathering my bearings, I headed back across the country to Portobelo where I am waiting to board my sailboat that will take me to Colombia after five days sailing through the San Blas islands. I will be reaching Cartagena, Colombia later this week and will be updating upon arrival.

Nica and Parts of Panama

Boat to Ometepe

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted but that’s not a bad thing, as I have been busy. I’m breaking this up into two posts just to simplify things. After leaving Granada, I took a boat to Ometepe, an island located in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. The island is comprised of two volcanoes and the land that developed after past eruptions. I spend my first night on the eastern shore of the lake in a little village called Santa Domingo. The location was amazing; with palm trees and waves lapping at the shore but the bugs were horrendous. Apparently, I had arrived during the hatching period of a flying bug that only lived for about 12 hours. I had never experienced such a thick swarm of bugs, they say that the air is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gasses but on that day it was at least 80% bug. By the morning most of the bugs had died and littered every surface of Santa Domingo. I decided to venture to a different hostel, which had been recommended to me. I did not want to wait for the buses, which ran erratically and took two hours so I decided to walk.

A few of the bugs

The muddy roads around Ometepe

After walking for about a mile I realized I had made a wrong turn. Being stubborn and knowing of another hostel down the road I was walking on, I continued. The crushed stone road melted away into a thick slurry of mud, which I proceeded to trudge through for the next four miles. With mud up to my knees, I finally reached the other side of the island and the next hostel located in Merida. I threw my backpack into a dorm and proceeded to join a group of people who were kayaking to a wildlife sanctuary on the lake. The sanctuary was located near where I had started my walk three hours earlier. After paddling for an hour we reached the mouth of the river, which signaled the entrance to the area and signaled the weather gods to dump buckets of rain on us. Luckily the rain was brief and lifted just as we spotted a Caiman crocodile. Finished with a photo shoot of the croc, we headed further up the river until we found howler monkeys grooming themselves in a tree. We watched the monkeys pick bugs off each other before heading back down the river to catch the sunset. After an hour paddle home, I went and had a dinner of fresh lake fish.

Crocs

The following day I investigated Money Island by kayak as the monkeys did not appreciate people encroaching onto their island. After the arduous day before I decided to take it easy and relax in the hammocks that looked over the lake. I managed to knock out about half of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which I think I’ll recommend once I finish it but it is a book to take with a grain of salt. I planned to hike one of the volcanoes the following days but when I woke up the volcano was under dark rain clouds so I jumped on a chicken bus that happened to be passing and headed back to the mainland.

Monkey Island

My next stop was San Juan del Sur, a formerly quaint and quiet beach town located on the southern Pacific coast of Nicaragua. I checked into the Casa Oro hostel and explored the fairly commercialized little surf community. The Pacific waters were warm and the waves were pretty good for surfing. I spent my first afternoon swimming and my third day surfing and in between I attended the notorious Sunday Funday pool crawl. Three days in San Juan was enough to get the gist of the town and I headed out the next day for two days of buses.

Reached Panama

While I would have loved to spend time in Costa Rica, I had only a few days to reach Panama City so I chose to bus through the country and visit on a later trip. I cut across from northwest Costa Rica to the southeast border where I crossed over and went to Bocas Del Toro, Panama. Bocas is a group of tropical islands in the Caribbean Sea. The tropical islands have a reggae vibe and move at that pace as well. I spent my first night exploring the main island and figuring out what I would do the following day before I took an overnight bus to Panama City. Unfortunately when I woke up the next day I realized that the bus I wanted to take was full and my options were limited, as I had to reach Panama City by 3pm to meet Beth. That meant that I had to take a bus across the country to David where I would stay the night and then head down to Panama City. I’m glad I drove during the day, as the sunset was phenomenal to watch as we climbed over the mountains.