Cartagena,
A big city again, we booked into the hostel and went for dinner. We heard about a hostel whom could organise sailing trips from Cartagena to Panama through the San Blas Islands. (two days open sea and three days on the islands) They have a database of trusty captains. In two days a boat would leave, so we arranged a meeting but it didn’t feel right. The next boat would leave in a weeks time. This seemed much better, so we had to kill some time.
We decided to go to Taganga, a little coastal town with a good atmosphere. We spent a day on the beach and a day fishing with a boat. This was good fun! But due to overfishing (and taking to small fish) we did not catch much. Lucky the captain caught a nice big tuna for lunch.
We pretty much chilled out for a few days and it was time to go back to the city. We found a great Australian restaurant, where we treated ourselves to a lamb-curry..it was one of the best meals in South America yummm. We had a yarn with the ozzie cook and he was happy to make (special for us) lamb loin-chops the next day. This was even better! It was a real treat!!
In the morning we got to met the captain and the other tourists..two other Dutch couples and the rest of the guest didn’t show up for the meeting.. We would leave the next day at 4pm, so we had all day to wonder around in the old town of Cartagena.
The next day we all arrived at the harbour and we got to meet the rest of the crew. One American and three Norwegian guys. A good bunch of people!
It took a while before the immigration decided to give us our stamps. And finally at 8pm we head off. Cartagena has one of the largest and most beautiful bays/harbours and it took about an hour before we sailed into the open sea. It was amazing scenery, but before it started to get rough we got in our cabin to (try) to catch some sleep. The sea was quite rough and we rocked all over the place, so not much sleep that night. In the morning the sea was still quite rough..which meant that Karolien got to experience proper seasickness...She spend pretty much all day in bed.. Finally the next day early in the morning we arrived in the waters of the San Blas Islands. It was so beautiful! White beaches, palm trees, the water so clear. We snorkelled for a while and the colours of the fish where amazing. Also the crayfish looked great. Unfortunately it was breeding season so we were not allowed to get some for dinner. In the evening we had dinner at the beach with a real camp-fire and rum and beer. It was a good night and finally the crew got to know each other a bit. In the morning we cruised to another island, again as beautiful! Really nice and relaxing on the islands. 'more rum...'
The last day we visited a community on one of the islands. The moment came that we had to leave the sail boat, but it all went a bit late because the stamp man of the immigration was on another island..finally we could go to the mainland and catch transport to Panama city. We were a bit scared to go into the city again. But we had a great 'finishing tour-meal' altogether in a Argentina steakhouse yummm. We stayed a few days in Panama city to do the to do things. And we hopped on a bus for a 7hr bus ride to David about an hour before the Costa Rica border. In David we stayed in 'The purple house' and really everything was purple..not sure if I still like that colour...
Costa del lot;
We really wanted to skip Costa Rica but because we are bus-sing through the countries we were forced to stay one night. The next morning as early as possible we hopped on the bus to cross the border into Nicaragua. We were happy to leave Costa del lot behind us (with $150,- lighter.. Ouch!) The border crossing by bus can be smooth, but this time we had to wait a long time.. but all good, finally in Nicuragua.
