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continental crossings and boat barmyness

The crossing of continents by boat is something I've dreamed of doing for many years now. I'd always imagined an epic ferry boat crossing between Spain and Morocco, with a low sunset illuminating the sky with pinks, reds and oranges melting through the clouds and adventure blowing through my beard. My first such continental boat transportation experience was instead a mad, wet speedboat ride between north/central and south america: a 7 hour journey along the panamanian-colombian jungle coastline.

The speedboat picked me up from my panamanian paradise island in the San Blas and it was about 2 hours late. So just as I was starting to relax and get excited that I might get myself a bonus day on the lush white sand, my boat turned up, I was rushed aboard and off we sped into the distance. At first the journey was pretty sweet, a threat of rain quickly passed, we sped alongside the coast and I stared at the jungle exterior, unsuccessfully searching for wildlife... But then the water came! As we got further out to sea, the waves were bigger and water started projecting itself into the boat and instantly everyone was soaked despite trying to hide behind some multicoloured plastic sheeting. Thankfully I'd double bin-bagged my bags and there was a tarpaulin over all the luggage but there was no let up for the humans, we were to be onslaughtered by sea water for the rest of the journey. At first I tried to keep watching the coast and the clouds but the water got too much and in the end I made a kind of tent out of my poncho and hid inside to evade the constant torrents of water that were projected into my face. And that's where I stayed for the next 4 hours, in a trance like dream as we bumped along the Atlantic with water everywhere. We stopped for lunch on an island and I found out that because we were running late, we wouldn't arrive in Colombia that day as planned and we had to stay on another island in the San Blas archipelago. It took us another hour to get to Caledonia which is a bigger, slightly more developed island in the San Blas. There were buildings made of wood, sticks and even some made of concrete that had more than one room; there was a shop and a sports court for the kids to play. However there was barely any electricity so as I wandered around with 2 Colombians from the boat, all we could do was explore the dark, narrow lanes between the hut-like houses and wander to the shop and back. The children were fascinated by the outsiders and asked us to take photos but there wasn't many people around as most people stayed indoors. At night we slept in a newly-built wooden hut with just a few smelly hammocks and nowt else, nada.

The next day we left the dock at 5am, some of the others wore clean clothes but I stuck to my cold, wet clothes from yesterday cos I knew what was coming. Within 5 minutes we were totally soaked again and sped on along the coast for an hour or so to Puerto Obaldia, the Panamanian border town in no-man's land - literally in the middle of nowhere (or the jungle). It was a pretty quaint little town to wander around, very quiet with colourful wooden houses on a sunny caribbean morning. However to look at the people who wandered the streets, there was a lot of desperate looking faces of people who didn't want to be here. Mostly Latinos with suitcases travelling north or south. During my border research, I'd read that there are a lot of Cubans who pass through to try and get to the US: this place is very much a transient town for the cheap and desperate, hmmm I think I'm just cheap!

Puerto Obaldia - the isolated border town where nobody wants to be

After a bit of hassle from immigration, we all got stamped and took a new boat that would complete our journey to Colombia. It was a new crew as well and a much bigger fancier boat that didn't chuck buckets of water all over us. We cruised along the coast and arrived in Capurgana, Colombia just 30 minutes later.

I was so happy to be back on dry land again and quickly found a hotel where I laid out most of my clothes out to dry all round the room. The water had still managed to penetrate the bottom of my backpack despite my double bin-bagging. I wanted to spend a few days in Capurgana and I'd been wanting to come here for a few years. Its a beautiful seaside town that is still pretty quiet and has a subtle attention to tourism. There's a great beach, a few nice restaurants and a scattering of hotels spread around the town. Its also right on the edge of a jungle where you can explore and follow a path to some nearby villages that are even smaller: Sapzurro and La Miel (officially in Panama). Both villages have beautiful beaches, especially at La Miel (called Playa Blanca) but you need your passport to get back over the border. I didn't know this but luckily the immigration soldier was surprising kind and let me pass. The 2 hour jungle hike is awesome and not dangerous. I saw a huge family of titi monkeys, some howler monkeys, toucans, parrots and lots of giant electric blue butterflies. It was lovely and sunny, I sweated plenty and then swam in the lush, blue sea in Sapzurro, aaaah! Back in Capurgana I found a cool camp-site to stay at, but the cabins were so nice and cheap that I stayed in one of those instead of my tent. Capurgana is a top place, I loved it there and if I had more time, I definitely would've stayed longer, maybe I'll go back!

Capurgana is also very isolated from the rest of Colombia and the final boat journey of my epic water adventures (this was my 8th different boat trip in the last 3 weeks) was to be just as dramatic or unreliable! There's only one boat a day that leaves for the city of Turbo, the main port of access to the rest of Colombia. I was unlucky enough to be squashed into the front side of the boat where the curved edge meant there was nowhere for my left leg to go and no room to move across into more leg space. I was sat next to a humongous monster of a man with tree trunk legs who seemed to be suffering as well despite having his legs spread wide to fit in behind the seat in front. I'm sure the crew overfilled the boat as well and after half an hour, the engine failed and we had to stop off to get it fixed. However we were off again within an hour and arrived in Turbo some 3 hours later. This time I didn't get wet but it was a very bumpy ride and my ass got totally pummelled bouncing on the hard, wooden bench while I lost complete feeling in my left leg as it was wedged into the wood side. Still I survived another battle with the deep-blue and as we landed in the very dodgy port town of Turbo, I staggered down the street with a dead leg and heavy luggage in search of a bus to Monteria where I would carry onto Cartagena and then finally meet up with Paul who was coming to visit me from Manchester for the next 3 weeks for a Mancunian-Colombian adventure!