On tour with Estelle and Jean-Marc: From San Blas Islands to Colombia

From Panama we continued our itinerary towards the next continent: South America. As the Pan-American Highway stops in Panama (at the Darién Gap), it is impossible to get to Colombia by car, by bus or by foot without risking your life. The only alternative is by plane or by boat. As we are two adventurer, we chose the last option ;)

Our way drew us to the north in a train across the Panama Canal. The work on this 77 km long canal started in the late 19^th century and was accomplished in 1914. A lot of men (approx. 25.000) died during the construction of this canal that connects the Atlantic with the Pacific. Many ships worldwide are built in the maximum allowed dimensions of the locks, the ‘Panamax’ (290m in length, 32m in width and 12m in depth).

The railway brought us deep in the tropical forest, across artificial lakes to a town called Colon. From there we took a local bus to Portobello, where our sailing boat (Big Fish II) was already waiting. As soon as we arrived on the small harbour, the rain dropped heavily on us. Fortunately, the captain picked us up on the port with a dinghy and drove us to the boat so we could occupy our cabin.

The boat was quite comfortable with a chill out area in the front part. During the afternoon of the 16^th of May, the rest of the group joined us from Panama City. We were 8 guests and 3 Crew members, so a total of 11 people. The first night from Portobello to El Porvenir was quite rough and we were thrown around in our small cabin. But we managed to survive. As a reward, we got a lot of sunshine during the next five days. We went snorkelling to vivid reefs, visited beautiful islands with hardly any population apart from coconut palms and beautiful beaches. We fished a big Tuna and then ate it raw, we got served fresh Lobster and sailed with a group of over 15 dolphins.

The crew members were also amazing. The captain was always very relaxed and joked with us without forgetting about the seriousness of conducting a sailing boat with 11 people through stormy days and nights. Rey, the sailor man, was a little quieter, but always eager to help and very friendly. Chiara was lovely and cooked (plus prepared) amazing food. Even during the strongest waves she didn’t lose her smile and kept the group together. She managed to keep the balance between the ‘party animals’ and the laid back couples (like us) without making any of them feel not respected.

The only negative aspect was the smell. Because of the high humidity, our clothes stank terribly towards the end of the trip (even those we kept in our backpack in the storage room of the boat) and after 6 days and 5 nights we couldn’t bear the smell inside the cabins anymore (there were plastic mattresses with duvet cover so you couldn’t avoid to sweat during the night). Furthermore, there was no real shower on the boat (as we had to ration the sweet water reserve) so our only bathtub was the salty sea.

After 36 hours of non-stop sailing (without the pills for seasickness, it would have been almost impossible for us to get through this journey), we finally arrived on the 21^st May in Cartagena (Colombia) and were more than happy to walk again on solid ground, get a fresh shower and bring our clothes to the next laundry service.