We headed towards Colon, the big port town on the Caribbean side. We were told that Colon was not a nice place... and it wasn't. Kind of cool though, all the buildings are really old, and still used, but not maintained at all. The people mostly live in a tall, delapidated buildings. Seems like the pictures I've seen of overcrowded African cities.

Very cool.


"Hotel Garcia" was $9 a night, not a bad deal.

There is no road between Panama and Colombia. It is separated by what is called the "Darien Gap", 80 miles of thick jungle that is impossible to cross. Flying the bike to Bogota is an option, but very expensive ($900 for bike alone). There are also several captains shuttling tourists between Panama and Colombia on sailboats, but these are also very expensive ($1200-$1600 for the bike and two people). Our budget would not allow for either of these options, so we were hoping to find some local boat that we could get a better price with.

Next day we started asking around at the docks. We talked to a captain who gave us the number to Captain Sierra, who makes the trip to Colombia frequently. Michelle called him and got a price of $300 to Puerto Obaldia, a port town on the Panama - Colombia border. The trip would take three days, and food was included. We would still have to catch another boat or two to get to Turbo, but we were assured these would be cheap. Settled!

Our boat didn't leave till Sunday (it was Wednesday when we found that boat), so we killed a few days in Colon.

We went to the "Zona Libre", a huge shopping center in a tax-free grey area.

This place is wierd. You have to get a permit to enter (for tourists it's free). I think partially it functions as a place for merchants to buy their goods in bulk, alot of stuff didn't have prices, just technical information and number of pieces in a box. But you could also buy individual pieces at some places, including incredible deals on designer clothes and accessories. The catch is, you can't just walk out with the stuff after you buy it. According to the sailswoman, you can either have it shipped to the airport, or you can put it in the trunk of a taxi (the police can't search the taxis). There were several vendors of Chinese motorcycles, I saw a brand new 125cc work motorcycle for $300. Bulk price?

My birthday is Febuary 25th. We celebrated with cake!

But.... it wasn't the 25th. It was the 24th. We lost track of what day it was. We celebrated again the next day.

On Friday we headed to Miramar (small port town 3 hours West), where our boat would be departing. Fun tropical road along the beach, but you never want to go too fast because you never know what might be in the road around the corner.


We got to Miramar, but found no affordable place to stay. We headed to the next town up, called Palenque, where we asked around for a woman named "Sista" and found lodging for $10. Very small, very poor town. We went to find something to eat at 5:00pm but the two restaraunts were both closed. Luckily we had more canned food left. Nice beach though, if you ignored the trash.


Saturday and Sunday we spent all day sitting around at the dock waiting for the stuff to get loaded onto the boat. We were supposed to leave on Sunday but the boat was still awaiting more supplies so we put our stuff on the boat and slept on the deck. Monday we continued waiting. Word on the docks was the boat wouldn't leave until Wednesday. A Candian backpacker named Mark wandered onto the dock that morning and asked where we were going. Turns out he was looking for ride to Colombia as well, so we talked to the Captain and got a price of $50. Mark would be our maritime traveling companion for most of our adventure to Colombia. He is also a fantastic photographer with a nice camera, and I was lucky enough to grab a few of his pictures before we parted ways. If you see a good picture in this section, it's his.

Mark and Michelle were not enthusiastic about the prospect of sitting on the dock for three days, so we took off on two day trip to the famed San Blas on a little lancha. The seas were rough, the boat tiny, and it ended up being a 90 minute rollercoaster.


San Blas is hundreds of incredibly beautiful, tiny islands on the Atlantic coast of Panama. The Kuna Yala indiginous are semi-autonomous and have a very distinct style of building, rituals and dress. Unfortunately, our lancha was going to Porvenir, the airport island and staging ground for the rest of the islands. Small, beautiful, but not all that interesting after you've seen everything there is to see in 15 minutes. We were all on a budget and didn't have much time, so paying lanchas to shuttle us from island to island wasn't in the cards either. We ate octopus, swam in the crystal clear water, slept in the top floor of a kuna museum, and generally had a good time.

(Photo by Marshal Chupa)

Our sleeping quarters:

I would come to regret this little day trip, and not just because of the unexpectedly high cost (almost $100 for 24 hours of food, lancha rides and lodging).

On the way back from Porvenir we caught a little cargo ship going back to Miramar. This boat took twice as long as the little lancha, and Michelle and Mark succumed to seasickness. Michelle went to sleep in the little bunkbeds the sailors used. A while later we hit a big dip, and Michelle flew out of the cot and gashed her head on the opposing metal bunks. It was bad. One of the sailors gave her alcohol to disinfect it. She was bleeding profusely, and I gave her my shirt to hold against her head for the rest of the trip. Once back in Miramar, we headed to the little health clinic. The nurse cleaned the wound, but said we would need to get stiches in another town called Nombre De Dios. We headed out carefully, Michelle unable to wear her helmet. Half an hour later we were in Nombre de Dios, and Michelle was getting anesthesia shots and stitches. I've got a picture, but it's a little graphic, so I'll just link to it.
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_3671.jpg
Three stitches, two hours and one awesome hat later, we were eating fried fish and laughing about the whole thing.


During this ride I also noticed that the bracket I had fixed in David had broken again. Oh well, I would worry about that again in Colombia.

The next day we left for Colombia