The San Blas Islands - Panama to Colombia
Due to a stretch of land called the Darien Gap, a trip from Panama to Colombia overland is pretty much impossible. The area is dense jungle that's inhabited by hostile tribes, drug runners and not to mention some rather scary wildlife. Your options are either fly or boat. For much the same price as a flight the boat involves a couple of days cruise through the San Blas islands which we'd heard were much the same as the Cayes in Belize which we'd really loved. Desert islands and beautiful snorkelling, and covering ground as you do it; We were sold! Now just to work out which company to go with!
Cultural Experience:
Pros:
As part of the trip you get to spend some time with the indigenous tribe of the San Blas Islands; The Kuna people. They have some fascinating customs and history that make for some great stories during the tour. You get a tour of their village and get to see how they live. All the kids running around the village were really friendly and everyone wanted to practice their high-fives. It was cool to see how seriously they take their volleyball too!
Cons:
The tour lasts about 45 minutes and other than that the only interaction you will get with the Kuna is the people selling you beers on the island. As far as I could tell many of the adults on the islands would have preferred us not be there and weren't particularly welcoming, and I can understand why. They seemed very happy with their lives and aren't interested in being a tourist attraction, I would probably hate it if roles were reversed. I didn't find the cultural experience part a good reason to go for San Blas Adventures
No Open Water Crossings
Pros:
Many of the other tours require long stretches of time on the open water, this means sleeping on a rocky boat overnight which could easily trigger sea sickness. This tour doesn't require any more than two hours on a boat at a time.
Cons:
As far as I can tell, the reason there is no open water crossings as part of the tour is because they don't actually take you anywhere useful. The San Blas Adventures tour ends in Carpurgana, a rather nice, though very isolated part of Colombia leaving you with another 2 hour boat trip, then a 5 hour coach trip to Cartagena where all the other trips end up. Yes, there is no open water crossing, but that's because they don't take you anywhere useful. To add to that, the time you'll spend on the speed boats is not fun, it's either bumpy or wet as the boats are not designed for a comfortable time at sea. You'd better be glad you spend most of the time on the islands - the boats are horrific!
Maximum Time on the Islands
Pros:
The islands really are beautiful, and you really do spend a lot of time on the islands. Drinking beers, snorkelling, and sunning yourselves to your hearts content. The islands sell themselves and you'll struggle to have a bad time.
Cons:
There isn't always a toilet, and you have to pay for water, plus the larger group size means you're far more likely to end up with people who can't hold their drink or sing in your group. I'm pretty sure I would have preferred a sail boat!
We reached Carti at around 9am where we got all our things out of the jeeps and waited at a small shelter while we waited for everyone else to arrive. The day was very cloudy and it looked very much like it was going to rain. Soon everyone had arrived and as it started raining everyone piled into the shelter to keep dry, though the shelter was neither big enough nor waterproof. This was clearly the first test for our "waterproofed" baggage. We attempted to use the bin bags we had brought to put over our larger bags and quickly found they weren't anywhere near big or durable enough. I went over to the only cafe nearby and asked in my broken Spanish if there was anywhere I could get a "bolsa" and was directly to the reception for the dock. They were selling large and very thick liners for a dollar each. It was day-light robbery however I wasn't in a position to bargain so handed over two dollars for two.
We fully wrapped our bags and then we were instructed to write our names on some tape and put them on to our bags to help identify them. Otherwise it was just a load of black sacks! When the boats arrived we were haphazardly given a number and assigned to one of the two boats. Then we were told to board our boats, unfortunately the assigning process had gone out the window and we all ended up in random boats. By this point it was raining quite heavily and everyone had already got quite wet, the boats provided minimal cover and soon everyone was shivering and getting impatient to leave.
Soon enough we were on the move. The speed boats are converted Kuna fishing boats, so essentially traditional fishing boats that have none of the properties of good, stable tourist vessels. They are uncomfortable and have little to no protection from the waves coming from every direction. Basically, if you sit at the back you get wet, if you sit at the front you get seasick. Eventually the rain stopped and we were able to dry off as the seas seemed to calm down as we sheltered behind some of the beautiful San Blas Islands. We got chatting to a few other people on the boat and everyone seemed really friendly. After about an hour we were told it was another half an hour to the first island on our itinerary.
The first island we reached was a small flat Caye with a few palm trees and a shack in the middle. We jumped off the boat and put our smaller bags down next to the shack ready for the briefing from our guide Brandon. We were going to spend a few hours at the island, have lunch there while we waited for one of the boats to go and get looked at as it had been a bit slower than the other. Unfortunately that was the boat Kate and I had been on so ours, and everybody else's things disappeared for a few hours. For Kate and I this included all our snacks and extra water. We set up on the beach and grabbed a few beers from the man who had been waiting on the island with a beer cooler. After the first beer we realised that there was so toilet on the island so it was either the sea or a tree for the loo, as it was a small flat island the trees didn't offer much privacy so the sea was definitely the best choice.
After an hour or so lunch was served from the small shack which had been prepared by the Kuna (indigenous to the islands) people, it was a very tasty buffet of cerviche and other fish based dishes. We had another hour before the boat came back and it was time to head to the next island where we'd be staying the night. It was about 20 minutes boat ride to the next island paradise which was a larger island than the first, with one Kuna family living there, a toilet and shower, a volleyball net and two shacks filled with hammocks where we'd be sleeping for the night.
We were told to go and select our hammocks which ended up being a race for everyone which didn't end well for us. Our hammocks were in the middle of the first shack which was right next to the main area which meant if anyone wanted to stay up (which they probably would) we'd be kept up by them. Next we were given our snorkelling gear which we'd hold on to for the trip, and which curiously didn't include any flippers.
Brandon the guide then excitedly announced he'd take the group on a snorkelling safari to the nearby reef. We all followed him in and attempted to follow him though as he had fins and no one else did he left everyone far behind. Even more confusing was the fact that he seemed confused as to why people were falling behind. A few people really struggled and headed back and some got worryingly far out before realising they'd have to get all the way back. There was little help from Brandon who was off on his own and there was nothing to look at as the reef appeared to be mostly bleached from what we could see... the visibility wasn't much more than a couple of metres. We eventually turned around and headed back and I believe I saw some sort of cuttlefish on the way back, though there was no one to confirm this with. Overall it had been a terrible start and after having our trip in Belize to compare this to we were a little disappointed, at least the scenery was great!
Soon afterwards we had dinner which was some absolutely gigantic lobsters which we were very impressed with. It was another buffet which again was very nice. Soon everybody had opened their drinks and those who hadn't brought any were purchasing beers from those who lived on the island. We chatted and got to know our fellow passengers on the tour and enjoyed our drinks for a few hours. One of the most interesting parts of the island was the toilet which was flushed via a bucket and disappeared as expected. However as the night progressed and the seas became rougher it became very clear that the toilet was actually connected directly to the ocean as you could hear the sea sloshing against the other end of the pipe. This had a rather unpleasant side affect the larger waves hit the pipe as anything that was in the toilet attempted to escape often with considerable force. Frankenstienian stories were soon coming back from the toilet of people having to duck just in time to avoid their recent excrement attacking their creator. Both Kate and I quickly grew to know the sound the toilet made before launching man-made projectiles. Definitely one of the more interesting toilets we'd come across.
Soon Kate and I grew tired and decided to head to bed. My hammock turned out to be very heavily twisted and after a long time trying to sort it out I pretty much gave up. It was the worst hammock I'd ever experienced and appeared to be at least a foot shorter than everyone elses bar the one next to it. Our fellow inebriated passengers carried late on in to the night as we'd been afraid of. And worse was that they'd got hold of a loud speaker full of songs that could be belted out at the tops of their lungs. Soon our shack was full of very drunk people trying to find their hammocks and other being carried to the nearest hammock. A Liverpudlian guy called Ryan ended up in the hammock next to me and immediately fell out which though it was quite funny I would have preferred to be asleep at this point. At least it wasn't just me struggling with the hammock. I tried everything with the hammock and at one point just put my towel on the floor and slept there, it was far more comfortable though eventually the amount of people stumbling past kicking up sand made this option less desirable. Eventually everyone went to bed and I managed to get some sleep, somehow in the hammock, by balancing my feet on the floor and accepting that I would have a very sore neck in the morning.
Day 2
When the sun rose I was more than ready to say goodbye to the hammock, at least we'd be sleeping somewhere else the next night! Breakfast was served, which was again a very nice buffet before we put everything back on the boats ready to go. It was quite a lot of trouble to keep all the black plastic bags intact around our things, hopefully it wouldn't be as wet has the day before!
It was another 2 hours in the back of a cramped speed boat before we reached our next island. We were again disappointed that we were spending so long on the boats as we'd expected it would be less and part of us had wished we'd opted for a sailing cruise instead of the speed boats which didn't really get around any of the sea sickness issues the company had claimed it would.
The island we next stayed on was a small grassy island. It was nice to have grass though where it was drier the grass had turned into razor blades and appeared to be covered in ants. We spent another couple of hours sunning ourselves and had lunch on the island too. We managed to mostly avoid the ants but as the shade moved on to the beach we also followed and attempted to catch up on a bit of sleep.
The next island was home to one of the larger Kuna settlements and we were staying with a Kuna family who had an outdoor area with hammocks and a few private rooms. Kate and I put up our hands immediately for the private rooms, we wanted to avoid having another bad nights sleep! The trade-off was a very hot room with no fan and a bed with a strong smell of body odour, but it was still better than the previous night!
We settled in to our room before meeting everyone else ready for a tour of the Kuna village settlement. The Kuna are a very private people so the idea of us just walking around the village on our own was not encouraged so we had one of the family taking us round and Brandon talked us through the village. The village was full of life this particular evening with their favourite sport of volleyball being played everywhere. There were at least 3 courts dotted around the village and all were being played on and had many people gathered around watching. The Kuna take volleyball very seriously. Brandon talked us through how the Kuna and the San Blas region had become a semi-autonomous region around a century (don't quote me!) ago, and also how Panama had once been part of Colombia. The tour was really interesting though the part Kate and I enjoyed most was seeing a real life Mormon in action! One of the interesting traits of the Kuna people is that they really don't like their photographs being taken so there aren't any of them playing volleyball here unfortunately.
After the tour we had dinner and broke out our bottles of rum again while we played cards with some of the others with Uno being the game of choice! After a while we decided to make full use of the bed and head to bed early. It was still a bit loud in the room but we got a far better sleep than before.
Day 3
It was another early start in the morning to get breakfast and on to the boats ready to head to the next island. We were soon speeding along in the boats at a great rate of knots. It was the perfect temperature with the wind keeping us cool however in the distance there was a terrible grey cloud looming. It turned out the crew of the boat thought the same thing and we stopped at an island to ask if we could seek refuge, the surprising answer was no! After some difficult communication between the villagers and our boat it turned out that the village was having some sort of traditional silence and by law they couldn't offer hospitality. To me it sounded a bit strange but the crew seemed happy with that and soon we were speeding again in the direction of the dark, dark cloud.
The rain came on suddenly and heavily and within a minute everyone was drenched and cold. The boat offered little protection from the elements and soon we were all shivering and the crew found another island to stop at. The villagers there allowed us to seek refuge under a small shelter and watch as the village children played football in the torrential down pour. Soon much of the area was under half a foot of water and we moved in to the islands only restaurant and all ordered teas, coffees and soups to warm us up. I don't think the restaurant was used to being so busy and I'm sure they were very pleased to have so much custom. My favourite part of the restaurant was the toilet which was basically a plastic hole on to the sea, I'm hoping people didn't go for a swim nearby!
Eventually the rain stopped and we continued on to our next island for the night. This was the nicest island so far with a large grass area with the obligatory volleyball net and a large bar area for food and where we'd be sleeping. There was also a toilet block and showers which were a real treat! We spent another few hours having beers by the sea and playing cards before having dinner and finishing all our drinks as it was the last night.
We had a great night playing drinking games with the rest of the people on the tour, though again they stayed up later and kept most people awake. At least the hammocks were a little more comfortable!
Day 4
The last day of the tour was dedicated to exiting Panama and involved another two hours on the boat to a stop at border control for Panama and then another boat to Sapurzzo where the tour officially ended. Curiously though Sapurzzo wasn't where the Colombian border control was so everybody had to take a boat to Carpurgana to do this. We then found that the border control was closed so we'd have to do all that in the morning.
At the Panama border control we had a couple of hour wait while Brandon took away our passports so we all went to the towns bakery which was mostly sold out of the good stuff and we had to settle for some very odd and sweet bread. It wasn't the nicest lunch. Eventually the passport control was done and we could load back on to the boats. The boat ride round to Carpurgana was done by Brandon at the helm, he managed to almost break everyone's back by going over a huge wave at great speed and getting the boat to hit the water with such force that pretty much everyone and everything landed back on top of each other. The crew took control back off him at this point and we were very glad to get to Carpurgana and say goodbye to the boats.
 |
| The desert island paradise of the San Blas Islands |
Top tips
San Blas Adventures - It's one of the top rated companies on Tripadvisor boasting a cultural experience, no open water crossings (meaning no sea sickness), and apparently has the most time spent on the islands of any of the tour operators.Cultural Experience:
Pros:
As part of the trip you get to spend some time with the indigenous tribe of the San Blas Islands; The Kuna people. They have some fascinating customs and history that make for some great stories during the tour. You get a tour of their village and get to see how they live. All the kids running around the village were really friendly and everyone wanted to practice their high-fives. It was cool to see how seriously they take their volleyball too!
Cons:
The tour lasts about 45 minutes and other than that the only interaction you will get with the Kuna is the people selling you beers on the island. As far as I could tell many of the adults on the islands would have preferred us not be there and weren't particularly welcoming, and I can understand why. They seemed very happy with their lives and aren't interested in being a tourist attraction, I would probably hate it if roles were reversed. I didn't find the cultural experience part a good reason to go for San Blas Adventures
No Open Water Crossings
Pros:
Many of the other tours require long stretches of time on the open water, this means sleeping on a rocky boat overnight which could easily trigger sea sickness. This tour doesn't require any more than two hours on a boat at a time.
Cons:
As far as I can tell, the reason there is no open water crossings as part of the tour is because they don't actually take you anywhere useful. The San Blas Adventures tour ends in Carpurgana, a rather nice, though very isolated part of Colombia leaving you with another 2 hour boat trip, then a 5 hour coach trip to Cartagena where all the other trips end up. Yes, there is no open water crossing, but that's because they don't take you anywhere useful. To add to that, the time you'll spend on the speed boats is not fun, it's either bumpy or wet as the boats are not designed for a comfortable time at sea. You'd better be glad you spend most of the time on the islands - the boats are horrific!
Maximum Time on the Islands
Pros:
The islands really are beautiful, and you really do spend a lot of time on the islands. Drinking beers, snorkelling, and sunning yourselves to your hearts content. The islands sell themselves and you'll struggle to have a bad time.
Cons:
There isn't always a toilet, and you have to pay for water, plus the larger group size means you're far more likely to end up with people who can't hold their drink or sing in your group. I'm pretty sure I would have preferred a sail boat!
Journal
Day 1We reached Carti at around 9am where we got all our things out of the jeeps and waited at a small shelter while we waited for everyone else to arrive. The day was very cloudy and it looked very much like it was going to rain. Soon everyone had arrived and as it started raining everyone piled into the shelter to keep dry, though the shelter was neither big enough nor waterproof. This was clearly the first test for our "waterproofed" baggage. We attempted to use the bin bags we had brought to put over our larger bags and quickly found they weren't anywhere near big or durable enough. I went over to the only cafe nearby and asked in my broken Spanish if there was anywhere I could get a "bolsa" and was directly to the reception for the dock. They were selling large and very thick liners for a dollar each. It was day-light robbery however I wasn't in a position to bargain so handed over two dollars for two.
We fully wrapped our bags and then we were instructed to write our names on some tape and put them on to our bags to help identify them. Otherwise it was just a load of black sacks! When the boats arrived we were haphazardly given a number and assigned to one of the two boats. Then we were told to board our boats, unfortunately the assigning process had gone out the window and we all ended up in random boats. By this point it was raining quite heavily and everyone had already got quite wet, the boats provided minimal cover and soon everyone was shivering and getting impatient to leave.
 |
| The traditional Kuna vessels - not ideal for a tour! |
Soon enough we were on the move. The speed boats are converted Kuna fishing boats, so essentially traditional fishing boats that have none of the properties of good, stable tourist vessels. They are uncomfortable and have little to no protection from the waves coming from every direction. Basically, if you sit at the back you get wet, if you sit at the front you get seasick. Eventually the rain stopped and we were able to dry off as the seas seemed to calm down as we sheltered behind some of the beautiful San Blas Islands. We got chatting to a few other people on the boat and everyone seemed really friendly. After about an hour we were told it was another half an hour to the first island on our itinerary.
The first island we reached was a small flat Caye with a few palm trees and a shack in the middle. We jumped off the boat and put our smaller bags down next to the shack ready for the briefing from our guide Brandon. We were going to spend a few hours at the island, have lunch there while we waited for one of the boats to go and get looked at as it had been a bit slower than the other. Unfortunately that was the boat Kate and I had been on so ours, and everybody else's things disappeared for a few hours. For Kate and I this included all our snacks and extra water. We set up on the beach and grabbed a few beers from the man who had been waiting on the island with a beer cooler. After the first beer we realised that there was so toilet on the island so it was either the sea or a tree for the loo, as it was a small flat island the trees didn't offer much privacy so the sea was definitely the best choice.
After an hour or so lunch was served from the small shack which had been prepared by the Kuna (indigenous to the islands) people, it was a very tasty buffet of cerviche and other fish based dishes. We had another hour before the boat came back and it was time to head to the next island where we'd be staying the night. It was about 20 minutes boat ride to the next island paradise which was a larger island than the first, with one Kuna family living there, a toilet and shower, a volleyball net and two shacks filled with hammocks where we'd be sleeping for the night.
We were told to go and select our hammocks which ended up being a race for everyone which didn't end well for us. Our hammocks were in the middle of the first shack which was right next to the main area which meant if anyone wanted to stay up (which they probably would) we'd be kept up by them. Next we were given our snorkelling gear which we'd hold on to for the trip, and which curiously didn't include any flippers.
Brandon the guide then excitedly announced he'd take the group on a snorkelling safari to the nearby reef. We all followed him in and attempted to follow him though as he had fins and no one else did he left everyone far behind. Even more confusing was the fact that he seemed confused as to why people were falling behind. A few people really struggled and headed back and some got worryingly far out before realising they'd have to get all the way back. There was little help from Brandon who was off on his own and there was nothing to look at as the reef appeared to be mostly bleached from what we could see... the visibility wasn't much more than a couple of metres. We eventually turned around and headed back and I believe I saw some sort of cuttlefish on the way back, though there was no one to confirm this with. Overall it had been a terrible start and after having our trip in Belize to compare this to we were a little disappointed, at least the scenery was great!
Soon afterwards we had dinner which was some absolutely gigantic lobsters which we were very impressed with. It was another buffet which again was very nice. Soon everybody had opened their drinks and those who hadn't brought any were purchasing beers from those who lived on the island. We chatted and got to know our fellow passengers on the tour and enjoyed our drinks for a few hours. One of the most interesting parts of the island was the toilet which was flushed via a bucket and disappeared as expected. However as the night progressed and the seas became rougher it became very clear that the toilet was actually connected directly to the ocean as you could hear the sea sloshing against the other end of the pipe. This had a rather unpleasant side affect the larger waves hit the pipe as anything that was in the toilet attempted to escape often with considerable force. Frankenstienian stories were soon coming back from the toilet of people having to duck just in time to avoid their recent excrement attacking their creator. Both Kate and I quickly grew to know the sound the toilet made before launching man-made projectiles. Definitely one of the more interesting toilets we'd come across.
Soon Kate and I grew tired and decided to head to bed. My hammock turned out to be very heavily twisted and after a long time trying to sort it out I pretty much gave up. It was the worst hammock I'd ever experienced and appeared to be at least a foot shorter than everyone elses bar the one next to it. Our fellow inebriated passengers carried late on in to the night as we'd been afraid of. And worse was that they'd got hold of a loud speaker full of songs that could be belted out at the tops of their lungs. Soon our shack was full of very drunk people trying to find their hammocks and other being carried to the nearest hammock. A Liverpudlian guy called Ryan ended up in the hammock next to me and immediately fell out which though it was quite funny I would have preferred to be asleep at this point. At least it wasn't just me struggling with the hammock. I tried everything with the hammock and at one point just put my towel on the floor and slept there, it was far more comfortable though eventually the amount of people stumbling past kicking up sand made this option less desirable. Eventually everyone went to bed and I managed to get some sleep, somehow in the hammock, by balancing my feet on the floor and accepting that I would have a very sore neck in the morning.
Day 2
When the sun rose I was more than ready to say goodbye to the hammock, at least we'd be sleeping somewhere else the next night! Breakfast was served, which was again a very nice buffet before we put everything back on the boats ready to go. It was quite a lot of trouble to keep all the black plastic bags intact around our things, hopefully it wouldn't be as wet has the day before!
 |
| Back on the speedboats for a bumpy ride! |
It was another 2 hours in the back of a cramped speed boat before we reached our next island. We were again disappointed that we were spending so long on the boats as we'd expected it would be less and part of us had wished we'd opted for a sailing cruise instead of the speed boats which didn't really get around any of the sea sickness issues the company had claimed it would.
The island we next stayed on was a small grassy island. It was nice to have grass though where it was drier the grass had turned into razor blades and appeared to be covered in ants. We spent another couple of hours sunning ourselves and had lunch on the island too. We managed to mostly avoid the ants but as the shade moved on to the beach we also followed and attempted to catch up on a bit of sleep.
The next island was home to one of the larger Kuna settlements and we were staying with a Kuna family who had an outdoor area with hammocks and a few private rooms. Kate and I put up our hands immediately for the private rooms, we wanted to avoid having another bad nights sleep! The trade-off was a very hot room with no fan and a bed with a strong smell of body odour, but it was still better than the previous night!
 |
| The family's pet budgies |
We settled in to our room before meeting everyone else ready for a tour of the Kuna village settlement. The Kuna are a very private people so the idea of us just walking around the village on our own was not encouraged so we had one of the family taking us round and Brandon talked us through the village. The village was full of life this particular evening with their favourite sport of volleyball being played everywhere. There were at least 3 courts dotted around the village and all were being played on and had many people gathered around watching. The Kuna take volleyball very seriously. Brandon talked us through how the Kuna and the San Blas region had become a semi-autonomous region around a century (don't quote me!) ago, and also how Panama had once been part of Colombia. The tour was really interesting though the part Kate and I enjoyed most was seeing a real life Mormon in action! One of the interesting traits of the Kuna people is that they really don't like their photographs being taken so there aren't any of them playing volleyball here unfortunately.
After the tour we had dinner and broke out our bottles of rum again while we played cards with some of the others with Uno being the game of choice! After a while we decided to make full use of the bed and head to bed early. It was still a bit loud in the room but we got a far better sleep than before.
Day 3
It was another early start in the morning to get breakfast and on to the boats ready to head to the next island. We were soon speeding along in the boats at a great rate of knots. It was the perfect temperature with the wind keeping us cool however in the distance there was a terrible grey cloud looming. It turned out the crew of the boat thought the same thing and we stopped at an island to ask if we could seek refuge, the surprising answer was no! After some difficult communication between the villagers and our boat it turned out that the village was having some sort of traditional silence and by law they couldn't offer hospitality. To me it sounded a bit strange but the crew seemed happy with that and soon we were speeding again in the direction of the dark, dark cloud.
The rain came on suddenly and heavily and within a minute everyone was drenched and cold. The boat offered little protection from the elements and soon we were all shivering and the crew found another island to stop at. The villagers there allowed us to seek refuge under a small shelter and watch as the village children played football in the torrential down pour. Soon much of the area was under half a foot of water and we moved in to the islands only restaurant and all ordered teas, coffees and soups to warm us up. I don't think the restaurant was used to being so busy and I'm sure they were very pleased to have so much custom. My favourite part of the restaurant was the toilet which was basically a plastic hole on to the sea, I'm hoping people didn't go for a swim nearby!
Eventually the rain stopped and we continued on to our next island for the night. This was the nicest island so far with a large grass area with the obligatory volleyball net and a large bar area for food and where we'd be sleeping. There was also a toilet block and showers which were a real treat! We spent another few hours having beers by the sea and playing cards before having dinner and finishing all our drinks as it was the last night.
We had a great night playing drinking games with the rest of the people on the tour, though again they stayed up later and kept most people awake. At least the hammocks were a little more comfortable!
 |
| A few drinking games on the last island |
Day 4
The last day of the tour was dedicated to exiting Panama and involved another two hours on the boat to a stop at border control for Panama and then another boat to Sapurzzo where the tour officially ended. Curiously though Sapurzzo wasn't where the Colombian border control was so everybody had to take a boat to Carpurgana to do this. We then found that the border control was closed so we'd have to do all that in the morning.
 |
| Waiting for passport control |
At the Panama border control we had a couple of hour wait while Brandon took away our passports so we all went to the towns bakery which was mostly sold out of the good stuff and we had to settle for some very odd and sweet bread. It wasn't the nicest lunch. Eventually the passport control was done and we could load back on to the boats. The boat ride round to Carpurgana was done by Brandon at the helm, he managed to almost break everyone's back by going over a huge wave at great speed and getting the boat to hit the water with such force that pretty much everyone and everything landed back on top of each other. The crew took control back off him at this point and we were very glad to get to Carpurgana and say goodbye to the boats.
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