Panama Canal and Sailing to Colombia

I left the last entry in Panama City, but I had not seen the Canal by that point. I spent a day at the Miraflor locks. I was fortunate enough to see a couple of cargo ships go through the locks. The sheer size of it all was humbling. The ships are 300 feet by 1050 feet and hold thousands of of truck size containers. I could go into the engineering of the locks, but I will refrain. What I would like to spend some time sharing is an amazing sailing trip I took from Panama City to Cartagena, Colombia. I left last thursday the 24th of July and did not arrive in Colombia until today the 31st of July. I was joined by 7 other tourists on a 40 foot sailboat called the Wind Surfer. Our captain, a 23 year old Colombian named Tilson. Our first leg was from Panama City to the San Blas Islands. These are islands off of the west coast of Panama and are not included on most maps. They are owned and controlled by the Kuna tribe and are much like the indian reserves of the US. They live in sugar cane cabanas and their only mode of transportation is a dugout canoe. The San Blas Islands are a collection of 375 islands which a single family can inhabit for 3 months and then they must switch islands. None of them are owned by foreigners, in fact foreigners are not allowed to even rent them. We spend four days there and spend the night on our sailboat. They were some of the most pristine beaches I have ever seen. One night we were treated by a Kuna family to a lobster and crab dinner which they had spent the whole day catching. It was a scene right out of survivor. I and my travel companions were eating by lantern in a sugarcane hut, breaking the shells with whatever hard object we could get our hands on. Well the difficult part of the journey was a 50 hour straight shot from San Blas Islands to Cartagena. Now just to place some emphasis, this is over two days of straight sailing, without stopping. Well we started of well, getting great time and enjoying ourselves. Then the wind died. We were stranded somewhere in the carribean sea, motionless. Fortunately our luck changed and we got moving again. There was a bit of a storm on our last leg with the boat rocking so profoundly that it was impossible to get any sleep, in fact a wave crashed into the side of our boat and my open window was turned into a water tunnel into my cabin. On a positive note I did get a chance to see several groups of dolphins and flying fish as well as some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets that I have seen in my life. Arriving in Cartagena, finally after 7 days of poor nights sleep as well as my only showers being swimming in the salt water, it was a godsend. It is such a beautiful city, the old town looks straight from a movie set. I will have more time in the next few days to see more of it. Until next time.

A man a plan a canal panama

Much has happened in the last week, I will try to keep it succinct though. Last time I had written I was in San Jose, Costa Rica. Well my next stop was Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. This is located on the south eastern corner of Costa Rica. According to the travel book it is "a laid back beach town where anything more than surfing or laying on the beach is considered overly ambitious." Once there I have to admit that I was dissapointed. The town had a seedy feel and my friend and I immediately thought we would leave the following day. On a whim we decided to walk down the solid coral, depressing beach in search of better pastures. To our amazement as we turned bend an immense expanse of beach with crashing waves opened before us. Immediately we did a 180 and decided to stay a couple of nights. We certainly took advantage of the beach as well as the waves, body surfing.
Next on the itinerary was Boca del Toro in Panama. This is located on the north eastern part of the country. Its an archipeligo (a chain of islands), each with it's own personality. We stayed on the main island which was called Isla Colon, mainly because it has the best night life and restaurants. We spent the first night enjoying the 50 cent beers and getting to know some of the other travelers. Yada Yada Yada, large headache the next day. Taking a water taxi we visited another island and spent the day laying around a beautiful, private beach. What I neglect to mention is that to get to this beach you have to take a 30 minute hike through mud upto your calves, the only way to make it is to go at it barefoot, which got quite slippery. I am not sure that many beaches would be worth it, and this was barely so.
Today I have just arrived in Panama City. We crossed the Panama canal to get to the bus station, I will be checking that out in more detail in the coming days. I will hopefully be able to get some pictures up here is a few days. Until next time.

Travels have begun, Corn Island and San Jose

I would like to apologize that my writing style has diminished. I do not have a computer so I am writing these in internet cafes, not exactly an inspiring locale. I am currently in San Jose, Costa Rica, I finished with the Peace Corps in Nicaragua on July the 8th. The first leg of the journey took me to Corn Island. These are islands on the Caribbean side (East Coast) of Nicaragua. It is much different than the west coast counterpart. For one thing they speak creole English. The people are of African decent. There are two islands, Big Corn and Little Corn. The big one is mainly a fishing village and much more developed. The highlight of the trip though was Little Corn Island. It was like a deserted island. It is less than 1 mile long and about .5 miles wide. There are about 450 residents and no cars nor roads on the island. I am traveling with another Peace Corps volunteer named David and we rented a cabana about 20 feet from the waters edge. It was so peaceful, almost too much so. There is little to do on the island, other than swim, drink beer, eat, and lay around and that is what we did for 3 days straight. It is the rainy season right now, so it pretty much rains every day. Fortunately we at least had a half a day of sunshine and then it would get overcast leading into torrential downpours. I have to say that I got a little nervous when the winds would pick up that the waves would crash over our cabana, but it never got that bad. After a few days we got a little sick of paradise and decided to move on. Flying back to the capital of Nicaragua, Managua, in the middle of a storm on a little prop engine plane is not an enjoyable experience. I will never trust those little things. Spending the night in Managua, we woke up early to catch our 10 hour bus ride into San Jose. Once arrived we decided to enjoy the local cuisine of Taco Bell. It has been over 2 years since I enjoyed one of America's greatest achievements. It had been a long day sitting on a bus and we were not up for much adventure, so we found a local bar and decided to have one beer before getting some sleep. Well it wasn't long before the locals got curious with the strange gringos and began to buy us beers so that they could sit down and talk with us. One guy in particular would have been an unbelievable character in a play or movie. I had noticed him dancing by himself earlier with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Well he pulled up a chair at our table and switched from an unintelligible babble, to handshakes, to hugs, to deep screeching cackles. Still now, in the morning, I can smell his cologne on me. He was a very nice character, but I don't think I have ever consumed a beer faster so I could get out of there. Today I am to explore the city of San Jose. Until next time.