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 s
leep, 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.
