Journey from Panama to Colombia

We were over Panama City and eager to get to Colombia. We decided to take a speedboat from Panama to Colombia which entailed a long day of travel on an uncomfortable boat. We woke up at 5am to catch our ride to the caribbean coast. Once we arrived our driver let us out and took off in a hurry. We met our boat captain who told us that the boat would not be leaving that day. The area we were at was a territory given to the indigenious Kuna community. This was beautiful area which included the San Blas Islands (a popular tourist destination). The only issue was there were no banks and all the accomodations were on the islands and we were stuck on the coast with limited cash. Through our broken spanish and facial expression the captian could tell we upset and he let us know he would pay for our accomodations for the night and take us to some islands for the day. 

A view of the untouched Kuna territory and caribbean coast.

This is the first of 3 islands the captian took us to that day. Normally people explore the San Blas on prearranged sailing tours. Since a tour boat was not in the area we had the island to ourselves. The captain even bought us some beers.

Our accomodations were not on the tourist islands but instead on one of the islands the Kona lived on. We were definitely the only "gringos" staying on the island. It was very basic and very poor but still beautiful.

Here were are sitting on the dock watching the sunset. You can see the basic houses in the background.

It was an amazing sunset that night.

Here are the boats the Kunas took from island to island. They were constantly bailing out water.

Our lovely bed came with three mattresses. We were literally tacoed into the bed.

It was an interesting night sleep with the bed and the other creatures in the "hotel". All night we heard rats crawling and running around. The worst was hearing them run up and down the tarp covering the ceiling amd above our bed. Patrick stayed awake all night scaring the rats away from our stuff. He suceeded except one got to his sandals.
(We classified this night as 3rd hand fun. Aka funny when you look back on it.)

Here were the neighborhood bathrooms. Dumping straight into the ocean with all the trash. Also the spot where the kids swam in the evening. Overall makes you greatful for what you have.

The women still dressed in the traditional clothing. They were beautiful colorful patterns and their arms and legs were wrapped in beads.

After a night of little sleep we took of the next morning for Colombia.  There were only 3 of us on the boat and the ocean was calm. We had read a lot of horror stories about the boat trip so we were happy this part of the journey was uneventful.

After 7 hours we arrived in Capurgana, Colombia. A beautiful costal town located in the middle of the Darian gap. (We had to take another boat to get to the mainland of Colombia.)  Everynight all the local boys would fish on the dock, as you can see in the background.

Here is the airport. It served as a park for dogs and livestock when no planes were coming in.

We made it all the way to mainland Colombia and caught a bus to Medellin! Patrick got a bag of water to celebrate. Drinking it like a local.