The sailing cruise through the island of San Blas seemed like a more appealing option. So after my blitzkrieg bus trip through two countries (more hours than I care to remember...), I set off on the Slo and Ezy with a motley crew of four other passengers, Viktor the Argentinian captain, Ariel his buddy/dedicated joint roller and the captain´s crazy French girlfriend. All of us in a pretty small boat for five days, including 2 in open sea... Yeehah...
The port of Portobelo where we depart from...
One of the hundreds of islands in the San Blas archipelago where the Kuna tribe lives. While belonging to Panama, it´s run as an autonomous region. They´re a pretty colorful bunch...
An outhouse... I decided not to swim on that beach ,-)
A rainwater sink
The choice of the swastika (made in the mid-20´s) turned out to be unfortunate...
Two of my fellow boatmates, Joaquin, another David and the real David...
The San Blas islands are absolutely stunning. While some are inhabited by the Kunas, many are just white sand, coconut trees and turquoize water.
Wrecked boat
I think this is about the time my camera started crapping out on me, so I don´t have any pictures after this... This could be spell the end of this blog until it starts behaving again or I get it repaired :-(
Anyway, the rest of the trip in a nutshell... unfriendly winds forced us to reroute from Cartagena to Carpargena. The alternative being an extra two days in open sea. I can safely say that I´m not much of a sailor and the idea of an extra 2 days at sea was a ´´no go´´ for this greenhorn.
Carpagena is absolutely in the middle of nowhere... As in, there are no roads connecting it to the rest of Colombia. It´s all done by boat. In this case a 2 hour boat trip to Turbo. Fight your way onto a bus to Monteria (about 4 hours), change for another bus to Cartagena (about another 5 hours) et voila...
Despite the long haul trip, very happy to be in Colombia and South America!
Get that camera mended mate! I'm enjoying your blogging and want to see more pics! Richard
ReplyDeleteA swastika shape is a symbol in the culture of the Kuna people of Kuna Yala, Panama. In Kuna tradition it symbolizes the octopus that created the world, its tentacles pointing to the four cardinal points.
ReplyDeleteIn February 1925 the Kuna revolted vigorously against Panamanian suppression of their culture, and in 1930 they assumed autonomy. The flag they adopted at that time is based on the swastika shape, and remains the official flag of Kuna Yala. A number of variations on the flag have been used over the years: red top and bottom bands instead of orange were previously used, and in 1942 a ring (representing the traditional Kuna nose-ring) was added to the center of the flag to distance it from the symbol of the Nazi party.
From Wiki
Brenda