Blogs from Kuna Yala, Panama, Central America Caribbean

“Man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it” George Moore, English Analytic Philosopher "Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone." The Dhammapada So this is it. The End. My final Central America blog. The journey started 3 months ago in Mexico and now finishes in Panama – a country I will remember for all the time I have spent on its beautiful islands – be it on Bocas del Toro, Isla Coiba or the archipelago of San Blas. In fact come to think of it, I don’t seem to have spent much time on the mainland at all… I left you last from the beaches of Isla Bastiamentos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastimentos_Island) and the blue waters of deserted Turtle Beach... read more

After meeting so many people at the hostel, one of the guys who stayed with us asked if I would be interested in going to San Blas for Easter. That was a tough decision… heck yes, I would. His four-wheel drive truck was perfect for a rocky mountain road to get to Carti from where we would take a boat to one of the 365 islands of Kuna people. On Thursday night I took a late bus from David to Santiago. (I just learned that there are 5 Santiagos in the world). In the morning we were supposed to pick up another friend from a gas station on the way to Panama City. Somehow, the other friend had a problem with a bus, we had a problem waking up, and since only one person from the ... read more

Day 1 So, it was the morning of departure from Portabelo in search of Cartagena Colombia. Everyone was up quite early to make sure they had all their stuff packed and ready for the trip. We were supposed to meet at the dock at 10am so all of us started our walk with our massive backpacks, small pack and added carrier bags of food and drink (mainly clanging rum bottles) towards the dock. When we arrived there was a group of people sitting on the bank just alongside the dock but they didn’t look in the best of spirits...we first wandered if they were coming on the same boat as us but after a while we worked out that they must of just got off another boat coming from Colombia and they either all had a ... read more

We're having a great time here in the San Blas. Lots of nice anchorages. There's a large reef about a mile out from us which makes for very protected waters. But you can hear and see the surf breaking against it at all times. We've hiked around a couple islands. Two days ago, we went to a palapa which had happy hour from 6 - 7 pm. Cans of beer are $.75 and rum and coke $1.25, no other choices. Prices double after happy hour. This was on a 2-3 acre island. They even had internet for $3 per hour. We bought a 15 lb fish from a Kuna right out of his canoe. He started at $20, but we got it for $12. Yesterday another canoe came by offering a lobster and a crab (huge ... read more

So, next destination was the San Blas Islands, and what we had been told was paradise…perfect!. As previously mentioned, in order to book our San Blas tour, we had a bit of a nightmare, and things didn’t run too smoothly. We finally booked it however by skyping a guy we tracked down on the internet who organised tours to one of the islands. We were taking a bit of a leap of faith on this fella, as he had already been a little difficult to get hold of a few times, plus we had seen no previous reviews or feedback on the company. This was a potential risk! He asked us whether we would like the driver to pick us up from our apartment at 5am or 6am in order to take us to into Kuna ... read more

On leaving Belize I was faced with making a choice between spending more time in Central America or hot footing it down to South America (unfortunately I just don´t have the time to do both properly). After too many recommendations for Colombia I decided on the later and booked myself on a sail boat to take me to Cartagena, Colombia from Panama on the 17th September. This meant only three weeks to see the remainder of Central America - not an easy task, but an incredible experience. Highlights below: Lago Yajoa, Honduras: Stayed in a micro-brewery set in the jungle amongst the largest selection of birds in Central America. Beer and wildlife are the perfect combination. Volcano boarding, Leon: This involved hurtling down a volcano at 40km p/h on a sledge, and managing ensure all limbs ... read more

From Panama, there are essentially three ways to get to Colombia, the next stop on our trip. Option one is to fly, but it was going to be a very expensive flight and where there is an alternative, we usually prefer to do that. Option two is to travel overland across the Darien Gap. Downsides of this route are that there are no roads, so it involves days of hacking through jungle with a machete, and the fact that still today there is a high risk of kidnap. As exciting as that sounded, we chose option three, taking a sailboat from northern Panama across to Cartagena on the northern Colombian coast. Many boats offer trips on this route and are advertised in hostels in Panama City. Choosing the right boat and captain is a little bit ... read more

Donderdag 24/02/2011 Goede dingen laten vaak op zich wachten. Dat was duidelijk de boodschap. Het begon meteen in Brussel : meer dan een uur vertraging voor vertrek, en een extra halfuurtje rondjes draaien boven Schiphol... en een landing in de potdichte mist! Vreemd de piste te ontdekken een fractie van een seconde voor het landingstel de tarmac raakt... Toch nog net op tijd voor de verbinding. Om, eens in het vliegtuig, opnieuw handerhalfuur vertraging te moeten uitzitten omwille van de beperkte zichtbaarheid... En, by the way, “zoals u zult merken zal de linker motor manueel gestart worden omwille van een technisch probleempje... U hoeft niet ongerust te zijn, dit is een routineprocedure...” Leuk bericht voor je begint aan een 11-uur lange vlucht... Tijdens de taxirit kunnen we de skyline van Panama City bewonderen. Onze url=http://www.bedandbreakfastpanama.com... read more