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Published: August 4th 2018
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Sure, you may be worried about travelling to this region with the FARC, palamilitary groups, narcotic makers and government troops (all enemies of each other) and the region's recent history, but it's actually now very safe.
If you stay along the coast and don't ask questions then you'll be completely fine..and when the decision to come and visit this area is made, it will be worth it. It is our favourite place so far in Colombia and we really wanted to stay longer than 5 days!
We got here by a night bus from Medellin, 10 hrs, and arrived to Turbo at 7 am and then took a 2.5 hr boat to Capurgana. You need a bit of patience for this trip, especially if you didn't sleep well on the bus.
August to October brings calm seas, great conditions for diving, but is also the rainy season (thunder and lightning most days).
Capurgana is a nice small village that even has an airport. The town has many restaurants and accommodation. We stayed at Hotel Los Robles, 10 min walk from town. This was the best place we stayed at so far. The owners were very nice, a French-Colombian couple with
their two dogs. We had the whole place to ourselves for 5 nights!
There are a number of places to stay out of town which in my opinion is a lot quieter and relaxing.
5 days is a good amount of time here, and we had to bring plenty of money as there are no atms. Food and accommodation is higher than usual as well as taking boats to other places like Sapzurro or Aguacate, expenses can add up quickly. So we decided to walk to these places.
The first full day we walked from Capurgana to Aguacate, 1 hour, along the coast. It was hot and sweaty work but the end result was a swim and snorkel in 30 degree water!
The dog from our hostel, Paco, came along for the trip too.
We left earlyish in the morning for these places and usually found them to be very quiet and empty.
We also went for two dives with Dive Green. The area has amazing coral and small fishes. We didn't expect to see anything big as its about the quality of the coral here. Luckily we could pay for the diving on card although a 7% fee
is added, it's still quite convenient. The diving was fantastic and the corals were really good.
On another day we took a walk to La Coquerita which comprises of 3 natural pools, two are natural water and one is sea water. It is a nice place to relax, get a drink, have a dip and watch the boats pass by. It took about an hour to walk there and definitely worth a visit.
On our final full day we went on one last adventure with Paco, to Panama! To Panama you may ask? Yes, from Capurgana you walk up and down a hill (very sweaty work!) to Sapzurro and then from Sapzurro its only 30 min, up and down a hill again past the border to La Miel beach in Panama.
It took about 2 hours to get to Sapzurro with a great lookout of both villages at the halfway point. Once in Sapzurro and drenched in sweat, we jumped immediately in to the water.
Sapzurro is a lot smaller than Capurgana but has much nicer beaches and snorkeling.
La Miel was fantastic too. The sea was clear blue and warm and there are places to eat and drink.
Paco came for a swim as always and even seemed to enjoy the boat trip back to Capurgana!
We really enjoyed this area and we were glad to have brushed away our fears of coming.
The place is now accessible from the San Blas islands making it a little more popular. It was good to visit now because this special little corner of the country will only be more popular as time goes by! We highly recommend coming here if you have the time.
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