Crazy for Cartagena

After breakfast on the catamaran, a very sticky, shaky and relieved 13 of us were taken to shore by Luis in the boat’s dinghy. It felt like we were still at sea for about 8 more hours and I found myself holding on to things genuinely believing the ground was moving – Colombians first impression of me might have been a little strange. Our first impressions of Colombia were of a beautiful Cartagena.

The old town of Cartagena is absolutely gorgeous and we spent three days wondering around absorbing it all. Colombians are crazy about fresh fruit and every corner has some one selling lovely fruit- from fresh mandarin juice to mango (with salt on!). We discovered a fantastic little place with amazing juices and amazing pastries – lots of fruit we don’t know, I quite liked the lulo juice but maracuya (passion fruit) was the absolute best. What with the fruit, pastries and men selling coffee from thermos flasks everywhere, we were in heaven.

The local food is interesting – well according to our translation of the menu it included parakeet eggs for breakfast and some sort of ‘gold fish dessert’! This may just be a sign that our Spanish needs some work. We had fun exploring the local supermarket and it's amazing fruit and veg section.

New mystery fruit for identification! Peels like a banana, looks like passion fruit, tastes very sweet.

The biggest avocado we had ever seen.

We visited a beautiful church dedicated to San Pedro Claver a monk who begged from door to door to give money to the slaves until his death in 1654, and whose remains are still on display.

San Pedro Claver

Fernando Botero sculpture of Pedro Claver, Colombian artist whose works are all proportionally exaggerated, or "fat" figures as he once referred to them.

Glorious rear view of Botero's 'La Gorda' in Cartagena.

The majority of our time was spent in Cartagena wondering aimlessly

We loved all of the beautiful buildings, the shops, and the generously proportioned mannequins,

Green around the gills

So, after a recommendation and a lot of research we decided to go with ‘Fritz the Cat’ to Cartagena. A good size catamaran with a slightly bonkers Austrian captain. Things didn’t start of the best as we met a couple of friends who also planned to do the trip and started exchanging horror stories that we had heard about too many people and not enough beds.

After a three hour totally bonkers jeep ride we finally got to the ocean, the jeep ride involved the steepest hills we have ever seen a car go up and driving through a river. We then paid some Kuna people (local tribe) to take us by boat out to the awaiting catamaran and the crazy Fritz. I was feeling decidedly dodgy.

Greeted by Captain Fritz we discovered we were sharing our boat ride with 2 Swiss girls Alex and Gabrielle, YouJin from Korea, 8 Australians with 8 litres of rum, Luis a Colombian ex-tiger trainer, Fritz and his much younger Kurdish girlfriend and her friend. Gio and I are allocated the ‘honey moon’ suite, which we wish we had a photo of – a very small bed with a mirror running the length of it!! It takes quite some acrobatics to climb in to and squeeze in to the gap between the bed and the ceiling!



After some discussion concerning my illness, Fritz diagnosed me with kidney stones after a jab in the kidney but seemed to think I will be fine, we decided to go for the more traditional antibiotic route just in case.



Fritz lived up to his nutso reputation and we were all entertained by his unique trumpet playing approach to playing host, we spent a lovely couple of days around the San Blas islands, snorkelling, laying on deserted beaches and buying lobsters and souvenirs from the local Kunas.

One of the cute Kuna kids enjoying lunch on board.

It was a pleasure getting to know Luis, one of the crew.

Luis is Colombian and only speaks Spanish which was excellent practise for us, we enjoyed learning all new words about tigers and the circus as Luis told us about his job for the last five years working with white tigers and a sunglass wearing chimp – no, we couldn’t quite believe it either!

After leaving the San Blas islands the journey took a bit of a turn for the worse.

The GPS and the auto pilot failed which meant a fair amount of swearing from Fritz and everyone taking it in turns to steer the boat constantly, turns out YouJin is excellent at doing this with his feet! The sea became ‘very confused’ according to Fritz, Gio and I would just call it rough – with big swells and lots of waves! After a rough and very very hot first night at sea we wake to find we have run out of water and the sea is too rough to pump any from the reserve tank. Mmm it was destined to be a long ride. The day at sea was long and boring as it was too rough to do anything but hold on tight. The second night was almost comical. As it was so hot we slept sitting at the back of the boat and both Gio and I, in turns, managed to get caught by giant waves coming over the top of the boat and absolutely drenching us. So we decide the safe option is the sauna that is our room. About an hour later Gio woke up to hear water swishing and gushing in around us. Something was wrong – water was coming in through the light fittings and everywhere else possible. A little panicked we reported in to Fritz who was more concerned about the GPS continuing to fail! He did however manage to solve the issue, almost being swept over board in the process. So the next 8 hours were spent attempting to sleep between people on the floor and in any tiny vaguely dry space, occasionally exchanging worried glances with people as big waves hit.

Finally, finally, finally Luis guided me up to the front of the cat and to the wonderful sight of the sun rising over Cartagena. Phew (and that’s being polite).

Bye Bye Bocas

Somehow we seem to have become a little behind with the blog. Last time we wrote there was definitely pizza eating and we were in Bocas....

From memory our last couple of weeks in Panama went something like this:

We decided to stop Spanish classes for a week to try and figure out what to do next and catch up with some studying. Spent a week in the hammock and no decisions were made. This ‘take it as it comes’ approach could be dangerous as we discover we are extremely indecisive. Decided to stay a week longer to think some more.

We watched Independence day parades in Bocas, saw Gio’s doctor march by on the day he was supposed to be taking out Gio’s stitches (avert your eyes if squeamish...)

Two days before our week’s extension is up we make a decision to sail to Colombia!
It rained a lot – especially when we are packing and trying to leave Bocas – was it a sign?!
We were up at five for last minute packing and a 7am boat to the main land. Feeling pretty mixed about leaving Bocas as life is easy and it’s a beautiful place. But our favourite teacher had just developed Dengue.... so maybe it was a well timed escape after all! Next, after a bit of a wait at the bus ‘station’ and Gio almost getting himself locked in the toilets for the day, we embarked on a ten hour bus journey to Panama City.

After two interesting films made by a Baptist church in the south of the US, a lot of windy roads and feeling a bit green around the gills we arrived in Panama city and stayed in a lovely hostel, with a lovely parrot, ate the worst fast food ever and had a big sleep. I woke up feeling a bit rough on Saturday so our grand plans to visit the canal were shelved and we started our hunt for a replacement buckle for Gio’s rucksack. Not the most exciting of days, nor perhaps the way to make the most of the city but we like Panama a lot and wished that we had more time. We did have fun braving the local bus to get home and attempting to enlist everyone’s help to figure out where an earth to get off of it again...

A local bus in Panama City

Saturday night we took it easy and went to a movie, English with Spanish subtitles, enjoyed the translation of every swear word to “ay caramba” and how much the Spanish audience get in to the film. Gio was a little taken aback by the big guy next to him crying at a slightly sentimental part of the movie...I loved it.

Scary stuff and fantastic food

Since we last wrote there has been plenty of action, some a little scary, plenty of entertainment and some great food.
The drama kicked off Tuesday night when Gio and I got home from school, a bit soggy from being caught in a down pour on the bike ride home, and no sooner had we walked in the door Gio managed to slice his thumb open wrestling a water bottle and Swiss army knife. So straight to A&E and six stitches, a comical doctor and a scary moment where Gio almost passed out – if I’m honest so did I as it was pretty gross!
Wednesday was a gorgeous day and so we zipped off to Red Frog beach straight from school. Gio, nursing a very sore thumb chilled out under an umbrella whilst me and a couple of the girls from school went in the water and tried to avoid the killer waves (and losing our dignity i.e. swim suits/balance).
My first girls night out didn’t go quite to plan, just as I arrived at the girls’ apartment a giant storm arrived. We made it out eventually and had fun with the few brave souls that joined us. I got a cab home at one-ish only to discover the storm had perhaps been a little larger than we realised. The last part of my journey home, dressed in my favourite skirt and with my mobile as a torch, involved climbing two fallen trees!! When I eventually made it to the front door I found Gio, frustrated the wind was too loud had stuck his iPod on and not realised quite how bad the drama was outside!
And so, Thursday involved climbing through a fallen tree with our bikes to get out of the casitas and no electricity for 24 hours..
Friday long haired Gio decided to finally give in and get a haircut, we sat and waited a little nervously at Jose’s Peluqueria as the guy in front of us asked for a cut and ended up with a shaved head due to a slight mis-communication! I spent the whole visit trying not to let the giggles take over as Gio’s turn came up. However, despite a beautiful side parting, page boy style finish and a razor shaved neck at the back, it really wasn’t too bad!! And I managed to hold the laughter off till we were down the road, Jose having waved us off. Not bad for $3, not bad at all.


The weekend was brilliant. Saturday we headed over to Shepherd Island to visit an American couple whose business I had read about. They have an amazing home and grand plans for development on this gorgeous island, but the real items of interest were the cocoa trees that they had inherited as part of the sale. Jack gave us a tour of his land and we tried our first cocoa bean. It was delicious. The bean itself was a little bitter straight from the tree but the flesh around it was sweet and Gio and I pretty much hoovered the whole pod before you could say Willy Wonker!






Saturday night we invested $1 on a black make up pencil and $1.50 on some black bin liners and managed to create some beautiful Halloween costumes. We met up with friends from school and found that Bocas loves to celebrate Halloween in style.
Sunday, feeling a little worse for wear we headed back to school for a day trip and ‘cocoa part two’. We went to visit the Cerutti family who arrived in Panama 13 years ago, fell in love with some land and never left. Having gone from being solely Hershey’s fans they also discovered thousands of cocoa trees on their land and now harvest and make their own 100% cocoa chocolate. It was totally fascinating to see the process from start to finish. Not quite from start to the type of chocolate we are used to in the UK but amazing stuff. He says there is no money to be made in it but he continues to do it for love of chocolate. And in such an amazing setting who could blame him.
Next stop on the boat trip was to visit an Austrian couple who have set up a pizza restaurant in the middle of nowhere! The wood fired, all you can eat, pizzas were absolutely amazing. Perfect hangover food. After filling our faces, doing some crab racing – well our crabs raced, Gio’s just stayed put, and chilling on the deck we hopped back in the boat to head to the beach. On the way we had an amazing experience as dolphins played in the water behind the boat. A really great day.
Needless to say we were in bed early, 7pm for me if I’m honest, but happy as Larry. Whoever he is.



Green frog at Shepherd Island - Larry the frog


Halloween in Bocas