Cartagena, Colombia

After a long 5-day boat trip (and then an extra day before we actually got off the boat due to some interesting complications) I have arrived in Colombia, the country of cocaine, jungles, beaches, and evidently some very good looking latin americans...



We left from Puerto Lindo, Panama with 12 travelers and one insane Austrian captain named Fritz. Our first day on the boat was fairly uneventful, I actually slept for most of the day thanks to Panamanian Dramamine, which is pretty great stuff. After our first night sleeping aboard the catamaran, we set out for a Kuna island in San Blas archipelago. The Kuna are the indigenous people who inhabit the islands, wear traditional dress, and wait for tourists to come gawk at them while they sell cloth and beaded bracelets to yachters for $15.

As we were arriving to the dock of the island, our ¨experienced¨ captain, who had never actually taken passengers on this journey, began yelling commands at us in broken English. A popular instruction was, ¨Fuck! The Line! Get the fuck line!¨ When we asked which ¨fuck line¨ he meant, he responded with ¨What are you the fuck waiting for?! Get the fuck line behind yourself!¨ Luckily, the men on the trip got the brunt of his constructive criticism because obvioulsy the women are better suited for cutting the onions (the only vegetable he brought on board) and looking pretty.

Since the boating lessons left something to be desired, and began about 2 minutes before we were to dock on the island, we managed to hit the boat against a rock, breaking a propeller, and very nearly annihilate an entire Kuna village by crashing into the dock. Drouyn has some great pictures of Kuna women in their bright colored dresses, shouting in Kuna and waving us away. Fritz´s classic response to all this? ¨Baaad luck!¨
This was not my proudest moment as a traveler. Luckily, they seemed to be quite forgiving (more than I´m sure I would have been) and we were able to chat for a while, and more importantly, sample the indigenous herb.

The following day we just anchored somewhere near some uninhabited islands and spent the day swimming, ¨scurfing¨ (like waterskiing but standing on a surfboard thing), sleeping, reading, and generally enjoying our privileged lives. We rocked up and down with the ocean on the front of the boat, and watching the stretch of ridiculously blue sparkling waves was almost as mesmerizing as watching flames. Every night the sunset was even more glorious than the previous one, so I will post some of my hundreds of sunset pictures later.

We had 2 eventful fish catching experiences, during which Fritz shouted somemore unintelligible commands, but finally calmed down (declaring, ¨Fuck! This is perfect!¨) and prepared the fish for dinner. In keeping with my rule of ¨If someone kills me my dinner, I´ll eat it¨, I enjoyed the Goldfin with rice and, of course, onions.

The last couple days consisted of straight sailing. Another couple Dramamine and I was ok. Passed out, but ok. I found that concentrating on playing guitar eliminated my nausea, so I spent a few hours playing the guitar Fritz had on board, and even learned a Manu Chao song, thanks to a talented Frenchman.

The final day, Fritz left the boat early in the morning to get our passports stamped so we could legally enter the country. He came back and demanded that we all come with him QUICK! FUCK! to print out bank statements that showed we had $1,000 in our accounts before entering. We took a dinghy from the catamaran to the shore, got our statements, and followed Fritz to the office to pick up our passports. But, when we arrived at the agency, in keeping with the Fritz tradition of making things as difficult and roundabout as possible, our passports were not there. It turns out the agent had them all, and would not be back in the office until ¨2 o´clock, or maybe 4 or 6...¨, so we went back to the boat to wait. But wait! When we got to the dinghy that we had rowed (because he´d broken that motor too) over to the shore, Fritz realized he did not have the key to the lock which he´d used to secure the dinghy to the dock. We asked a very kind lady to take us in her small boat back to the catamaran to find the key. She did.

Finally Fritz went to pick up the passports, and we all eagerly waited for the return of a traveler´s most precious possesion. Everyone got their passports back....except one girl. So of course Fritz had to row back, sort it out, and come get us again. While he did this, we stayed on the anchored catamaran and finished the leftover rum. There was quite a bit of it, so the waiting turned out to be quite enjoyable. Needless to say, Fritz did eventually make it back and we made it to the mainland. It was my first of this type of boat trip, and it was definitely one I will not forget. But next time, I might fly.