The San Blas Islands
For the past 5 days, our lives on the mainland quickly became a distant memory. The trivialities of day to day living that you usually concern yourself with didn't matter anymore - the time, your plans for the day, or the WiFi password. We were out at sea on La Gitanita, a small sailboat which, along with the 15 passengers onboard, gently meandered it's way through the paradisal islands of San Blas before heading to Colombia.
After spending most of the morning on a Jeep, I, along with hordes of other backpackers arrived in Port Carti, where speedboats were on standby to take us to our respective sailing boats. After I'd made it on to La Gitanita (little sister of the catamaran El Gitano del Mar, which was making the same journey), it became clear quite quickly that we had a good group, which is always important when spending so much time together with strangers, especially when you're confined to such a small space. However, the old saying of "there's one dickhead in every group" was about to reaffirm it's cliché status as we found out there was one more passenger still to join us.
The first two days were spent in and around the San Blas islands. There's no other way to describe them than paradise. Coconut Tree filled islands dotted the deepest of blue waters around us, which we hopped to and from and used as a base to swim, snorkel, or just relax in the water with a beer. Kuna people (indigenous people of Panama and Colombia, who inhabit many of the San Blas islands) came by our boats during the day, offering freshly caught fish, lobster, and octopus which we cooked up for dinner, and in the evenings we anchored down and caught a dingy to one of many party islands.
It was on the second night that the last passenger to join us emerged as the group dickhead, spiralling into a drug and booze fuelled craze which resulted in him being evicted from the boat and sent back to Panama. As he abused and threatened the rest of the group, and finally proceeded to cry, it became obvious the drugs were the least of his problems in life.
Following that fiasco, our captain Jonathan made up for it by offering us an extra night anchored in the San Blas Islands, for us to relax and get a good nights rest before beginning the journey to Colombia. As there was no running water on board, we had to resort to pirate showers (jumping in the ocean), and using a manual pump toilet. Couple these conditions with a group of 14 people sleeping in an overheated cabin for 2 days and you can imagine how fresh we felt when we finally arrived in Cartagena.
Our living quarters, to be shared by 2 people and conveniently located next to the engine
The journey there was relatively smooth sailing (pun intended), we encountered no problems and had the sun on our back the entire time. It became difficult to tell whether I was tanning, already tanned, or just accustomed to seeing my skin burnt, but I did manage to avoid getting sea sick. Packs of dolphins drew us out from a slumber a number of times to put on a show, as did the odd cargo ship or oil tanker in the distant horizon, but for the most part we were the only ones out there, with nothing else in sight. It's amazing how much you slow down in situations like this, with nothing to bother you or interrupt your thoughts. It makes you realise how distracted you become when you're constantly surrounded by TVs, phones and radios.
Having completely recharged, I won't lie, it was nice to see land again. The view of Cartagena was spectacular as we celebrated, pulling into the harbour and looking back on what was by far the most incredible, relaxing, and easiest border crossing I've ever completed. The best of all rewards was waiting for us on land - a nice shower, some air conditioning and a decent meal out together with the crew and passengers of La Gitanita.
Celebrating our arrival in Cartagena
