It used to be a holiday destination for former cartels of Escobar. Now it's totally abandoned and only local people live there, and let me tell you that you can feel the Caribbean spirit! Spanish with strong African accent, finally some good reggae (Tom was in paradise; a couple of days before he still didn't realised we were going to the Caribbean! Aahhh Tom's sense of Geography! He thought that Jamaica was next to Thailand!! Now he knew we were so close he was ready to do anything to go there! (But unfortunately and because of some fucking tensions between country and a strong protectionism policy, it's impossible to fly from Central America to there, you have to go first through the US!)
But back to our clown fish... First afternoon we met the lovely French Christine, who offered us to stay for free in the hostel she was renovating, the "Luna Verde". We stayed there a couple of days, eating "frutapan"at every meal (kind of yuka/pumpkin but growing in the trees), leaning a very approximate Portugesh from her Brasilian boyfriend, shaking every night in our beds to the sound of the thunder (it's rainy season here and it's quite impressive!) and of course enjoying as often as possible the sea as warm as the baths I take in December in France!
I don't have so much photos coz my brand new camera is shit and already broken, but here is a recording of a 5in walk in Capurgana a Saturday night. Close your eyes, and enjoy =)
(mmm doesn't work for now, will try again later, sorry)
2nd day we walked half an hour through the jungly mountain to go to natural swimming pools... It sound a bit boring said like that, but it was actually so exiting! The ocean crashing into the pools felt like a wave machine on full power! As fun as an amusement centre!
The following day we did a similar walk to get to Sapzurro-La Miel. They are beaches, the first before and the other just after the border of Panama (you need your passport to get there! They actually check it, but don't stamp it, because you can't go further in Panama, boats only go back to Sapzurro or Capurgana). In the end we didn't get to La Miel: we got to Sapzurro and it was a bit late... And also when you are there, do you really wanna leave for anywhere else?
On the way we came across a couple that we had met the day before on our walk. The girl was from Germany, and the guy, from England, was the perfect doppelganger of our beloved friend Robin Brown. (The week before we had Ali's one in Salento hehe.) They were very cool and gave us the amazing opportunity to use their snorkel the time they went for food. I didn't realise how great the opportunity was until we were actually in the clear-blue water... It was beautiful, one of the best experience in my life! Here is the kind of stuff we could see: (sorry it's only photos from the internet, camera broken :( ...)
Following day we came back to Sapzurro by boat with all our stuffs, where another boat would leave early the next morning to Puerto Obaldia first, do to customs stuffs (actually the first time they ask e to epty all my bags entirely!), and then directly to Carti, where the first road to Panama starts.
This was (and I've heard so many travellers telling me the same before) absolutely the most beautiful part of our trip. It was a (f***ing $120) 9h speed boat (in French we would say "tappe-cul", literally arse-tapper^^), crossing the San Blas Islands... Never heard of the San Blas Islands? Let me help you:
6h of exhilarting view, under the very hot sun but also totally soaked by the very warm water as a mild salvation. We landed too late for any car to drive us to the city, so we all spent the night at the indigenous of Carti, the last island of San Blas, just before the road starts.
Here is a beautiful photo (from the internet, sorry again) just to show you the traditional Panamean art. Women spend hours threading beads together and have them sew around the lower part of their legs, like this: ...beautiful, isn't it?
The following day a car picked us to drive us to Panama City, going through customs a 2nd time (emptying all bags included); and there we called Pedro, a contact that was given to Tom by Manon, that he met in Medellin... Pedro ended up being a super cool dude, welcoming us like stars, bringing Tom to party at weekend, sharing art with me... And surprise! Manon actually showed up the same night haha... What a coincidence!
We're now about to leave him to take a bus to a touristic place called Bocas de Toro, which we heard is wonderful... Tell you more in the next chapter =) Until then, peace, love and laughter dear friends x x x
PS: We're crossing Panama Canal tonight, so exiting!!!!
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