Well..I just got in to Medellin,Colombia 30 minutes ago...staying in the Tiger Paw Hostel.Last night I stayed in the Caribbean port of Carugana...just inside of Colombia.It was very picturesque...no cars...gravel and cobble stone streets.Only horses and carts...occasional motorcycle.Jungle in behind the town.This morning I took a launch with 50 others down the coast and across a bay into the Colombian Port of Turbo...what a sight as we cruised up a river to dock...all the boats were old and rickety...too many drug runs I guess.Many shacks out on stilts over the water.The bus ride to Medellin took 9 hours through incredibly steep mountains with fields carved out on the sides and the road curving over sharp cliffs.Looking down the valleys was like looking down the ravines on the Arenal hanging bridges only much deeper with raging river s far below.Small towns somehow clung to the sides of the mountains.Past Indian villages...houses made of clapboard and up on stilts.
The sailboat trip from Portobello to Carugana was marvelous.Sunny weather all the way.The San Blas Islands are 373 in total the vast majority uninhabited...just like the islands off Utila in the Honduras.The beaches were white sand and most had coral reefs surrounding them.I swam and snorkeled every day.We were five days at sea .It took getting used to being tossed and lurched around but I didn't get sea sick.Capt was Australian with a Canadian**pregnant one month girlfriend as first mate** a Russian couple in their late thirties , mid twenty Aussie,Norwegian,and Swiss male and me were the passengers on the Depentha.The sea was rough at times but I enjoyed playing pirate being tossed about by the waves.The water was warm and very clear.Swimming over the reefs and through some old ship wrecks was magical...like flying.I got quite sunburned but am OK now.The San Blas islands are only a foot above sea level and have only coconut trees on them.I swam to one small island that was about 20 x 20 feet with just one coconut tree on it.Like a cartoon island.Some of the island have Kuna Indians living on them...some just one or two bamboo and thatched roofed huts but a few packed tight and briming over with shacks.They go from one island to another in large dug out canoes called Ulu,s..None of the islands are large...Utila size.The Kuna sell lobster fish and coconuts and their women sell their colourful geometric designed mulas*I bought one...hope I don,t lose it...We couldn't sail all the way to Cartegena because the trade winds are too strong this time of year so we only went as far as Carugana.Hey..I even got a turn at the wheel of the sail boat in rough seas..the waves really toss the boat about and you are constantly needing to reconfigure your course.We caught a few barracudas along the was and ate them with the lobster.
I will stay in Medellin for a few days...they have a great sky train metro here...and then go to Cartegena and Santa Marta on the Caribean again.
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