Dah dah dada dah… Start Spreading the News!

Ladies and gentlemen… this is our FINAL blog.

We spent 18 long hours in Panama City. We arrived at 7:30 am at one of the domestic airports and caught a taxi from there to the international airport. We had hoped that we would be able to check our bags in early and then explore the city a bit. After all, when in Panama City one must see the Panama Canal, right?

Well, we couldn’t. We spent the morning in the airport but there was only one, crappy restaurant to eat at. After experiencing their unappetising breakfast we decided to take all of our bags with us and catch a taxi to a nearby shopping plaza.

The canal was on the other side of the city and it would have been expensive to catch a taxi there which we would have had to do considering our heavy bags. The other problem would then be that once we arrived at the canal we would have to take all of our things with us to walk along it, as leaving them in a waiting taxi is a big no, no!

We found free wifi at the plaza and spent the afternoon taking turns to walk around and look at things while the other person watched everything. We then had a decent meal from the food court before heading back to the airport at 8pm when the plaza closed.

Our flight wasn’t until 2:30am the following morning, so we spent the rest of the time waiting and snoozing on the airport chairs. In hindsight, if we had a stopover that long again we would probably book a cheap room for the day where we could store our things!

So, 18 hours after we arrived in Panama, we boarded a plane bound for Miami, our second stopover on the way to New York. The flight was about four hours long and we arrived at 6:30am to a slightly chaotic scene.

Osama Bin Laden had been shot about two days before we arrived in the US, meaning security was on red alert. Needless to say, it took a while to get through immigration and then through the security gates to catch our connecting flight.

We arrived in New York and headed for the house of some friends we had made while volunteering in Pisco, Peru. Eliot and Gemma were lovely enough to let us stay in their spare room while we explored New York and they made sure we had a great time in their city.

Well… if someone had asked us before we travelled if we wanted to go to New York, the resounding answer would have been “NO!” We had no interest in visiting the city, and were expecting it to be busy and smoggy and full of rude people.

We were so wrong! New York was a very pleasant surprise and we would both definitely visit there again. The people were almost overly polite, the traffic was busy but well directed, the trains ran frequently and were never overcrowded… it was a huge, buzzing city that was organised and worked efficiently in every way.

We did all the usual things while we were there.

We saw the Statue of Liberty.

We didn’t pay for a tour. The Staten Island Ferry is a free ferry that leaves every hour and goes right past the statue, bargain!

As you can see, it was an incredibly windy trip!!!

We walked down Wall Street.

We popped into Tiffany to have a look at the shiny stuff.

And laughed at the classical pianist INSIDE the Mcdonald’s…!

We went to the top of the rock, which is the lookout at the top of the Rockerfeller Centre, to check out the great views.

We went to the Lego Store and looked at the cool lego creations…

 

We made our own, PSF-inspired Lego people…

We went to F.A.O. Shwarz, which is the toy store in the movie Big.

 

That guy was made completely of jelly beans!!!

We walked around the store for ages and, of course, danced on the giant piano!!

We walked around Central Park.

We walked down Broadway and checked out the shows that were on…

Complete with steam rising from the subway… perfect!

And we witnessed the commercial atrocity that is Times Square…

 

We got into the spirit of BIG things while we were there.

We drank giant cans of juice…

We ate giant pizza slices…

And giant pretzels….

We ate NY’s finest bagels at Murrays, saw squirrels and pointed at them like the tourists we were, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, went to see a band at the Brooklyn Bowl (where you can watch a band, drink, eat and ten pin bowl all at the same time!) and had great fun doing it all!

Frank Sinatra was right… it really is up to you, New York, New Yooooooork!

We left NY at 5am on the 11th of May and arrived in Melbourne at 10am on the 13th of May. We flew from NY to LA, LA to Auckland and then Auckland to Melbourne. We spent eight boring hours at LAX Airport. We were inside a plane for 32 hours overall and managed to cross the dateline and lose an entire day…. blurgh.

We came home to rain and wind and a top temperature of 12 degrees…. gotta love Melbourne weather!

The first thing we both did was eat crumpets with vegemite, yum!

We were jetlagged for a few days but got over it reasonably quickly.

And now we’re home…. working again (boring!) trying to save some money to pay back our debts before we can start planning the next adventure!!!

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So, there you have it. 14 months worth of travel stories and photos. We have enough memories to last a lifetime!  We made brilliant friends, saw some ridiculously beautiful and not so beautiful things, learned the basics of a new language, gave our time to a worthy cause and made our way through 10 different countries.

Bring on the next adventure!!!

Welcome to Paradise!

We had to get up early to make our way to the yacht club where we were meeting Captain George and Sandra, as well as the rest of our crew, for our epic five day sailing trip from Cartagena to Panama.

There were ten of us on the 43 foot sail boat called Coolrunning II; Captain George, Sandra and eight backpackers. It was cosy indeed!

There are three main options for people who want to get from Colombia to Panama, or vice versa…

Option 1 – Sail across. It’s not cheap (we paid US$420 each) but food, accommodation and customs formalities are all included. By taking this option you also get to detour through the AMAZING San Blas islands for a couple of days, but we’ll get to that a little later.

Option 2 – Fly. It’s not much cheaper than sailing, due to an insane fuel tax for all planes leaving Colombia.

Option 3 – Make your way by land to the very top of Colombia, which is slow and difficult as there are no bus companies and you have to rely on locals to ferry you. This means you have to have spare time for them to dictate when they are leaving. Once at the top you have to hope someone there has a boat and they are heading towards Panama… odds are it will be a dinghy and your bum will be mighty sore after bumping across the ocean for about 10 hours! Once on the other side, you need to negotiate with locals again to get to one of the larger cities in Panama. This is the cheapest but most painful option. Enough said.

There are other ways, and cheaper ways (as always) but we had heard plenty of scary stories about backpackers kicked off cargo ships, or taken to places they hadn’t negotiated, not to mention being caught on a drug-runner boat… yes, the FARC are well and truly alive and kicking in that area of the world!

Many independent salboat captains take advantage of the lack of options and offer “luxury backpacker cruises” which is what our trip was called.  The prices and types of boats vary greatly. We went with one of the pricier boats after doing our research.

There are stories about cheaper sailboats not having proper navigational equipment, or rescue equipment, or enough food/water/beds, or the captain getting blind drunk/high… after taking all of that into account, we decided to go with a reputable Captain and spend the appropriate amount of money to make sure it was a trip to remember!

We spent the first day, night and most of the second day on open water with the engine running. We rocked and rolled all the way through the Caribbean Sea for a total of 33 hours.

Most of the time we saw nothing but blue water and no other boats.

Occasionally we saw a cargo ship in the distance and once we witnessed a small dinghy racing across the open waters (yep, probably FARC) but other than that the only break in the monotony was when some dolphins found us and had a play with our boat.

Mel really enjoyed the experience but most of the other backpackers felt some level of sea sickness and spent most of the time sleeping.

It was soooo hot as we sailed and there was nowhere to hide except under the boat, which was even hotter because all the windows had to remain closed to stop sea water spraying in. We were constantly lathering sun cream on ourselves and still felt like we were burning.

We saw land for the first time around 3pm on the second day. At first we just saw a few islands in the distance…

Then we got closer…

We moored in a part of the archipelago called the Swimming Pool around 5pm. It was AMAZING! The bottom of the boat was only about three metres from the  ground and the water was crystal clear.

Of course, we all jumped straight in! We had an evening swim before dinner and then retired for the night so we could get up super early the next day and explore the islands.

Our captain ferried us from the sail boat to a few of the islands over the day in his dinghy, picking us up and taking us back to the boat for lunch and dinner.

No point writing much more, we’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us introduce you to PARADISE!

We swam, sunbathed and snorkelled our hearts out. Unfortunately we didn’t have an underwater camera, because the sights down there were absolutely breathtaking!

We swam with schools of fish of every colour imaginable. We swam near sharks, stingrays and other animals we were happy not to touch! There were coral reefs everywhere, all we had to do was wade in about two metres (sometimes not even that far) and much of the time was spent trying not to scratch our knees on the rocks and coral because it was so shallow!

The following day we sailed to an inhabited island, where the Kuni people live.

After seeing so many uninhabited islands it was strange to see that the locals had built ALL OVER the island…

We spent a couple of hours wandering the island and chatting to the locals.

 

 

 

We marvelled at their toilets, a seat on a concrete hole over the water… no swimming in that area thanks!

Mel had a local woman make a bracelet for her, similar to the ones the Kuni women wear.

We slept on the boat again that night and then headed towards our final destination the following morning.

We sailed in the sun for about five hours and were desperate to stay out of the sun. After all, we already had the best tans of our lives…!

Mel used the boom for a little bit of relief!

Captain George showed us his special trick for cooling down… hanging onto the ladder at the back of the boat for dear life while the boat moved through deep, cool waters!

We arrived to Porveir, the island in the San Blas where we completed our immigration formalities and where we were disembarking the boat.

We said goodbye to Captain George and Sandra (and thanked them for the amazing food and hospitality over the last four and half days) and went to investigate how we were getting to the mainland of Panama.

We wanted to fly as it was only $10 more than going by boat and it would be an opportunity to see the islands from the air, bargain!

There were no flights available the following day but we didn’t care – we were in paradise! We booked in for the day after and set about getting comfortable.

The tent came in handy once again, as it was a quarter of the price to camp than to stay in a dorm room.

We spent the next two days relaxing a little more, what a hard life!

We broke up the relaxing with some walking, swimming and shell collecting!

Not a bad place to live for a couple of days!!!

The plane we were flying in was a thirty seater. In other words, it was tiny!

The island was also tiny and the runway literally went from one end to the other!

Bevan is pretending he is a plane, in case you were wondering!

For $70 the “scenic flight” was worth the money, especially if you consider how much a scenic flight over the Great Barrier Reef is!

The photos aren’t great, but they give some idea of the views we had…

The plane was very loud and very bumpy, and being able to see the captain through the curtain (yes curtain, not door!) didn’t make us feel better!

But, happily, we made it! However, that also meant that our trip was almost over. We spent a long day at Panama City’s international airport before boarding a plane headed for New York, our final stop on our 14 month adventure.

Goodbye South America. You were eye-opening, always entertaining, full of adventure and new experiences, often sad and sometimes a little scary. We are thankful for the experiences we had with you  and your people and we will definitely remember our time spent with you for the rest of our lives.