Boat Passage, Panama to Cartegena

Boat Passage, Panama to Cartegena

David Rice's "Stranded In Chicken"
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Running Aground
During the Afternoon of our fifth day on the boat, the skyline of Cartegena came into view, a beautiful sight indeed, until we got close. We headed for the channel into the harbor but failed to reach it before darkness came. With a shudder we ran aground on a sandbar offshore. In the blackness of night our keel remained pinioned on the edge of the channel in the unbearable heat while the captain vainly tried to re-float. After several hours passed the captain sent two of us ashore in the spare inflatable to lighten the load while he remained and tried to free the boat. We rowed into port guided by the lights of the city.

No customs inspectors met us in this one-time haven for smugglers, just oppressive heat and humidity. We tied up the inflatable at the marina as the Captain had instructed and then we went into the city to find lodging. It was not until the second day ashore that I went to customs for my passport stamp and official welcome to Cartagena de Indias.

Cartagena

I spent a day at the old walled town built by the Spanish in 1533. At the harbor a fort once defended the city from pirates. Balconies overhang the narrow pedestrian streets with many sidewalk cafes and many tourists. The heat and humidity, far worse than what I had fled in Missouri, was oppressive in the city but I booked a room for two nights because, although I had seen the city many times before, I always loved the history and romance, the architecture, and the friendly people of Cartagena.

I was now in South America, my goal, and I could slow down. Although my true goal was Brazil, I wanted to cross Venezuela and try to find a boat to Tobago to see where the steel drums got their start.

For two days I enjoyed the great street food in Cartagena, chicken, sausage, great bread, and lemonade, cold and refreshing fruit drinks. For lunch or dinner I would find a stand near a shady spot and dine.  For a splurge one of the mornings I went to the Charlestown Cartagena were a sumptuous breakfast cost $20. Expensive, yes, but a nice treat. The Charlestown Cartagena serves an endless cup of coffee, lots of fruit, and the morning paper in many languages including USA today and The Wall Street Journal. The newsstand price for those two papers alone in expensive Cartagena would nearly cover my breakfast so with the bottomless cup of coffee and several papers to read, I considered the price of breakfast at the Charlestown Cartagena a bargain. 

From the City of Cartagena, I headed to Santa Marta, Colombia, Parque National Tayrona, a 15,000-hectare Jungle preserve that borders the coast of the Caribbean.  I left the bus and walked to the entrance of the park to sign in with the guard. From the guard building I walked three quarters of a day on a dirt road through coconut palms to the beach. At the beach they rent a hammock that you sling between trees by the shore. I planned to stay at the park for two days.

The Tairona Beach Park is named after the pre-Columbian Indians who built a city further east. The beach seemed endless, with palm trees leaning out over the water. And those waters are exquisite but the rip currents are fierce. Nobody swims there except at the beach called La Piscina.

  I met two young men and a woman from Medellin. The kind trio didn’t want me to be by myself there for my safety so they invited me to string my hammock near theirs. I strung the hammock between the palms and we sat by the fire talking. The wind came up a little and the men warned me to keep an eye on the wind; coconuts might fall if the wind came up too much.

I slept fitfully because I could hear the wind speed increasing and the trees all around me swaying. I couldn’t stop thinking about falling coconuts.

Suddenly a crashing noise woke me with a start as something came smashing down on my hammock. I was sure I was a dead man from a fallen coconut. When I looked down I realized that the wind had ripped a palm frond from the tree and it was now draped across my legs. Sleep would elude me until the magic of sunrise made the long night of fitful sleep all worthwhile.

I spent three days at the park, hiking in the jungle, looking at birds and the howler monkeys, beachcombing, visiting with people on the beach, and dodging coconuts. Each night the trio and I, joined by other backpackers, lit a fire on the beach and sat around talking and drinking a little rum mixed with sweet coconut milk.

Such freedom seems elusive in the modern world so I cherished it. Soon I would nearly loose my freedom to the Venezuelan police.

                                                                                                Amazon Books

Lost City 

I left the park and walked back out to the highway where I flagged down the bus and headed to Santa Marta where I spent two nights. Good fruit drinks and skewers of pork cooked on a charcoal fire kept me happy. From Santa Marta, travelers book a five-day jungle trip to the ruins of Ciudad Perdida, the lost city of the Tairona culture.

I learned that on that trip you need to proceed with extreme caution. It is only recently that groups could go in there at all because of rebel activity. Someday I will risk this trip but at that moment, I had Riohacha and the border of Venezuela in sight. From there I went through Venezuelan custom and on to Maricaibo and from there to Caracas. 

Caracas 

It was my first time in Caracas and although I stayed for two days I didn't enjoy the expensive city with a great deal of poverty. Many of the city dwellers are desperate and dangerous. The despair makes the city unsafe to walk at night. I left Caracas for Rio Caribe where I planned to catch a boat to Trinidad. On the way there I had a run in with the Venezuelan military.

Excerpts from David Rice's, "Stranded in Chicken"
See Reviews at Amazon Books

                   

                    I've seen thunderstruck archipelagos! and islands
                    that open delirious skies for wanderers:
                   Are these bottomless nights your nest of exile,
                   O millions of gold birds, O Force to come?

                   True, I've cried too much! Dawns are harrowing.
                   All moons are cruel and all suns, bitter:

                   acrid love puffs me up with drunken slowness.
                   Let my keel burst! Give me to the sea!

                        

                       The Drunken Boat, Arthur Rimbaud