The Caribbean Coast is relaxed. Really relaxed. The weather is hot, the people are reluctant to work and everyone is friendly as hell. Here in Capurgana I am well off the “gringo trail” as it would be. The town is a quaint couple of thousand large and the only way in or out is via a small armada of motorised long boats. It is amazing how quickly you feel the pace here. The locals have a favourite word for everything and it is tranquillo. This translates directly to relax....(dude). To pass a day you can drink from a coconut, chill on the beach or speak some horrible broken Spanish with the many lounged out locals.
I have a story that I think sums this town up quite well. On my first day here I decided I wanted something to drink but not the usual old water. Walking into the local corner store I picked out a nice cold Gatorade. Looking past the counter I saw a youngish attendant slouched head down in a plastic garden chair. I tried to rouse him only to realise he was passed out stone cold drunk! Making enough noise to get his attention he fell off his chair onto the floor from where he could not get up. Enough minutes passed, locals came and went, all laughing at how drunk he was. To them it was just the way it was. It was normal for everyone to have some fun. They just paid their money, ensuring to leave the correct amount and then they kept on keeping on. So taking the cue, I did the same. That is this town. Honest and relaxed.
Here you need to travel a measly ten meters from the shoreline before you get your first glimpses of reef. I positioned myself yet another twenty meters away from the water in a nice neat hostel run by a guy called Hezus and his lovely little daughter. That makes it a total of thirty meters and I am at the reef! How about them apples!
Talking with the local dive shop I managed to hire a set of fins, a mask, snorkel and marker buoy. Kitted out, I swam out to a nearby island which was about 1km away. I was delighted to find that there was reef the whole way. From my beginnings, it took me fifty meters to see my first big crayfish and not a little more before I was engrossed in a plethora of eels, fish and so on. I also had the opportunity to hang with a rather large school of squid on the back edge of the island, watching each of them change colour with their mood. Quite neat I thought.
The following day I decided it was time to do a scuba adventure. I signed up for two dives and with the aid of a very small tender myself, the instructor and one other made our way to the first site. This site was actually a rock that was split by the Colombia/Panama border. So technically I scuba dove in both countries which was pretty cool. We were under the watch of a rather large navy vessel mind you! Taking a break on a local beach we had another dive which was equally as cool as the first. The water clarity here is pretty good and the variety of corals is quite impressive.
Back in the hostel I spoke of my snorkelling and scuba travels to a couple of people and soon found three of them keen to head out the next day. This time we swam a total of about eight kilometres. We saw a baby turtle, some crazy fish and some awesome corals. Along the way I found a rather large crab and using a piece of coral I managed to wrestle and final pick him up before stuffing him into a bag we were carrying. I think at this point the guys I was snorkelling with were sure I was going to get it from this crab. And he was definitely big enough to give it proper! But when it all worked out they basically lost their stuff. Apparently I am Australia´s new Steve Irwin (definitely better than Bear Grills). All I know was I had crab. Mmmm crab. Continuing on we swam and swam. I free dove till my heart was content and when we final got back, we had achieved all that we needed to for the day.
Not having anywhere near enough of this kind of stuff I met with an Italian/French man called Fabio to organise a trip to a nearby island archipelago called the San Blas islands. Fabio was a young guy and quite a character. I knew pretty soon that a trip with him would be fun. Instead of the usual three day trip I asked if I could do an extra day. Of course I could! Nothing is impossible here. As it ended up there was only three of us in total on the trip which suited me perfectly.
The following day we boarded a small motor boat ready for our trip. On the boat was Fabio, the boat driver Sofa and both their girlfriends. Combined with myself and an Aussie couple we totalled seven. Because the San Blas islands are in Panama we needed to make a preliminary stop at the immigration centre just over the border. The town was depressing and chocked full of military types. Panama is a seriously military country. The local police were into their jobs as well. They searched our boat, bags etc and ran us through the wringer. We had to provide finger prints, retinal scans, our heights, weights, mug shots etc. It was a long two hours before we could pass through! But when we did pass we thought, “bugger this, we need some beer”. So we bought some icy cold beers and drank them rather mockingly as we cruised back past the police, hopped into the boat and motored off! No such thing as drink driving here.
Just a friendly little machine gunner. In the photo is one other Australian on the trip, Nathan.
The San Blas Islands are an archipelago of some 365 islands which belong to a group of natives called the Kuna. They rule their territory as they please and staying on their islands requires special approval. The Kuna themselves have some mod cons, such as solar power and running water but aside from that they basically live in palm and bamboo huts and their primary means of transport is still wooden canoes. They live off the water and whatever crops they cultivate on the different islands. This is basically coconuts and plantains. I friggin hate coconuts and plantains!
Our first camp was on a remote uninhabited island with nothing but coconut trees and a fringing reef. Immediately the tents went up, the gear came out and I was in the water snorkelling. It took most the remainder of the day but I traversed the whole fringing reef. The following morning I was up to watch the sunrise from my tent and back in the water for a dive of the local bommies. That morning I had a chance encounter with a rather large eagle ray which passed no less than a meter and a half under me. Just out of touching range! What a cool start to the day.
Before making a move to our next island some locals showed up with a bunch of crayfish they had just caught. We bought three good sized crayfish for a total of 15 USD. Sofa had only just shot a big reef crab also with his hand spear so we were now set for a massive seafood dinner later in the day. Wow.
From our first island our next stop was the Kuna village of Caledonia. The village was a nice experience, but for me it was not as cool as the remote Islands. The kids and people were exceptionally friendly in the village and being the big gringo in town the kids all wanted to hold my hand and walk with me. I introduced some of them to the extreme vertical (basically a vertical launch of a child up into the air). This made me the village theme ride. I threw kids around left right and centre in between a bit of play fighting and some plain old running amuck. It was pretty cool. Just before sun set that day I took Sofa´s hand spear and shot three fat lion fish which are an invasive species in these parts. Preparing the fish on a BBQ we introduced the locals to its beautiful white meat. Up until then, no one had eaten the fish thinking the meat would be poisonous. Explaining to them that the poison was only in the barbs and that it only keeps for 30-45 minutes after the fish dies did nothing for our point. We just ate some and that was good enough for others to trust us and follow suit. I hope now that we introduced something new to these people and they start hunting these fish for food and to help out the local eco system.
The view from my Kuna villiage hut.
The next day, we woke from our hammocks (everyone sleeps in hammocks in these parts) and left for a nearby tropical island that was absolutely mind blowingly beautiful.
Again there was some spectacular fringing reef and I swam my butt off. I got to see some really nice fish, the highlight of which being an encounter with some massive parrot fish. Playing on their curiosity, I spent a little time just holding a rock on the bottom of the ocean floor being eyeballed by one of them, a 20 plus kilo monster. In doing this I gathered a harem of these fish which then continued to follow me the whole time I was in the water. Sweet, it is nice to be popular in a new place :) Just swimming around I found myself some eight crayfish. I also shot a sole which we ate for dinner. Earlier in the day Fabio had warned me that there was a resident shark in the area and to keep an eye out for it. When I had answered back “cool, where?” he kinda thought, this guy is nuts. Soon they started calling me “Andres the shark of the ocean” because of the amount of time I spent snorkelling and diving.
The next day the two Aussies left early for Panama and I was on my own with Sofa, Sofa´s girlfriend, Fabio and Money. Saweet, I watched a local diver collect seafood with his canoe in tow. Sofa had a spat with his girlfriend which put an end to their relationship. Not a good thing for the mood on our desert Island getaway. But to his credit he didn´t seem too upset, he is far too a relaxed guy for that.
Packing up and hoping back in the boat we headed back for Peurto Veldia and back to immigration. After a lot shorter stint this time we bought some more beers and headed for Capurgana. Along the way Fabio asked if I was keen to stop off at La Meil, a beautiful picture perfect beach just before the Colombian border. Hell yeah! As we made our way Fabio was talking up the fact that on the odd occasion they saw dolphins on the trip. As luck would have it, shazam! We had dolphins scooting around the boat. Turning to me, Fabio quickly asked “do you want to swim with the dolphins?”. I was already well ahead of him though with half my gear already off! Looking at Sofa, his hat was down, shirt off and the look was “lets do this”. Leaping from the boat we were again in the water but this time we were face to face with a small pod of common dolphins. Awesome! As they swam around us with a playful curiosity and I dove spinning turning etc. They playfully copied my moves and we had a wicked time.
Dolphins in front of the boat.
After the dolphins had had their fill of us, they moved on and we went back to the boat. Needless to say the grins were from ear to ear. Continuing on we headed for La Meil where we arrived to find the place totally deserted.
La Meil. Gorgeous
It was at La Meil that Fabio told me that this trip had been very special for him. It was the first time he had had so few people and hence decided to bring both his and Sofa´s partners. We had stayed a day more than usual because we were a small group and I had requested it. And our easy going natures had coupled everything together to make it his first fully relaxing trip. Nice to hear I thought. He continued that never had he seen so many dolphins at once in the water let alone swam with them. This was also the first time La Meil had been that deserted and it was very uncommon for the weather to be as good as it had been during that time of the year. How about all of that coming off at once! Hence to celebrate our successes, we got into some beers, Sofa got quite drunk and we cruised on to the next beach at Supzurro at a million miles an hour ducking and weaving in and out of the shoreline like we were being driven by a drunken maniac. Actually.......we were! In Supzurro we got a few more beers, picked up a local hitch hiker and headed home just before dark.
That night after a divine showering experience I went to Fabio´s house, ate some awesome food prepared by his girlfriend Money and drank waaaaayyyyy too much rum. How cool! You just gotta love this place! Hence I might be here just a little longer :) 
