CAUTIOUS CARGO ↑ This way up ↑: July 2014

From Panama to Nicaragua and Antigua, Guatemala. June 2014.

We boarded a motored fishing boat with one other person and were delivered over the border to Panama one afternoon. The first Panamanian town is Puerto Obaldia where we were to catch a 20-capacity light aircraft to Panama City from the simple airstrip the next day. When we arrived in town there was a football match in play with assault-rifle-clad players on the sidelines. In Puerto Obaldia we met the first of many men who were trying to cross illegally into the States. This guy was Cuban and had already been shot at. We later saw him at the Costa Rican border all smiles. Another we met had been very chatty with Matt, then later he found him crying at a bus depot after one of his 'accomplices' stole all his money.

Our very laidback and rich-looking pilot flew us over coral reefs and wave-battered islands, landing us in Panama City an hour or so later. From there we hotfooted it all the way through Costa Rica (staying overnight in San Jose) to Popoyo in Nicaragua, a very small town with one shop, on the coast, with a surfer for every resident. Perhaps more surfers in fact, though not in our hotel. We stayed in a run down hotel with a fantastic ocean breeze and bats at night. Here the mangrove swamp and ocean became one at high tide, and the bird-life was prolific, as it was elsewhere in Nicaragua too.

After several days of reading and surfing, we left for San Juan del Sur at 5am one morning to avoid the high tide, though our journey to the road did still take us up to our waists in muddy mangrove water with our belongings held aloft. We thought the bus might be empty at 5.30am but not so, I discovered, as I pressed my wet shorts up against all those squashed against me for the next hour or so.

San Juan del Sur is very popular with backpackers but also pale holidaymakers from the States and beyond. Here I found us a family-run hostel away from the madding crowd where we (almost) had a pool to ourselves. From here tacos and burritos became more prevalent and other than the bakery and veggies from the market, this is the way our meals headed. We relaxed for a few days in this lovely hostel, then vowed to return after another trip to the coast; off we went for a week to Playa Gigante, a remote surfing spot where we stayed in a little concrete abode on top of a very wave-battered cliff. I read a few books and Matt surfed. Big storm one day when the hill which passed the back of the cliff became a torrent of fast-moving mud, slowly seeping its way into the restaurant opposite.

With only a week or so to go before our flight to the States, it was another big journey next through a small chunk of Honduras (where I saw mules 'parked' outside houses like cars) and a night in grey and concrete San Salvador, El Salvador, en route to Antigua, Guatemala, another colonial town. We would have stayed longer if we could - after a night of drinks with another surfing Matt, we headed for Mexico.

Boat from Capurgana, Colombia to Puerto Obaldia, Panama

Puerto Obaldia airport, Panama

Puerto Obaldia airport, Panama - our lift to Panama City

Next to our clifftop hideout, Popoyo, Nicaragua

Our clifftop hideout, Popoyo, Nicaragua

San Juan del Sur, excellent Hostel Tadeo

Matt gifts his surfboard, Masachapa, Nicaragua

The cat that behaved like a dog, a bus terminal

Guatemala's pimped up ex-US schoolbuses, Antigua

Antigua, Guatemala

World Cup chocolate that was not chocolate

Palenque to Cancun, Mexico. June - July 2014.

We had only days before our flight when we arrived in Palenque, Mexico. We stayed in a well-equipped and well-run hostel which was inhabited by a strange assortment of people. We spent a day at the Mayan ruins and, when we returned to the hostel, watched Mexico play their last in the World Cup.

Our final central America days were spent in chilled out Cancun. I'd heard it was such a terrible place but I disagree, it was fine, though we didn't venture into the hotel zone. The square near our hostel(s) was lined with excellent Mexican food stalls, so we tried to fatten ourselves up in preparation for the States.

Palenque Mayan Ruins, Mexico

We spent two days in this bathroom. Cancun, Mexico

Cancun, Mexico

Colombia: Capurgana, June 2014.

......From Turbo we boarded a motored fishing boat and bounced and flew across the water to Capurgana, roadless but served by boat and light aircraft. We met French Raffa on the pier who told us about his new guesthouse venture in a traditional home, where we stayed for a week.

Happy and simple days in Capurgana; cards on the beach, a walk through farms and streams, a walk to a secluded bay for snorkelling, a walk to the saltwater and freshwater pools, many trips to local bakery, occasional football match, avocado sandwiches. I also ate a giant ant when I was there (started off pleasant and nutty then turned foul). Spent some nights in my tent (by now incredibly airless and hot), as the money we'd brought ran out towards the end, there being no cashpoints and still needing to make our way over the Panamanian border by boat.

Capurgana, Colombia

Leafcutter ants moving 'ahse! Again! Capurgana, Colombia

Capurgana, Colombia

Saltwater pool, Capurgana, Colombia

Freshwater pool, Capurgana, Colombia

Capurgana, Colombia

Playing cards in Capurgana, Colombia

Horse, cart and dog, Capurgana, Colombia

Traditional house, Capurgana, Colombia

Colombia: Popayan to Capurgana, May - June 2014.

As we headed north along the coast from Mompiche in Ecuador towards Colombia, the people became more colourful, the bus rides became more like parties, the music became louder and more jubilant, people helping one another here and there, the bus runners were an art form of their own, running inbetween moving buses, taking money, producing tickets and change, controlling the schedule - we were not at the border but we could tell we were close. We spent a night in Ibarra to break up the journey, an absolute steal hotel room and street food skewered meats, up nice and early the next morning for our journey to civilized Popayan, a temperate colonial town and our first proper taste of Colombia. By the time we arrived it was dark and we were welcomed to a hostel by a Jewish man and his son who saw us walking around town looking for a road sign or two. After a day of llapingachos (fried mashed potato filled with butter, cheese, maybe some ham and pineapple, lovely) and breakfast at a vegetarian restaurant, we moved on to San Cipriano, an Afro-Colombian settlement accessible only via the old railway tracks and a motorcycle/wooden cart local invention, with the back wheel powering the cart and everyone and everything on it nice and nippy! An exhilarating way to arrive somewhere.

On inflatable inner tubes we floated (always a fun day) with our guide Henry, down the crystal clear, pebble strewn river that ran alongside town. Matt jumped off cliffs made of slippery clay. Ended up at the tiny town rivershore where everyone was. About eight men swam out and capsized a man's bamboo raft, the crowd was loving it, raft man had to jump ship, later there was a stampede of people as something was spotted in the water, never discovered what. Nearby some men played football in wellies. Rainstorm at night. Henry was able to tell Matt exactly how many people lived in the village and then added, 'but one of them's pregnant'.

Onto Salento in Colombia's coffee region, a colourful and immaculate town where we camped for three nights in a hostel garden, eating the best menu del dia at the same place every night, just off the town square. We'd met Aussie Jordie on the minibus into town and one day the three of us caught a jeep to the Valle de Corcora, and hiked up into the wax palm forest mists accompanied by the best guide dog, as usual, passing the occasional llanero and horse en route. One of the local dogs ran alongside our jeep almost all the way back into town, a good 30-40 minute run. Bought Mum some coffee in Colombia which was impossible to post until several countries later, that bag of coffee really got around.

After Salento we didn't stop until we arrived at the Caribbean coast, spending a few days in Cartagena's colonial walled city and fortress. It was hot. Had a cool mezzanine level double above a two-person dorm, odd but nice. Ate more llapingachos, bought some cheap supplies from the $1, $2 and $5 stores, burnt a CD, mended some jeans, lunched on raw veggies for much-needed vitamins etc. Cartagena's drunks came out at night in a big way. With a brothel- and pirate-filled history, it remains a bit raucous. Some backpackers get trapped here for months.

We moved east to Santa Marta later on the basis of a great-sounding hostel there, which absolutely did not disappoint. We spent three days in the pool and on the roof terrace in this pretty luxurious hostel (by our standards), surrounded by great street food at night and highlighted by the poshest backpackers I've ever met, some young men from Chelsea, one declared he was going downstairs to get some 'delicious internet' and was later overheard introducing his 'friend, Hugo'. Told us that we absolutely MUST go to the national park nearby which alas, we could not. We were Panama-bound, and were heading to truly Caribbean Capurgana on its border.

The journey to Capurgana involved a stopover in Turbo. The last leg of the journey before arriving in Turbo was us, sitting in the back seat of an open utility truck, driving along dark, pot-holed rural roads in the middle of the night, hot and oily with the canvas pulled over us and our backpacks, mine by this time was wet and stinking of fried beef inherited from the previous bus somehow, and became forever known as my 'beefpack' (the long and sweaty cleaning task ran over several ensuing weeks but without hot water or washing machine the beefpack would never return to its former glory). Not much else to report form Turbo other than the enormous dry fish head of considerable age I received for breakfast and the local man we befriended who just wanted to chill and eat our breakfast - apart from the enormous fish head.....

(See Colombia: Capurgana)