A couple days before Christmas, just as I was putting the finishing touches on the trip, John’s Christmas present, I received an email from Norwegian Cruise Lines telling me that they had made, for reasons that were not clearly stated, changes to the itinerary. Santa Marta was dropped, and Panama City was switched with Colon. Now, John and I have spent time in Panama before and I knew that Colon is the absolute armpit of the Caribbean—a dangerous, decaying, trash-strewn piece of hell on the edge of the rain forest. I was furious, but there was nothing I could do. So I had to find some kind of excursion that would allow us to escape Colon for someplace more pleasant. And Viator had an intriguing, if somewhat more expensive option: an excursion on a catamaran to the San Blas islands. I booked it.
John and I left the ship this morning a little after eight,
and with some difficulty found the cabbie that the tour company had sent to
pick us up. His name was Cristian, and I gathered from our limited
conversations in Spanish, that he was originally from Cuba. He drove us from
Colon to Portobello, about 45 kilometers away. Today is some kind of holiday in
Panama, probably related to the fact that Three Kings’ Day fell on Saturday
this year. So traffic on this beach route was particularly heavy, and there were
a number of police checkpoints along the way. But it was not that bad a drive,
and once you are a few miles outside of the Colon city limits the rusted-out
cars and piles of garbage disappear and that landscape becomes almost pretty at
times.
At the Portobello marina, several people gestured for us to
get on a small powerboat. I had no idea if this was the right thing to do or
not, but every time I said, “¿Al catamarán?” the answer was “Sí.” Of course, in
Latin America that is always the polite answer to any question. But in this case,
it proved to be correct and pretty soon we were dropped off at our catamaran.
Our captain was a friendly Columbian who spoke decent
English. He was assisted by a rather handsome young black man who spoke no
English at all, and I only heard him say a few words in Spanish mostly to the
crew on other ships. The rest of the guests had all come from Panama City and
they had arrived about 40 minutes before us. There was a group of five men,
mostly in their twenties, I think, from South Korea.
They basically talked to each other and ignored the rest of
us. Having spent twenty years in Los Angeles living among Koreans, I did not
take it personally. We did have a good time talking to Francesco and Rossella,
an Italian couple who had lived for years in Germany and Scotland and were now
planning to relocate to Panama.
They spoke excellent English and were delightful companions.
They were both originally from Puglia and were quite pleased that John and I
were familiar with that part of Italy.
John and I swam and snorkeled a bit. The coral was pretty
sad, but at least it gave us something to look at. The water felt gloriously
warm and was quite clear. John had not been swimming since his heart surgery,
and he was pleased that he felt at home and comfortable in the water again. Back
on the boat, I looked for wildlife. The San Blas Islands are a national park,
and there are lots of monkey and tropical birds there. I just saw a heron.
We had lunch on the boat, and the young guy took us on a
ride in the dingy through the mangroves.
Rosella snapped this picture of us on her phone and was
gracious to send it to me.
Because it is a national holiday there were lots of
Panamanians also enjoying this area. The kids seemed to like swimming among the
mangroves.
There was a small “private island” that we skirted. It had a
telephone number under the no trespassing sign, and I figured out that it was
basically some kind of vacation rental.
There were three very white women sitting at the waters edge
sipping wine. All were wearing floral print dresses. They looked like they were
extras from some episode of Absolutely Fabulous. Sadly, I did not snap a
picture in time.
Around three o’clock we were back in the marina and Cristian was there to pick us up and bring us back to ugly, dirty Colon. But I felt happy that I had manage to escape the slum for the day and find ourselves in a place that was a little closer to paradise.
