Breakfast with Eduardo and how to get to Panama

Posted: May 12, 2008 
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You decided to change your life, you discuss the implications with your partner, you sell your business, you buy your dream sailing boat and you start to prepare your next few years away from home. You take possession of the boat and a month later your wife is doing a runner she doesn’t want any of this and walks out.

That’s his story. He sold the boat and has been travelling for the last 6 years. I met Eduardo Del Corral, Mexican, at ‘Casa Kiwi’ in Medellin. One morning we got talking and ended up having breakfast. He was about to go to Leon in Nicaragua to buy a hostel. He had lived at that hostel many times over the last few years and generally has fallen in love with Nicaragua. The woman owner knew of his interest and it seemed to suit him after so many years of living out of a backpack.

The reason I mention this story is if you wait long enough, you are patient enough and you are open to new ideas, offers come along one would normally not think about or even contemplate.

At the moment he is helping and financially helping with a TV documentary on a writer and poet from Bogota who had died last year – he introduced me to his friends and I got a pretty good ‘insider’ experience of Bogota over the next few days. Pelir and Angela are two very interesting women. Pelir had a very bad experience with the Paramilitary as a child, her parents have lost all and she is now a devout and highly intellectual active communist. Angela works on documentaries for a TV station. I said before, if you speak Spanish this city has a lot to offer.
Eduardo knew I was interested to travel to Nicaragua and gave me the following itinerary which would make the journey not only much more interesting but instead of paying US$290 you can do it easily for a 100 less:

Notes:
1.  Take a bus to Turbo. From Medellin or Bogota about US$40
2.  Take a 2 hour speed boat to Capurgana (US$25) and if there are no flight connections from Puerto Obaldia to Panama stay the night in Capurgana. ((US$25) There are plenty of hotels / hostels unless you are there over Christmas you will not have a problem finding accommodation. If you have time and you want to spend more time in and or around Capurgana visit Sapsurro or La Mie by water taxi.
3.  Take a 20 minute boat ride (US$4) to Puerto Obaldia in Panama. In Obaldia is a runway where a small plane takes you to Panama City. Book in advance with aeroperlas. www.aeroperlas.com it’s about US$80 depending on the fuel price situation. The week before I flew the price was US$69.
4.  In Panama you have ‘Zuly’s Backpackers at US$20 or Hotel El Parador at US$50 or many other International Hotels at well over US$120
5.    I will write separately about Central America and how to get around best.