We awoke the next morning to cloudy skies and choppy seas. Not the greatest of weather for an island hopping adventure. We were desperately hoping it would clear up for the next 4 days.
The rest of the group who we would be doing the trip with were arriving and after meeting them we all made the 20 minute boat ride to Sapzuro. The boats were small and packed down with our gear and were precariously floating quite low to the water line. Everyone pretty much got soaked as the sea was rather rough.
From first impressions we seemed to have a really great bunch of people on our tour and we were pleasantly surprised that we were not the oldest. Not even close actually which was a nice change. We started discussing our trips over on the ferry from Nicocli and apparently we had a dream of a trip with theirs being ridiculously rough and everyone getting wet. Also their first impression of Capurgana was nothing like our experience as it was cloudy and wet.
Sapzuro is a teeny tiny village maybe half as big as Capurgana. Although nice in our opinion it definitely wasn’t a patch on Capurgana. But again it wasn’t the nicest of weather so maybe our view may have changed if the sun was out.
After dumping our stuff at the hostel we went for a walk and a swim. On the way we saw a camera crew interviewing some people. Apparently they were Cubans who were effectively stranded as Panama has closed its borders to them. The reason being that Cubans who want to illegally get into America travel to Venezuela into Colombia and then catch a boat into Panama and from there travel overland and get into the USA via Mexico. The Panamanian government found out so shut their border to Cubans. So these Cubans are stranded in Colombia where they can’t stay but can’t get back to Cuba because they don’t have enough money. I know what they are doing is illegal but my heart goes out to them as their life at home is so bad that they feel they have to go to these extremes to get a better life. Makes it hit home again how truly lucky we are.
After our swim we then went back to the hostel and started getting to know everyone over a few beverages and we ended up at the billiard hall. Hard to believe a town of this size had a billiard hall but we took full advantage of that. We spent the night mostly with Louie and Stevie a couple from Sydney and Chris and Hattie an English couple. I think it is definitely going to be an awesome trip. Just hope the weather improves. S
As you can see the waves where bigger than the boat!
Ready for the adventure.
One of the beaches of Sapzuro. There was a rather large police presence there due to the border being so close. They still have issues with drug smugglers on this border as it would be very easy to either boat it across or trek through the jungle.
View of the town.