Obaldia, boarder crossing 8:40.84N 77:23.89W
Pacific Bliss
Colin Price
Wed 22 Sep 2010 14:49
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Arrival in Panama
At just over 5nm this was not the longest passage we've been
on, but we are now in Panama and the San Blas.
We crossed from Sapzuro to Port Obaldia to check
in.
We had been told not to bother with Obaldia but never wanting
to listen to others we decided to do a quick check in and get it over and
done with. NO SUCH THING AS QUICK in Obaldia, and for good reason.
Electricity must be a bit of a premium so manual type-writers, which only
brings goosebumps out when thinking of my first ill conceived career
option, me being a dyslexic securitery and my father suggesting strongley
it might be a very worthy carear thus enbarking on a typing course, what a
bloody disarrster. Anyway as in the days of the 80's in the UK every
single form has to be typed on a manual type writer and there seems to be at
least 20 forms. The official's whilst stony faced at first where a
delight. It feelings alittle like a one horse town to us, 'local hero' on
the panamanian boarder with the addition of a massive armed army
presence.
You land on abit of rough old shingle
coral beach get beconed by a beefy official looking guy and using hand signal
informed that one needs to walk over a rather discusting wet brown spongey
walkway, all very random and not being able to understand basic Spanish
isn't helping understand the formality. Given that you are able to travel
from Colombia to Colon and spend months before checking in, this all seems
particularly heavy handed, especially as most boats by-pass this port so
this sanitiasion process seems a little ineffective.
We get our papers checked by the Army we then need to
visit about 6 official offices, all sitting next to one
another in the one horse town finally 4 hours later we are fully checked in to
panama.
 a small
sample of the forms that had to be hand typed and the fistful of money that
we need to get into Panama. Took forever, just like typing pools in the
80's. But we where allowed to venture down the road walk about
a bit and sample Panamain standard lunch, the first lunch that didn't
seem like a rip-off since leaving Catagena. We haven't gone down with
any major lurge, so eating in ramshackle places is fine. The food is cheap
no great culinary delight, just what the locals eat, but I don't have to use up
precious supplies or cook and clear up for at least one meal in 30
million.
We are lead to believe it's war style rations once we hit
deepest darkest Kuna Yala. So finding a supplier of beef ( the slow cook
variety) and 5 chickens was another bonus. Due to the impending
shortages we amputate the chickens and cook up the bones for soup,
this can las a family of four least 4 days plus we have a
massive supply of boneless meat packed in the
freezer.
So with all the official stuff done, the customs man seems to
be very ellusive once we had paid our dues. So we are informed by one of
his colleagues just to hop off. Another Army checkout whilst new visitors
are having there bags raked through another walk through spoungy dirty rain
water and we launch ourselves into Kuna Yala/San
Blas.
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