Los Aventuras de Edmundo y Linda

Our first night in Santiago de Cuba kind of sucked.  Gross food, bad night club, lots of people bothering us, and our old crappy ‘51 Chevy “taxi” got a flat tire on the way back to the marina.  Oh, and we just found out that most of our pictures from the city don’t work anymore for some reason.  The next day was amazing though, which easily made up for the first night.  We went to a market to buy some food for the boat, ate lots of $0.04 ice cream cones, found a tiny book store with a live band playing and stayed there for a few hours and had beers with the band and danced with some locals.  Then we went for the best meal we had in Cuba at a nice little restaurant with more great live music.  At night we returned to the restaurant for more great live Cuban music and tons of dancing and beers and rum!  Lots of fun!

Next stop Jamaica!  Sorry for the lack of pictures here but like I said we lost most of them due to camera problems.

Anchored in 3 different spots around the islands on our way to Santiago de Cuba.  Did lots of snorkeling, caught and ate a bunch of conch, traded some beers and rum to some fisherman for a cooler full of fish, ate lots and lots of fish, and did more snorkeling.  We were hunted by a huge barracuda when we were snorkeling and both got stung by jellyfish but we saw tons of cool fish and marine life… and we saw more dolphins!!!!  Lutwig, the captain, plays and sings amazing Spanish guitar songs.  Stayed up late one night listening to him play while wearing a huge blond wig and then had a dance party!

Our “taxi” from Havana showed up 2 hours late, stopped about 5 times to visit his friends, and got stopped 3 times by the cops.  He didn’t get in trouble for driving us because he said that we were his friends and we weren’t paying him.  As we approached Trinidad we drove over tons of huge crabs which walk accross the road twice a day between the forest and the ocean. 

Trinidad is a beautiful city too!  Lots of parties for the 1st of May celebrations.  Did lots of serious city exploring and then headed back to the boat to sail to some cool Cuban islands called “Los Jardines de la Reine”

Havana is an amazing city!  One of the top cities we have visited so far.  We saw a Flamenco show, ate lots of gross food, ate lots of tasty ice cream and cheap, cheap pizzas ($0.30), bought beer from a vending mahcine, went to markets, the Revolution Museum, visited China Town (with no Chinese people to be seen), met lots of cool people, went dancing, drank mojitos, listened to lots of excellent Cuban music and of course explore the beautiful city.  We stayed at a “Casa Particulare” which was sweet because we were actually staying in a house with a Cuban family.  They helped us get around and cooked us breakfast every morning.  Amazing people!

Woke up in Cuba!  We ported at Cienfuegos.  It took pretty much all day to go through customs.  The officials brought dogs to search the whole boat for drugs and examine every part of the boat.  We went to shore at night and had supper in a restaurant in a huge old mansion that was owned by a rich american.  The city was cool and a 1950 / communist feel to it.  Cuba is very clean!  And safe!  There are horse-and-cart taxis here that use a flamming can as a light at night.  We organized an unofficial taxi (illegal but very cheap) to pick us up at the marina and drive us to Havana.  The boat will sail to Trinidad while we are in Havana and we will meet back up with them there.

We sailed through a storm on our first day out of Colombia.  It was really scary.  Linda and I were trying to sleep but the boat was rocking so bad that we had a lot of trouble not falling out of bed.  There was waves coming over into the boat and the crew was all running around on deck screaming in German.  4 of the sails were damaged and had to be taken down.  Over the next 4 days the crew used a huge sewing machine to repair the sails.  Tons of food was damaged and had to be thrown out.  Everyone was seasick. 

9 huge birds landed on the top of the boat and spent the whole day pooping all over everything.  A few people got pooed on and some poop some how flew through the window of our room and onto Linda’s sandles… ha ha!   

We anchored the boat in a shallow area and went crazy on the rope swing.  Unfortunately, one of our friends fell in the water on the side of his head and busted his eardrum.  Hope you’re feeling better Moby.

Linda and Moby made the best of the rotten bananas and made some most delicious banana bread!!!! 

 We caught a small tuna and used it as bait for bigger fish.  The tuna fell off somewhere but we later caught 3 mackerels and 3 barracudas.  The captain took out the heart of one of the barracudas while it was still beating… yuck! 

We saw lots of playful dolphins again!!!!!!!!!  YEAH dolphins!

Stephen, one of the crew members, introduced us to peanut butter, honey, and garlic sandwiches… actually really good (according to Edmund)!

Our boat arrived in Cartegena, Colombia at 10:30am. The city is beautiful. The old part of town looks exactly like an old European city and the new part is very modern and has tons of highrises along the edge of the ocean. We checked-in to a hostel, explored the sweet old town, and then met up with our friends from the boat for some beers.

Went out for lunch with a cool canadian dude we met at our hostel. The soup had a chicken foot, liver, and a chicken heart. Everything was pretty gross! After lunch we went to a castle that overlooked the entire city. It was built to protect the city from pirates. We visited the old town and visited with our ship buddies at a restaurant and partied together. Oh… and we are millonaires here… we took out 1.6 million pesos… we are loaded!

Woke up at 4:30am to catch a sweet completely beat-up 1985 Toyota LandCruizer at 5am. The truck had no front or back lights, no front bumper or grill, the windows only open and close by pulling them by hand and the exhaust came into the car because the wheel-well inside the car was made out of cardboard… funny. Offroading was sweet/crazy, lots of mud, and we drove through a river too. We took a small boat run by the Kuna´s (Native Panamians) to our huge 1903 40 meter, 250 ton, metal pirateship.

The boat spent 3 days anchored in the San Blas Islands. There are actually over 200 islands in the San Blas. We spent our time next to about 6 tiny deserted islands. They had beautiful white sand beach, and palm trees. Some of them were so small they could only fit a few palm trees on them. We did tons of snorkeling, saw a dolphin, some lobsters, and tons of colourful fish. A bunch of us got dropped off at a tiny island with only 5 palm trees to snorkel. We didn´t want to wait for our ride back to the pirate ship so we decided to build a sweet log raft and floated back to the boat. We then had a bbq on an island for supper & chilled out into the night with beer, a campfire, guitar, and bongos. We also swam to the boat in the dark it was a little scary but the water lit up around us so it looked like there was sparks in the water!

Still at the San Blas Islands. Linda went sailing in a small sailboat and Edmundo went snorkeling with Laurent, a cool french scubadiving instructor. Linda explored the islands and Edmund saw a huge sting ray, a nurse shark, a barracuda, and tons of other cool underwater stuff! Linda came by and picked up Edmund and we went out to a tiny deserted island and checked-out a huge ship wreck. When we got back to the ship we setup a swing from the top of one of the sails and launched ourselves into the water.

The boat left at 6am for our 30 hour ride to Cartegena, Colombia. The waves where really rough and a few people spent most of the time puking off the side of the boat. Most people felt kind of uneasy and we all spent most of the day sleeping because of our seasickness pills. We saw some cool flying fish and….. about 30 dolphins came and swam in front of the boat for about 5 minutes!!!! It was so cooool! They were all jumping out of the water and playing on the wake of the boat.

Warning: the next entry talks about gross bathroom stuff. Don´t read it if you can´t handle that.

The 10 hour bus ride back to Panama City was sweet! We were both sick to our stomachs the whole way and barely slept again. Edmund had to use the bus bathroom for emergency diarrhea. What he found out when he got to there was that there was no toilet paper, so he had to use pages from his travel book. Then as soon as he stood up from his business he threw-up for a while. Oh, and then he realized the toilet was broken and wouldn´t flush… we felt really bad for the poor people who had the bathroom after that. Linda had her own puke/diarrhea session when we got to our hostel in Panama City. We went to bed without eating anything that day.

The 10 hour night bus to the small ocean side town of Almirante sucked big time. The airconditioning was on full blast and it was impossible to sleep. We arrived at the Almirante bus terminal 2 hours early at 4:30am. It was pitch dark and we had no idea where we were and the whole area seemed pretty sketchy. Luckily there was taxis running at that hour. So we took a 75cent taxi ride to the boat to Bocas. Along the way we met some really cool Argentinian chicks (Cay, Carola, and Andrea) and ended up spending almost our entire stay in Bocas with them. We took a boat to Bastimentos Island and lounged around in hammocks all day recovering from our last 2 nights without sleep.

We joined Cay, Carola, Andrea and another cool Argentinian chick named Sol on a boat tour to the Zapatillos I & II islands. Amazing, deserted, palm tree covered islands with crystal clear turquoise water! Rosaline is going to be jealous! Haa haa ha haa ha! We also stopped along the way and snorkeled around some small coral reefs and stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the water. Saw a huge barracuda eating stuff by the restaurant! We stopped over at Colon Island for pizza and beer at a waterfront bar before we made our way back to Bastimentos Island.

Joined our favourite Argentinan girls and yet another cool Argentinian girl named Alejandra on a hike to some amazing beaches near town. Linda, Edmund, and Andrea got separated from the group and were temporarily lost in the jungle. We ended up seeing tons of little red frogs, a huge spider, getting bit by massive ants, and climbing down a jagged cliff. We spent the day enjoying the beach, snorkeling, and chilling at a beachside bar. We went out that night for beers on the water and watched a funny local dude who was singing and playing guitar!

Joined the girls on a boat to Bird Island, Starfish Beach, and another cool restaurant on the water. While snorkeling we saw tons of beautiful red starfish, an octopus, and lots of fish. We also got free use of some kayaks at the restaurant. Went to an amazing Thai restaurant for dinner with the crew (The Group of Death… hahaha).

Met the girls at Wizard Beach and chilled there for the day. The girls left back to Panama city that afternoon. So sad

Organized a tour with some local dudes to explore a nearby cave. We joined two Americans and a British dude and jumped on a boat to the cave. The boat drove through a small creek through mangroves and then we hiked through the jungle to a small native village. The guides negotiated passage for us to the cave which is on there land. We got crappy little flashlights and entered the cave. There was tons of bats, bat poop, and stalactites! We walked through water, which was up to our necks a some points, pretty much the entire time. We also jumped off a small waterfall in the cave. After the cave we took a boat to Colon Island and checked into Mondo Taitu, a sweet hostel with a bar, free bikes, and surfboard rentals. Meet met some really cool people at the bar for 50cent beers and a sheesha that night. Lucas (Germany), Bruno (Brazil), Nikki and Sandra (Sweden), and Henry (England), all great people! Ended up going to bed at 1am. We´ll be getting up at 5:30am for a bus ride back to Panama City. Yes!