Mark’s Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic
Google Photo Album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA
Mark and I are in Columbia! We made it from Puerto Carti, Panamá to Necoclí, Columbia by boat over the course of two days. We need to make some repairs to our bike, so we’ll be taking today off while we wait for the bike shops to open.
In this post, I’ll write a normal update first and then below share our experience in detail of taking lanchas for other cyclists who might be taking the same trip.
Y a la termina es mi esfuerzo cumpurtir esta información en español.
We left Puerte Carti the morning of December 30th on a lancha (a motorized boat used for passengers and cargo in between fishing villages and islands in the San Blas area), whose captain we had connected with on WhatsApp a few days before. We had our bike and bags wrapped in plastic and the workers loaded it up on top of all the other cargo. It was a full boat, 20 people, most of whom were heading home to a village along the way, only four of us heading all the way to Obaldia.
For Mark and I, it was an exciting ride, a mid day storm created some choppy water that bounced the boat and sprayed us with warm Caribbean Sea water. Everyone on the boat accept us opted to use huge sheets of plastic, provided for this purpose exactly, to block the ocean spray. We ended up in some of the driest seats, and opted to deal with the waves that came our way.
We rode straight through the first four hours and then stopped for a little break to use the bathroom and eat some snacks. For the rest of the trip, we stopped more frequently at towns and islands where the captain was delivering packages and dropping people off, but we only got off the boat the once. When we arrived at our destination Obaldia, it was around 5:30 and after checking in with the local authorities we found a place to stay and eat.
Before we had even left the dock, however, another Lancha captain had recognized us as needing to get to Capurgana and offered us a ride for the next morning. Obviously we stood out in this small town, and at this point many of the capitalina are familiar with the journey from across the Darien.
We slept great after a long day on the boat and woke well rested the next morning. After getting our exit stamp from Panama at the immigration office, we got on a smaller boat for the short (20 min) ride to Capurgana, Columbia. This was our favorite ride of the whole trip, it was just us and the two people working the boat, and we were impressed as the captain navigated the small crafted over ocean waves.
We pulled up to the dock in Capurgana drenched in sea water and were quickly dropped off into a bustling tourist town. Our bike was still wrapped in plastic with the wheels off, and wanting to leave it that way for the next boat ride we took turns walking to immigration to get our entry stamp while one of us stayed with our ridiculous pile of stuff.
After getting stamped into Columbia, we bought a ticket for the ferry (really just a large Lancha) to Necocli where we would finally arrive to a place connected to the rest of the country by roads.
There was a lot of hurry up and wait to get onboard the ferry, and then with our bike on and the boat almost ready to leave, we realized we’d left our sleeping pads somewhere at the port. Mark literally ran off to look for them while the workers, clearly on some sort of time crunch at this point, spent the few minutes that he was gone stressing the fact that we needed to leave. They were telling me that we would need to stay behind and take the next ferry just as Mark came running back up the dock, sleeping pads in hand. We loaded, and were off at more than twice the speed we had travelled in the two other boats.
In two hours, we were in Necocli. We got to shore and put our bike back together. While we were putting it together we were informed of several bike shops in town, but simultaneously learned that would be closed for new years and New Year’s Eve.
We walked our still broken bike around looking for a cheap hotel, and after checking the price at 4-5 found one that worked for us. We showered and then found a place to eat dinner, enjoying an incredible vegetarian paella. We opted to go to bed early rather than stay up for the new year, and we were glad to be cool and dry while we rested.
Today we’re playing the waiting game, making a plan for our route through Columbia and relaxing after the travel the last two days. Hopefully tomorrow we will find the bike parts we need to get rolling and be on our way!
Here is my account of our travels as a reference for other cyclists:
We relied heavily on information from The Random Tandem’s write up on this trip.
Check out the link to Mark’s Strava at the top of the post for exact distances and timing on these stretches and our Google photo album for photos.
To Puerto Carti
A few days before we planned to arrive, we WhatsApp’d the lancha capitain RR and learned that there would be a boat leaving for Obaldia December 30. We were lucky that this was perfect timing for us, leaving the day after we planned to arrive in Puerto Carti. He quoted (and charged us) $100 pp and $30 p/bike. He stuck to the $30 per bike even for our tandem.
RR: +507 6975-0439
We had heard the road to Carti was very challenging so we opted to break up the riding into two days camping at a little eco lodge along the way. We paid $5 pp to camp and also opted to pay $7 pp for dinner prepared onsite. We were thankful to have a dry place to camp and enjoyed talking to the owner and the guy who worked there. The owner was very responsive on WhatsApp: +507 6969-9742
The road was indeed very challenging, we were averaging ~7km/hr most of the time we were riding. This pace included several stretches pushing our bike uphill and stops to let our rim breaks cool on the descents. At about km 25 our free hub broke while we were trying to pedal up a climb and after pushing and coasting the bike for a few kilometers and a few attempts at hitchhiking, we got a ride with the military in their truck. They were really kind, and did not seem perturbed to pick us up.
Since we’d taken a ride the last 15 km, we arrived in Carti earlier than expected, around 11 am. We were immediately greeted by an inspector who told us where we could camp, pointed out the bathrooms, restaurant and tienda. Everyone we interacted with was friendly, and we enjoyed passing the afternoon lazily as we watched the Lanchas come in and out with the tourists and goods.
We got free potable water to fill up our bottles and found the prices at the tienda to be normal: sodas $0.50, beers $1.50, but we didn’t buy much since we had carried in so much food.
To Obaldia
The people working at Carti started getting ready around 5:30 am and things were in full swing when the sun rose. We easily found RR’s boat and got our bike and bags ready to load as other passengers showed up. About 20 min before takeoff, we met the captain (RR) and he explained to us roughly how the day would go and that by putting our bike on his boat we were accepting the risk that it could get damaged or in the worst case fall out of the boat. Neither of these things happened.
We paid him upfront and around 8:30 were leaving the dock with a full boat of people and cargo.
We drove straight through the first 4 hours, and then stopped for a short break on an island where we could use the bathroom and buy snacks. For the rest of the trip, we stopped more frequently to deliver packages and drop off people, but never got off the boat again.
We took Dramamine, and didn’t get sea sick, but there were some rougher waters and I’d recommend anyone prone to seasickness at least take the precaution of taking some sort of anti nausea medicine.
We were glad to have packed our own snacks for this stretch, but even at the island tienda found the prices to be fair: $0.50 for soda, $1 for chips.
We arrived at Obaldia around 5:30 pm. We unloaded our stuff and then RR and the few passengers who had made it this far brought our passports to check in with the local officials. They did not check our gear or bags, although RR said they usually do.
That evening as we were organizing our stuff near the dock, another lancha captain, Pacho, approached us and offered us a ride to Capurgana the next morning for $25 pp, including the cost for our gear. We accepted and exchanged WhatsApp info. I’ve included his number, but I imagine it would be very easy to find other rides just by asking around the very small town.
Pacho +507-6435-6858
Again, we found the tienda, bar, and food to be reasonably priced and lamented the fact the we had carried so much food with us on the bike (the weight of three days of food had not made the ride to Carti any easier). The water in town was potable, which we wished we’d known before buying a plastic bottle.
We paid $20 for a hotel room (the woman running it said they charged $10 pp). We just asked around for the cheapest room, I think there are 3 hotels. I think we might have gotten one of the worse rooms, it smelled pretty terribly of mildew and the sheets were dirty. It was not our favorite hotel experience, but the owner was nice enough and gave us clean sheets when we asked. And after a long day on the boat we were glad to have a shower and a fan, and we did sleep great.
To Capurgana
It was a Sunday when we were leaving Obaldia, so the immigration office opened a little later than usual, 8:30 am (I think it usually opens at 7am). There were a few other people there that morning so we probably waited 10 min to get our exit stamp, but the process was fairly easy: photo on their computer, finger print, no fee.
Pacho was already waiting for us before we even got to immigration and we met him, his nephew who rode along with us, and the guy who would actually be captaining the boat. Pacho owned the lancha but did not captain it that day. We paid our Captain and repacked our bike at a dock on the other side of town. This boat was smaller, meaning we and our stuff got much more wet, but we really enjoyed the ride.
We unloaded quickly at the busy port in Capurgana and were left with a pile of stuff on the dock. We found the immigration building, just a little ways off the port, and got our entry stamps. Again, no fee, the person stamping our passports only wanted to know where we were going and would be staying.
To Necocli
We didn’t shop around at all for ferries or lanchas and instead bought a ticket at the most obvious spot, an office right across from where we had been dropped off. There are probably better prices, but we didn’t think it was outrageous. The tickets were $24 pp and then they weighed our bike and bags and charged us $12 for all of our stuff. They didn’t have a problem with us paying in USD, but we did change a little bit of money so we could buy some snacks and pay the port fee (3,500 COP/pp). We were glad we didn’t change much in Capurgana because we found a way better exchange rate in Necocli (1:3,3000 in Capurgana, 1:3,600 in Necocli).
After weighing our stuff, they had someone responsible for moving our stuff from the weigh point at the office and loading everything onto the boat. We watched the process and they handled our bike and bags pretty well. We left our bike bagged for this trip, but it might be easier to have it all put together, especially since the sea spray was not as much of an issue on this much larger, boat.
We were told the ferry would leave at 10:30 am when we bought our tickets, but in reality it left around 11:15. But when it was time to leave, it left quick, they threatened to leave without us when we realized we had forgotten something where we’d been sitting on the pier.
Thankfully, they did not leave without us (I don’t think they actually would have since it would have taken much longer to unload all of our stuff than just wait the minute for Mark to return) and we were happy to be aboard our last boat ride.
We moved at twice the speed we had the day before, and were to Necocli in just 2 hours. Necocli was much calmer than Capurgana and we were glad to put our bike back together in the shade structure by the beach. While we were getting our stuff organized there just happened to be a guys next to us changing money at a fair rate, so I don’t know if it’s usually this easy to change money in Necocli, or if we just got lucky.
Anyone we asked about hotels said that there were plenty of cheap ones, but nobody was able to give us any names or locations, so we just had to walk around and ask. We WhatsApp’d a few hotels too, but eventually stumbled upon one that was not even on Google that worked well for us. There was a sign that said Hostal above a little herbal/farmacy store being run by the owner. We paid 50,000 COP for two people, fans, great WiFi and they had a secure place to put our bike (we wouldn’t have been able to get our bike up the stairs).
Hope this helps anyone else trying to make the journey! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
nicolettejones13@gmail.com
Thanks for reading! – Nic
Aquí es mi mejor esfuerzo escribir esta información en español!
Yo mandé un mensaje WhatsApp a el capitán RR. El nos dijieron cuál día la lancha estuvo saliendo y nosotros llegamos la día antes. La carretera a carti es muy abrupto arriba y abajo. Acampamos aquí en route: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RB4s6YyPD1xTfcGs5?g_st=ic
A km 25 nuestra rueda detrás rompió y tomamos un camión de militares el resto do carti.
Las personas en carti era muy agradable y nos ayudaron con algunas preguntas tuvimos y nos permitieron acampar. Hay agua potable, unos fondas y dos tiendas pequeñas en Carti
En la mañana de Dic 30, pudimos nuestra bici en bolsas plástico y todo de nuestras otras cosas también. Encontramos la lancha de RR muy fácil y a las 8:30 salimos. El precio fue $100 pp y $30 por bici
Llegamos a puerto Obaldia a las 5 más o menos. Durante la vuelta, paramos quizas 5 veces a entregar cosas a los pueblos y islas.
En Obaldia la policía miro a nuestra pasaportes, nos preguntaron sobre nuestro destino y nada más. Cuando salimos el muelle, un otra capitán de lancha nos ofreció un viaje a capurgana en la mañana. Nos quedamos en un hotel allá.
En la mañana fuimos a inmigración y tuvimos nuestro sello de pasaporte entonces salimos en la lancha del capitán que conocimos la noche antes
Fue $25 pp, tomo ~30 minutes a llegar en capurgana.
En capurgana, tuvimos nuestro sello de entrada y compramos un boleto a Necocli (hay varios oficinas en el puerto) pagamos $24 pp y $12 para total de nuestra bici y bolsas, este vuelta tomo 2 horas
Entonces estuvimos en Necocli!
Un poco más información a saber:
Los tiendas en los pueblos no tiene mucho, pero los precios fue normal: refrescos $0.50, cerveza $1.50, y fue lo mismo en los restaurantes. Trajimos mucho comido a carti porque estuvimos preocupados sobre la encontrar comida, pero sentimos no fue vale el peso en el subido de carti. En la lancha a Obaldia, no paramos por los principia 4 horas, entonces use el baño antes de salir! Probablemente, vas a querer bolsas por todos sus cosas y bici, porque en la lancha a obaldia y a capurgana fue mucho agua del mar en el barco
Si tú tienes más preguntas, por favor me pregunte!
nicolettejones13@gmail.com
-Nic