PORTOBELLO
Our first stop down the coast towards the san Blas islands was a 20 mile beat to windward to Portobello, which was first discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1502. It was the main staging post for the Spanish Main and consequently it was often under attack from pirates, the most famous being Henry Morgan. Today it’s a sleepy little town with a couple of restaurants’ and few shops and all the locals seem very laid back.
Our intentions were to stay for only a couple of days before moving off, but with cruising it’s impossible to make plans as our boat laptop decided to finally give up the ghost and it seemed that our other laptop with windows vista would not work with the satellite phone without re installing all our software.
We decided before heading to the wilderness of the San Blas we had better catch the bus into Colon and try and buy a new machine.
The one and half hour bus trip into Colon was quite an experience; the buses are old American school buses which are decked out with flashing lights, gaudy colours and lots of bling with of course very loud Spanish hip pop music. The bus fare was a whopping $1.30. The only problem with this transport was the Colon bus station which isn’t the most savoury place to be and we were always watching our backs as theft is rife.
We got our new computer and safely returned to the boat at Portobello, only to find that we couldn’t down load all the right software without an internet connection so it looks as if we won’t be able to get our gmail emails and keep up with the news until we get back to Panama in a months time.
Oh well who needs to know about the troubles of the world!!!
