Paradise has a name and its name is Archipelago San Blas!

Hello and welcome to the latest installment of my blog and the first since my arrival in Central America.
Today I arrived in Panama City following undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable weeks of my trip so far.

After I left Santa Marta where I wrote my last post, I spent a week taking in the sights in Cartagena. The city was unquestionably very pretty, with lots of fascinating colonial architecture. But in all honesty I felt that i felt that its' outstanding reputation was slightly over-rated . I could easily have spent 2 days in the town, rather than a week as there was little to do in the day once you had seen the main sights (there are beaches, but they are far inferior to those of any other town on the Caribbean coast) and the night life was suprisingly poor. However my stay was prolonged due to the fact that I had to wait in order to get a boat to Panama.

It was certainly worth the wait. The trip itself took five days on a 34 foot sailing yacht with 5 other people. The first two days were spent sailing to Panama and the majority of the rest of the time was spent in the San Blas islands. These islands are undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I had ever been. They are completely undeveloped with only a few indigenous huts on the islands, and due to the lack of tourist infrastructure there are very few tourists, meaning that often the people on my boat were they only people on the island. I only wish I could have spent more times in the islands, however I had to move on, and in a week I will be in a different set of Caribbean islands when I head to Bocas Del Toro. It's a hard life!

I will leave this post brief, as I am heading out in Panama City tonight in the hope of finding the night life better than Cartagena.

Speak to you all soon

Phil