The day that we’d gotten pizza and gelato, we’d stopped by the three bakeries to see what they stocked. We’d gotten a loaf of bread from the one called Rume. It turned out to be one of the best sourdoughs we’d ever had. We’d also noticed that they opened at 0730 for breakfast.
Since the car didn’t have to be returned until 0930, that left us just enough time to get breakfast at Rume. The food was great, and we were thrilled to be able to get out of the marina one more time.
Thanks to cloud cover, the sun itself was not visible on Wednesday, February 19, but it was still a colorful sunrise.
We decided to keep the car for another day to go to the town of Portobelo, which was about 80 km (50 miles) away from the marina. Portobelo was a small town with a nice bay and protected anchorage that was popular with the cruisers. It was a pivotal part of Spain’s colonial rule, so it was historically significant. Since we wouldn’t be going to Portobelo by boat, we thought it would be fun to go by car.
On our way out of Ft. Sherman, we decided to make a quick stop at the public beach. Since we’d driven by it so many times, we felt like we should at least stop and see it up close. It was a man-made beach, south of the Coast Guard base, along the road to the bridge. It was usually packed on the weekends. The US military had put in, and it was lined with more of the same housing structures that we’d seen at the loop… except these were in much worse shape.
We parked in the small parking lot and ventured in. Maybe it was the gloomy weather, but the beach felt sad. There were dilapidated buildings, sunken ships and a lot of trash strewn around. Someone had put up a series of palapas, but most of them had fallen apart into hunks of debris that added to the trash.
Taken from the south end of the beach, looking north. The buildings at the tip of the peninsula are the coast guard baseContinue reading →
The half-full moon was visible in dawn’s glow on Tuesday, February 18
While the marina was nice, it was isolated. Getting out was expensive, and given that Colon was a notoriously dangerous city, there weren’t many safe places to go within a reasonably close distance. Just as in Chiapas, we were feeling trapped and anxious to be free. So, like we did in Chiapas, we rented a car just so we could get out.
The mini-mart in the marina doubles as a car rental agency. The rental paperwork had to be done the day prior, so Christi did it on Monday while Eric and Keith were playing D & D. We were supposed to pick up the car at 0830, but because the mini-mart was busy, the clerk didn’t have a chance to finish up the last bit of paperwork and hand over the keys until closer to 0930. That delay actually turned out to be a blessing in the end.
This week has been interesting. Saturday we went to an old Spanish fort. It was destroyed and rebuilt three times! It was really hot that day, and I wanted to go back pretty soon.
Tree with a giant branch at the fort
Cette semaine était intéressante. Samedi on a vu un ancien chateau fort espagnol. Il a été cassé et re-construit trois fois! Il faisait très chaud ce jour là, et je voulais rentrer très vite.
