Day 25—The Caribbean and Portobelo

Since this was the last day we had the rental car, we decided that this was the day that we needed to drive to the other side of Panama.  From the city, if you don’t make a wrong turn, it is about 45 minutes to the turn off for Portobello at Sabinitas,  and another 45 minutes to the town of Portobelo.  Easy peasy. 

Well except, after carefully studying the google map to see the best way to get onto the road to Portobelo,  I was wrong.  I thought you could just take Via Simon Boliviar and it would end up merging with the Corridor Norte and then you would be on your way. But the problem is, once we got going, we realized that Via Simon Bolivar would  take FOREVER with all the stoplights and traffic, so we made a quick U- turn (carefully watching for cops) and ended up getting on the Corridor Norte toll road.  We took the turn off for Colon, and eeerrrtt! we came to a screeching halt. 

“Do you think there is an accident?”

Nope, no accident, just a 20 minute wait to pay a toll.  How efficient. 

When we finally got on the toll road (autopista) to Colon, it was a breeze.  There were two lanes in both directions through beautiful countryside.  The highway (like the Pan-American) is in excellent shape.  We made it to our turn off in no time. 

 El Rey in Sabinitas

When we got to the turn off (El Rey in Sabinitas) we started to notice that this side of Panama seemed much poorer than the Pacific side.  Even the El Rey looked like it had seen better days.  The traffic was atrocious, with diesel spewing everywhere.  After we had made our turn, we were now on a small two lane road.  It seemed impossible that this road was the only road to Portobelo, but it was. 

The road weaved in and out of beautiful jungle landscape, and little houses.  We came to a little town, and continued on the road.  The road kept getting smaller, and then, sure enough it dead-ended.  WTF is wrong with this country? Really?

So we make ANOTHER embarrassing 90 point turn, and head back to see where we went wrong.  We get back to the center of the village, and I tell Sean to stop, when I see a lot of woman waiting at a bus stop.  I rolled down my window (and forgetting that this is considered impolite) and yelled, “Hola!” One of the ladies replied, “Hello” Which momentarily confused me, because I thought, “Does she speak English?!”

“Portobelo?”  I asked. 

All the woman at once indicated with hand signals that we needed to turn left at the intersection behind us.  (We had gone straight).

I yelled, “Gracias!” as we turned around (AGAIN).   I looked carefully to see if we had missed a sign.  

Nope. No sign what so ever.  I wonder how many times a day that little scenario repeats itself in that little town.

The rest of the drive was really lovely.  The road meandered close to the shore, and the Caribbean side of Panama is absolutely breathtaking.  I loved being able to see the ocean.

We were specifically looking for a restaurant called El Torre.  It is on the main road about one km before Portobelo.  Supposedly they have the best empanadas in Panama, and since I had somehow failed to eat even one empanada, I thought I may as well eat the best.  Also, there fish with garlic sauce was supposed to be very good. 

We spotted the restaurant easily.  It was about noon, and as usual, we were the only ones there.  We decided to sit upstairs.  It was a really nice open air terrace.  We ordered a beer and a sangria, empanadas and ceviche, and Sean and I split the langostino in garlic sauce, and Emma had…you guessed it: Chicken and French fries.

It was good, not great, but honestly, it still might qualify as the best Panamanian food we have had so far. 

After lunch, we continued to Portobelo. 

Wow! It was beautiful.  Far better than I had anticipated.  We pulled into a lot next to the old Fort, and as we were getting out in the extreme heat of the day, we were immediately approached by a young man.  He pointed toward a boat just coming toward the dock, and with gestures and Spanglish, explained that we could take a boat ride around the bay to take pictures of the other fort across the bay, and the church.  I asked how much, and he said “$20.00” I indicated maybe, but we wanted to take a look around the fort first.  

He said, “OK, but it was $1.00 to park there.” Well, I don’t really know who owns that land, but I figured a $1.00 for car protection was a deal! I took lots of pictures.

These boys get to play in a real fort.

By the time, we headed back to the car. I was so overheated, all I wanted to do was sit in car with the air turned full blast.  The young man approached us, and I indicated I was too hot, and he said something about it being refreshing.  We shook our heads no, and climbed in to the car.  But then I started thinking how fun it would be to be on a boat, and $20 seemed like a bargain.  So, Sean and I decided, “What the hell, let’s go for it.”

Ummm…except Emma started one of her snits.  But this time, I was not going to let her reticence stand in the way of a fun boat ride.  So despite arguing that no she couldn’t stay in the car and wait, and her chanting in my ear how much she hates us for making her do this, we got on the boat. 

The young man seemed to sense Emma’s reluctance, and offered life jackets.  I admit, I was relieved that there were life jackets, because, you never know.  So he handed us each one, and instead of putting them on, we laid them at our feet.  He looked at us like we were mad, but I just wanted to be able to grab on to something if the boat started to sink.  It was a wonderful ride around the bay, and he was right, It was cool and refreshing to be on the boat.  I snapped lots of pictures, and Emma ended up loving it (I knew she would)! 

I'm pretty sure that is a smile.

On our way back, we stopped and put our feet into the Caribbean Ocean.  

Oh, I forgot to mention, we finally saw a monkey.  Unfortunately he was chained up to someone's porch by the church in Portebelo.  He was so sad looking and despondent.  I thought it was weird that the dogs run loose in the country, but the monkey was chained.  I didn't take a picture because it was so depressing.