April 2014: Capurganá is located in the Darien Gap right where Colombia meets Panama. It is a coastal village which is only accessible by boat or by plane. No roads go through this area due to the expansive marshlands and constantly changing river delta of the Río Atrato. And there is no eagerness to connect North and South America with a road. Yet this rural village seems to thrive, mostly on tourism. Being the adventurous family that we are (and thrifty), we opted for traveling there by boat rather than plane.
But first we had to drive from Medellín to Turbo, the port of embarkation.
Our route was simple enough – travel along the one major highway between Medellín and northwestern Colombia. 346km (216miles) should be feasible in one day, maybe 4-5 hours.
But we were hindered by many factors: road construction with only a single lane in at least 6 areas along the way, inconsistent pavement, and the major transportation of goods in trucks that move at a snail’s pace on the mountainous curvy roads.
One day: yes. But more like 9 hours of driving. At least there were entertaining things to look at along the way.
Once we left the mountains and drew closer to the coast, the road flattened out and we passed miles and miles of banana trees and ginger plants.
Since we had left very early in the morning (5am), we arrived in Turbo with some time to kill. We checked in to our lodging at Residencias Florida and our host, Jhon, then suggested we take the kids to the beach. Although it is on the coast, Turbo is a working town, NOT a tourist destination. We had to drive about 35mins north to get to this restaurant on the beach.
We enjoyed some snacks from the restaurant and the kids were excited to start their beach vacation, especially after the long day in the car. The next day, we had to be up early to catch the boat across the Gulf.
The port of Turbo is pretty unsightly. It is primarily a working port, not a touristy one, so cleanliness is not a priority.
The docks where you catch the lanchas (motorized boats) are organized chaos. It was Semana Santa (Easter week) so, of course, there were hundreds of people waiting to get on boats.
We had to put all of our bags in to large trash bags and, knowing this, we had brought some of our own white kitchen garbage bags. The boat operators strongly advised the black sacks, so we caved and acquired large black bags, purchased for a ridiculous price.
Then we waited. The day before we had purchased our tickets with the help of our host at Residencias Florida and he assured us an early morning departure, but it was pretty crazy that Palm Sunday. We waited at least 2 hours past our stated departure time.
Our lancha was crammed with over 35 people and all their luggage. It left from the port of Turbo and took over two hours to cross the Gulf of Urabá. It had hard benches and, if you were lucky, there was plastic cushion.
Many travel sites advised that we sit towards the back of the boat, but I guess everyone had been given that advice because, by the time we loaded, we were forced to sit in the second row. Tough luck. Later we realized that most of those people in the back were locals. They knew how to grab those seats early.
The Gulf has fresh water that enters in the south and west from the Río Atrato, this is where it is smooth.
Then it meets the Caribbean Ocean from the north about halfway up the Gulf. This is when the ride gets rough. Initially, the kids were excited, bouncing and exclaiming how it was like a fun amusement park ride.
Then they got scared. I had read an account about the boat ride by a previous traveler who called it “bone-rattling” and she was not kidding! Slamming down on the hard benches over and over again, relentlessly. Water splashing up over everything. It even rained a little.
After 1 and 1/2 hours of silent grimacing, we stopped. Everyone unloaded. One lady ran to the restrooms to throw up. Then we realized we were only in Triganá to drop off 3 people and we still had an hour to go.
Those last 60 minutes seemed to be the worst as we hugged the coastline and battled the ocean waves but knowing it was almost over helped us get through it.
My first thought when we finally arrived was “how are we going to be able to convince the kids to get back on the lancha to go home”. Maybe they would forget in a week?
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