You Can Git There from Here

By spending the entire afternoon loitering at the dock yesterday, I was able to get a farking ticket to San Carlos at last. There was quite a bit of pushing and sharp elbows at the ticket window, and I would like to apologize to the locals for that. I acted as agent for a group of about a half-dozen confused Germans, whose passports I carried to the window with me to make sure they got proper tickets. In turn they helped me carry around my clunky kayak bags.

Travel guides say the ferry journey is uncomfortable and tedious, but I actually found the scene very amusing and circus-like. The winds and waves on this night crossing were awful, and they shot random sprays of lake water across random parts of the deck, completely soaking groups of passengers and causing several ladies in unstable shoes to sit down on the deck very very quickly. For my part, I strung my hammock up on the boat frame in a quite dry spot. This is by far the best way to travel in such circumstances. Sometimes the hammock started swinging back and forth with the speed and violence of some amusement park ride, cracking me up completely. Once the waves calmed a bit I slept like a baby, and was still strung up on the rafters when people started disembarking here in San Carlos.



I already have my ticket downriver to Boca Sabalos, where decent hotels exist and kayaks can be unfolded. And tarpon caught? Oh boy I do hope so. That would be pretty cruel false advertising if there weren´t any tarpon around (¨sabalo¨ is Spanish for tarpon). Actually catching one may be an altogether different matter from finding one, but at the moment I am feeling strangely invincible: if a guy can get to San Carlos, then he should be able to handle just about anything.