I wake up as the sun begins to creep into my room. I grab my bag, which I packed the night before, and move my things up to the front desk to take advantage of the free coffee. My breakfast consists of three cups of black Colombian coffee and a day old chicken empanada. I don’t know when exactly the bus will be leaving for the Caribbean port city of Turbo, but I have been told there is one every morning. I figure I should get there early, just to be safe. I head out of the front door of the Black Sheep Hostel, and make my way to the metro. The sun is almost fully above the mountains to the east. The morning is a little chilly, but comfortable. Medellin is famous for its temperate climate. It is called “la ciudad de la eterna primavera” — the city of eternal spring.

Medellin passes outside of my window from the quick moving metro. It is a sea of red clay tile roofing, dotted with old colonial style churches, plazas and streets lined with palm trees. I get off at the terminal and after making several inquiries I finally locate the bus to Turbo.

The road between Medellin and Turbo has one of the nastiest reputations in the country. In fact, the last time I tried to travel between these two cities, coming from the opposite direction, the road had been closed due to heavy mudslides. So, instead of taking the direct route from Turbo to Medellin, I had to detour via Monteria — a city that is positioned farther west, adding nearly eight hours to the trip.

Needless to say, my confidence in this road is not unwavering. However, I am looking for the cheapest way to get from Colombia to Panama, and with this set as the parameter, concessions have to be made.

Today the road is open. With my ticket in hand, I board the bus and find a seat to accompany me on the eleven hour trip. I sit by the window so I will be afforded with the best view of the treacherous mountain trek. I reason sitting farther from the window will not prevent the driver from taking a turn too fast, hurling us over the edge of the sinuous mountain road. I figure it’s better to have a front row seat.

The disloyal mountain range, prone to rock avalanches and mud-slides, is not my biggest concern on the trip. The FARC — a Colombian guerrilla group that has been waging a war with the government with varying degrees of intensity and success for the past fifty years — is still present in this part of Colombia. They also have enclaves on the border areas of Venezuela and Ecuador, parts of the Amazon region and small mountainous locations scattered across the country. The city of Turbo is in the northern part of Colombia, along the Caribbean coast. In turn, Turbo borders the state of Choco, which connects Colombia with Panama. This area is covered in jungle and has very few roads. In fact, there are no roads connecting Colombia with Panama. The northern part of the Colombian state of Choco and the southern part of Panama is a vastness of undeveloped forests and swamps, known as the Darien Gap. The lacking of roadway in this area makes it the only broken part of the Pan-American Highway, a system that stretches from the arctic top of North America, through Central America and down to the tip of South America in Ushuaia, Argentina. For this reason, I’m catching a boat across the border.

Because of the inaccessibility of Choco, it makes for a perfect location for FARC guerillas. Also, since Choco borders Panama, it is the necessary route for nearly all cocaine traffic coming from South America, which has become the group’s major source of funding. After years of fierce fighting from the Colombian government, with support from the States, the guerrilla group is only a shadow of its former self. It now relies mostly on the unrelenting profits of the illegal drug trade, and to a lesser degree kidnappings and extortion. The latter two have been a cornerstone of the FARC for years.

The going is painfully slow as we wind up and down the mountains. In many places, half of the road is impassable due to previous mudslides, creating a temporary one lane road. There are groups of Colombian military dispersed along the way. Sometimes we pass them in very remote areas of the route, and I watch them cooly staring past the bus into the vast jungles. Their presence grows as we make our way farther north. Twice, our bus pulls over at military checkpoints and we get off. All men have to spread their legs and put their hands on the side of the bus, and then are searched. This has become routine for me. It is the same procedure to enter bars and stadiums across the country. The MPs check all our IDs. My US passport draws smiles from some of the soldiers, as they ask me questions and attempt whatever English words they can remember from their schooling. None of them appear to be older than twenty. I have often been impressed with how polite and generally nice the Colombian military is. This group of soldiers was no different

The sun has long set as we begin making stops in smaller towns outside of Turbo. After multiple passport checks, the entire bus is aware I’m a foreigner, something I usually try to avoid at all costs. This turns out to be a positive thing; as usual the Colombians are incredibly kind and helpful. Several ask me where I’m headed, and make sure I don’t get off at the wrong stop. I am one of the two remaining passengers as we arrive at the terminal in Turbo. I am not excited about walking through the rundown port city at nighttime, with everything I own strapped to my back, but I also don’t want to pay a taxi driver to take me five blocks.

I am meeting Sara at a motel next to the port. She is from Switzerland, and I met her earlier in my Colombian travels, which is when we made plans to cross over into Panama together. Our destination is Panama City, where we will part ways. I will continue on to Guatemala and she will return to Switzerland.

Sara had the misfortune of arriving eight hours before I did, and has spent the majority of her day in Turbo — most of it on our room.

She meets me at the city square, and we head back to the motel. We walk parallel to the docks, and the assorted smells from the polluted water officially welcome me back to Turbo. The entrance to the motel is a narrow wooden stairway that leads up to the second floor, where two Colombian men sit at a desk with their shirts off. Long wooden crucifixes hang from their necks and a low hanging ceiling fan slowing turns above their heads. They look up from their card game and stare at me. I hear a television buzzing behind me. I turn around and look down the dimly lit room to a group of women sitting on a couch, watching the news from a small black and white TV hanging from the wall. Behind them is a wooden railing with chipped white paint, where the room opens up into the night, overlooking the garbage riddled port. I turn back around to the shirtless men. I decide the man behind the desk must be the father of the guy sitting to my right. The younger of the two coldly stares at me as I speak with his father.

Sara opens the door to our room and I step in. The air is dense with the nose-twisting smell of the port, located just outside of our window. A ten Watt light bulb hangs on the wall, just powerful enough to cast shadows across the two beds and floor. The arms of the fan clinging to the ceiling sag from the humidity. I turn it on in an attempt to move around the thick air inside, but soon fear it will come slicing down from above, so I promptly shut it off. A yellow stain stripes across the room and reminds me of the bathtub where I washed my chocolate lab when he was puppy. A third of the floor is covered in dirty white tile. This is where the toilet sits in the open, and where a severed tube sticks out of the wall, serving as the shower head.

We decide to spend the rest of the night in a café located outside of the wafting radius of the port stench. I drink black Colombian coffee and eat empanadas.

The port is crowded in the morning — mostly with locals carrying assorted goods to nearby villages along the coast. An indecipherable voice crackles over the PA system, announcing the arrival and departure of various boats. After speaking with a young kid working the docks, he quickly motions us to grab our bags — the boat we need is leaving.

The small motorboat has six rows of benches, packed shoulder to shoulder with people. All the bags are piled into the nose of the boat. Sara and I are the last ones to board. Two seats remain, one in the back and the other in the first row. I snuggly fit between two large Panamanian men in the front. We quickly check out with the customs officials, stationed at the end of a long pier jutting out into the water.

Soon Turbo disappears from sight and mind. The coastline is spectacular. Mountainous jungles spill into the sea. White beaches crop up, surrounded by thatched roof homes. I look out to sea and watch black walls rolling in. I notice the bleeding clouds in front of us, and I am glad I have heavy duty garbage bags covering my belongings. The Caribbean waters are rough in the winter months. Fortunately, our boat hugs the coast and we are spared the worst. As the sea gets bigger, the front of the boat takes the brunt force of the waves. A light rain begins to fall and soon everyone is weighed down by wet clothes. Some of the passengers begin laughing, and soon others join in. I notice a smile creeping across my face. We’re having a blast. The driver of the boat feeds off the group and begins roaring with laughter. I think I hear a peppering of insanity in his voice. I can’t help but smiling as seawater continuously sprays my face and my knees repeatedly slam against the front of the boat. Excitement drums up inside of me as I think about the obstacles that remain between me and a hot shower in Panama City — the most obvious one being the notorious border crossing between Panama and Colombia, but even more so the dubious fifteen seater plane that is supposed to take us from the Panamanian coastal village of Puerto Obaldia to Panama City. For now I decide to put that aside.

I take a deep breath of the fresh sea air and continue to enjoy the ride.