After a bit more than a week in the San Blas with our friends, it was time to slowly get on our way to Shelter Bay where we planned to leave the boat for two months. The first leg was from Swimming Pool Anchorage to Chichime in San Blas, a nice little lagoon which is a bit more touristic, but still very laid back and beautiful. From there, we enjoyed a beautiful and pretty fast sail to Portobelo, where we stayed at anchor for a few days to do some horseback-riding and to go discover the old forts. The forts were impressive and beautifully situated with a nice view on the bay and of course the kids were inspired to pretend to be knights. Next up was to go horse back riding to a waterfall. With an unexperienced group like ours we expected there to be a bit of explanation of how to “steer” a horse, but as it seemed, they put us on horses assuming we knew it all. Also our 7- and 8-year-old boys were riding a horse by themselves. What seemed to be quite fun in the beginning turned out to be pretty challenging, especially when we started riding up a river to a waterfall. Jannis’ horse even jumped over a rock once, after which he insisted to go sit on Daddy’s horse (very wise little guy he is). All in all it was a great adventure, but maybe not fully up to our normal safety and comfort standards and we might have heard Jannis say he’ll never go horseback riding again in his life.
