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Published: January 22nd 2005
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Seashells
As staged as this picture looks, these shells actually just wash up all over the place If there is a more beautiful place on earth than the island I holed up on for 5 days, I would be amazed to find it. Every morning I awoke to the sounds of the waves on the shore and the wind in the coconut palms; as I stepped out of the cabaña, my eyes feasted on the thousand shades of turquoise, green, and blue and at night the whole island was blanketed in the brightest moonlight I have ever seen. Never have I seen so many stars in the sky! It was absolutely incredible.
After going out to a wonderful little Cuban bar called Bolero on Saturday night, I left with Ita at 4 am to the airport to try to get a ticket to San Blas on standby. The flight left at 6 am and at 5:52 they finally called us up to the ticket counter to get tickets. However, due to our late ticket issue they just wrote down any dates on our tickets and told us to arrange our return from Rio Sidra when we got to the airport there. Flying into San Blas was an experience in and of itself. It is only accessible by
plane so you look down over this jungle area full of coconut trees by the river that empties into the sea, and there are no roads, no houses, no mark of humanity down there. Flying over the sea you just see all these little tiny islands sticking out of the water here and there and you can see submerged islands a couple meters under the water's surface, as well as coral reefs surrounding these palm fringed jewels of sand.
The "airport" is no more than a landing strip and a pier out into the water, so we quickly realized that arranging our trip back would be more complicated than we had originally thought. At any rate we jumped into the boat for Robinson's Island, and set off across the water for this little island. We stopped first at the Kuna village closest to Robinson's and got a chance to see the kids and the fishermen and the very very cramped inhabited island. It was quite a contrast with the quiet and remoteness of our island. We arrived around 7 in the morning and were shown to our cabaña by Arnando, the Kuna guy that stayed on our island and
spoke a bit of Spanish. Most of the Kuna don't speak any Spanish, just their indigenous language. The cabañas were just bamboo huts with open doorways and room for a couple hammocks...very rustic, as was the whole island, but I was surprised how quickly I got used to being barefoot, salty, and without a proper bed or bathroom facilities. "Showering" was either rinsing off in the sea or trying to pour what little freshwater they had in this big bucket over yourself to rinse off.
However, if I had to change only one thing about the place, it would just be to gave fresh fruit and veggies available. Breakfast everyday was bread and an egg or bread and a piece of cheese; lunch and dinner were pretty much the same, fish and rice, fish and plantains, fish and yucca, or lobster with rice or plantains. One day they got really crazy and gave us chicken. The amount of food too was never quite enough to fill you up so I ended up drinking 3 cups of coffee after every meal and we had to bust out the machete daily to open some coconuts.
It rained about 5 times
The bathroom
Interesting concept when the hole opens right into the sea the first couple days, but always only for 3 or 4 minutes at a time and then the gloriously strong sunshine would come back out again. We met some awesome people on the island; the first couple days were pretty low key, only about 8 people on the island. Of course, who else did we first meet on the island but 2 more Israelis.....somehow it must be my destiny to meet every Israeli traveling in Panama....and I hung out with Maayan and Shachar the first couple days. Then we started getting more and more and more people to the island, so the atmosphere kept getting better and better. I finally parted ways with Ita on Wednesday morning; they only had one space available on the flight that day and he needed to fly to Brazil on Thursday, so I said I would stay. Then on Thursday they said they had no room for me so I stayed another night. I was getting a little nervous about whether I was ever going back to the mainland, but I finally told them I didn't have enough money to stay another day and they sure got me a seat on the Friday flight.
Beach bonfire
Patricio, Ita, & Maayan ... the firestarters and coconut crackers The people I met on the island made the whole experience absolutely unforgettable... Judi, Irene, Ericka, Patricio, Joanne, Maayan, Yogev, Bradley, Lindsey, Jaimie, and Joanne .... hopefully I will be meeting up with some of you again on this trip or down the road!
So I stayed one night at the Voyager hostel in Panama City but headed back over to the Costa Azul to get my bag and was able to take a hot shower over there (an UNBELIEVABLE feeling after not showering since the prior Saturday) and found Dani and Amit and Michael still in Panama City so I ended up hanging out with all of them again, getting ice cream and walking down on Avenida Balboa by the water.
I had to do some more shopping today for more rechargeable batteries (I could have taken hundreds of beautiful photos if my camera batteries hadn't died 3 days into the island life where there was no electricity) and more clothes....there just seems to be no end to how quickly all my clothes are getting ruined. And the biggest accomplishment of the day is that I actually got my laundry done and pictures uploaded. I think
A break from the snorkeling
You could snorkel all the way around the island; the reefs, octopus, manta rays, starfish, and all sorts of colorful little fishies made it my favorite island activity I have gotten enough errands done to move on tomorrow. Dani is cooking dinner at the hotel and then I think we are hitting the clubs for a last Saturday night together in the city. Tomorrow I should be back in Boquete for a couple days of camping or en route to San Jose if I can't meet up with Maayan.
I am sad to leave Panama, but Judy got me really excited about getting back up to Guatemala, because she is a huge salsera as well and there are places to go out 6 nights a week up there and she has all the hook ups for me to get a cheap place to stay and a good Spanish teacher and she is super fun to hang out with. So I am thinking of putting the rest of the Central America plans on fast forward to get up to Antigua sooner. Well, I guess I'll see.... so far plans have been changing on a daily, if not hourly, basis depending on the cool people I meet!
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anonymous
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San Blas Island
Jenni I was there in December 2004, and is certainly a backpackers desert island paradise. Check out my link of some more cool images of the island. http://www.pbase.com/chrisayriss/panama Safe travels. Regards Chris Ayriss - Chris Ayriss