Stuck in paradise, part 2 - Puerto Obaldía

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No cars. Electricity only in the evening. A small military outpost and border village turned into …. well …. a small military outpost and border village. The weather had not really changed enough and after the sniffer dogs had checked our luggage, and after we got an entry stamp into the country, we were told there were no boats travelling in this area.So we got to explore the village which took us 5 minutes, checked in at a nice hotel, found a great bakery and one restaurant, all around the field in the center of the village which was used as the central square, the kids playground, the sporting grounds for the military and as the gathering place for all travellers that got stuck.Every morning we packed our bags and went to the ‘office’ of the marine department to find out there were no boats going, checked in at the hotel again and enjoyed the pleasures of the bakery and the small restaurant, meanwhile waiting, reading our books, and chatting with both travellers and locals about the weather.The beauty of this gift of time was that I (Merijn) was able to visit a traditional Kuna village. As we had now entered the Kuna Yale region of which San Blas islands is a part, being invited to the village and home of one of the locals this was a great opportunity to see how they actually live their lives. Nacho, our guide, is an amazing personality, extremely friendly and more than active in making the 4 km beach area of their village an official nature reserve because hundreds or thousands of leatherback turtles nest here every year.Three times lucky we got to get onto a boat. Again quite a small boat on which we fitted eleven people and all our luggage packed in plastic bin liners to prevent them to get soaked during the ride. The weather seemed to be good, and the sea had calmed down a bit. On the way however, the sea showed its real power, the boat ride took almost five hours, we were tumbled like in a washing machine and it was very very wet, tiring and painful because of the boat jumping the waves. The captain surely knew how to handle these huge waves so we felt quite confident that we would actually survive this easily although cold and wet.

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