Blogs from Kuna Yala, Panama, Central America Caribbean

I returned by bus from Bocas to Panama City (actually it's a ferry plus a bus) and stayed overnight at Panama City. Next day I was taking a tour to San Blas Islands. San Blas is a collection of 365 islands (some as small as a single palm tree, many uninhabited) on the Caribbean coast in Panama. These islands are inhabited by the Kuna people who are an indigenous tribe. In fact, in these islands, the Kuna not only retain their identity and way of life but also their laws apply. The fact that there is a space for this tribe to live their way is heartening (the Kunas had to fight to get this right). At the same time, the rising sea levels have put these last 50,000 or so Kuna people at risk. When ... read more

We ended up at Isla Tigre, one of the more or less 400 islands of San Blas. The island is a community island, which means there is a Kuna Yale village. The village is beautiful and because we are still very far from civilization the people live extremely basic, all houses are made of bamboo with thatched palm leave roofs. Although the men wear western clothes, all women wear their traditional clothes and jewellery and not because of the tourists (there were not other foreigners except us) but just because this is the way they live and wear their clothes with pride.At one end of the island (which you can cross in about ten minutes) the ... read more

Le 12 octobre 2016, Aujourd'hui, on se paie une petite folie, un tour aux îles San Blas, dans la Comarca de Guna Yala, un territoire indigène faisant parti du Panama mais indépendant et autogéré par la communauté. La communauté guna compte environ 300 000 personnes réparties dans la région. Il s'agit d'un véritable modèle de préservation de la culture indigène ancestrale, l'une des mieux préservée en Amérique. Dans la Comarca, aucun étranger ne peut posséder de terre ni exploiter une entreprise. Les gunas sont rois et maitres de leur région et il faut montrer patte blanche, son passeport et un billet de 20$ US pour obtenir l'autorisation de pénétrer dans leur territoire. Ici, ce sont les touristes qui s'adaptent à leur mode de vie et à leurs normes, et non eux qui s'adaptent aux attentes du ... read more

We had to travel from Colombia to Panama, which meant we had a decision to make, (and I'm not very good at making decisions). It's not as easy as just getting on a bus as there is an area known as the Darien Gap which is dangerous and almost impossible to navigate. So it left us with the options of either flying or taking a sail boat that included three days in the San Blas islands. We decided on taking a boat but the next problem was choosing which one as we had heard some horror stories of drunk captains and awful trips. Eventually we settled on the Perla del Caribe a 43 foot sailboat with Captain Jules. I was feeling pretty nervous when we arrived at the boat in the dark around 8pm unsure of ... read more

Due to not wanting to further increase my risk of something horrible happening to me while travelling I decided to book myself onto a sailboat and cross the ocean from Colombia to Panamá rather than taking on a border crossing through a jungle (see mum - responsible travel decisions). Although choosing a boat is usually something that would involve a lot of research and reading of reviews (especially considering the $550 price commitment for such a venture), a Canadian guy that I had met in Tryona National Park called Jeff happened to be heading the same way and I opted for the guarantee of at least one amusing person on my boat and booked my trip over in a matter of minuets. The name of the agency was Bluesailing and they organised getting stamped out of ... read more