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Published: December 1st 2009
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One of the to do things on my list and of many others is going to
San Blas islandsin the Caribbean. There are almost 400 islands and not even half of them have people living on it. Besides this some islands just exist from literally one house or 3 palm trees. Sounds great doesn't it, let me tell you, it is. San Blas is an area where Kuna people live. They have their own language, lack of social skills and they seem to have also their own development 'disorder'. They're really short and their upper body is longer than their legs. Besides this they have a little too much interaction between one and an other: you see a lot of split pallets and albino's .
I stayed on a little island where maybe 30 people live and there are some bamboo huts where we would sleep in. The arrival day was nice and sunny at first, but started to get nasty in the evening. It was a bit stormy when we went to bed. At about 12 a real storm started and at 3 rain woke me up. Rain was pissing down and almost blown horizontal by the wind, so
it came big time through the bamboo-hut-wall-part. I tried to put the mattress side ways as a creative rain shield. This was of no success as the rain still found it's way to me
over the mattress. In the end it rapped myself around a palm tree in our hut and tried to sleep in the sand, but my sheets were already to wet so it became a long long night. The next day we stared at the rain for hours, here goes my paradise stay I thought. But late afternoon it cleared up and we could do a snorkel trip. Too bad we first had to have a discussion about it with 'the owner'. The snorkel trip didn't work out too great, but still on our way back we had a really nice sunset. The food btw was really basic and they used things which are actually living there; fish and lobster! Yes, very pleased indeed. Anyhoo, the last day we had blue blue skies and a really nice snorkel trip to a sunken ship in front of Isla de Perro. Beautiful I must say, again tiny islands with just one or 2 palm trees, white sandy beaches and
heaps of colourful fish. It was sunny and got again treated with a very cool sunset. The smile on my face lasted for a while. Later that day we also visited the 'capital' of the Kuna's. We weren't allowed to take pictures which was a shame, but it was kind of interesting because they do really have their own indescribable culture.
Panama city is the city where I stayed before and after going to San Blas for a few nights. The city is actually okay. Only wherever you look you see the huge influence the States have on this country: high buildings all over, same for shopping malls, they even use the dollar. I didn't do much in the city and I skipped the Panama canal. It is a big thing, a high light, but also a boy thing. I just didn't want to put any effort in to try and go see it. We have our own canals, dikes and locks. I stayed in a nice hostel, strolled around the old part of the city. Here I got pulled over by the militaries. They told me to take an immediate right as I was walking in the 'wrong'
street. So I did with them as my private escort service. The thing about the old part is, that it was still a few years ago a place where you could rent a room by the hour and it was basically where all the (petty) thieves lived. Now tourism got bigger in Panama it got better but tourism brings also along that there are more people to rob.
Santa Catalina was my next wanna-go-there- spot. This because of Isla Coiba and the option of diving with hammerheads, finally. Now it turned out to be that the hammerheads are way to deep so you have to be a technical diver and Isla Coiba they call it the 2nd Galapagos. But I can name four other islands they gave the exact same name. This resulted in no diving, because it's really expensive and not offering me the thing I wanted. And Isla Coiba more or less the same story. This doesn't mean it is not a nice spot. We had rain, my back was a big pain one night and there was a bed issue for that I had to sleep one night on top of a surf board cover. Which
turned out to be not as bad as it sounds, far from it actually. It was great, I did do some snorkelling in the rain and got stung like hell by jelly fish(parts?), I tried to surf in the rain, we bought some goodies from the one and only store and we saw a save-the-racoon-from-the-dogs-show. Just the whole laid back atmosphere, the few sun rays and nice locals made it a good place to be
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Sis
non-member comment
nice again!
Heey sis, Opnieuw weer een super blog! Kuna-people...bijzonder. Wat zijn je plannen voor de komende paar weken? Weer een trip naar plaatsen waar mensen nog volgens hun eigen tradities en cultuur leven? Geniet er nog van de laatste paar weken! X