The San Blas Islands

The San Blas Islands is an extensive archipelago of more than 300 islands situated in the Caribbean side of Eastern Panama. The tropical landscape of coconut trees that overcrowd a multitude of small islands is framed by a mountainous background of pristine and mostly unexplored rain forest that lies further inland.

The archipelago and the mainland’s coast are inhabited by around 50,000 Kuna people. The Kuna have managed to preserve their ethnic integrity and lively traditions fairly intact, in spite of the early attempts of the Panamanian government to suppress their culture. Since a revolt in 1925 for their right to self-determination, the Kunas have autonomously governed San Blas (or Kuna Yala as they prefer to call it) with minimal interference.

Foreigners cannot buy land, settle, or marry native Kunas, and that’s why the entire comarca remains devoid of resorts and modern developments. The few attempts by foreigners to circumvent the rules and offer high-end experiences for profit have not gone well. In the mid-60s a condescending gringo bypassed the main Kuna authority and built a fancy pseudo-Polynesian resort; clashes with the community led to the resort being burned down twice, and the guy expelled from Panama.

Even though the political power formally resides mostly on men, Kuna’s society is strongly matriarcal. When a man gets married, he is ceremonially abducted, and he moves to the bride’s home; whatever he harvests or produces belongs to the bride’s family.

The transition to adulthood that they celebrate is that of girls. And they do it big, with a multi-day chicha party. Chicha is a beverage fermented from sugar cane, and the party starts when the chiefs determine the chicha is ready, so you don’t really know exactly when the party will start until just a couple of days before. From what we gathered, the first day of the party is ceremonial, the second social, the third is of revelry, and the last of recovery. We were invited to one such party, but sadly, iffy anchorages and a sudden spell of bad weather conspired against us attending it.

When you enter Kuna Yala you are transported to a different era, where people live in thatched-roof huts, fish with age-old methods and move around in dugout canoes powered by paddles and sails. Only that they all have cell phones, and the pervasive presence of plastic trash is perturbing. With minimal infrastructure, the Kunas have a serious problem with trash—in that regard, modernity came too quick for them to adapt. We saw signs of hope in that the younger generations are conscious and active about the problem.

• 

• 

In spite of the beautiful waters and breathtaking scenery, the best of San Blas for us was the human factor: the people we met, both local Kunas and foreign cruisers.

Cruisers

There was, for instance, the very first Namibians we’ve ever met, who are also the only people to correctly guess our Chilean background from the name of our boat (I can barely place Namibia on the map and these Africans knew about ñandús!). A couple slightly older than us, they spent years on their boat in Venezuela when most people were fleeing the economic and social chaos (“we had a great time there”). And then, on a whim, they just biked all the way to Patagonia. “Unlike boating, it’s simple”, he explained, trying to prove that it was no big deal. “You just have to mount your bike every day and pedal. And when you get tired, you just stop and rest.” They planned to spend this entire season in San Blas.

• 

• 

• 

• 

There was also young and inspiring Mike 2 (*), the age of our daughter, still searching for his passion. He took a break, borrowed a boat and went on a short cruise. Eager for company (“solitude is overrated”), he kept inviting us in his dinghy to the best spots he had discovered in the surrounding reefs, and making plans to share the fish he caught (it was mostly the delicious and invasive lion fish, so we all felt contributing to the reef’s health by having it on our plates). We were impressed by his unlimited energy and enthusiasm, by his desire to share, and by his knowledge and confidence in all things relating to the seas, all at his tender age. We were touched also by his openness to share with us his life struggles and dark places he’s trying to remain away from.

And then there was child-in-an-adult-suit Mike 1 (*), who had a bellicose youth growing up as “a white boy in Hawaii”. He was cruising on a dime with his lovely Latinamerican wife and one-year-old daughter. He thought we were experts in anchoring, when he saw Ñandú swinging close, but not too close to a huge coral head we hadn’t even seen—and worse, we hit head-on when rowing on the dinghy. He told us countless stories about being pounded by waves and cut up by razor-sharp coral in his everyday surfing life in Hawaii, about gangs and bar brawls, about Hawaiian ghosts and miracle plants. He looked up to his older brother who thought was going to find enlightenment when he conquered a particular wave in Oahu, only to feel no different at all once he did; even worse, nobody witnessed his feat, and in his disappointment he gave up surfing for years. Mike shuns all rules and conventions and does things his peculiar way: he snorkels without a snorkel, he cruises without cruising guides, he doesn’t know how much anchor rode his boat has (“I don’t know; I just gave it all out”, he said when asked how much chain he put in the anchoring spot he chose). And he hadn’t formally checked in to pretty much any of the Caribbean countries he stopped at. I truly believe he has the protection of some Hawaiian god, and that being the case, he should just continue doing things the Mike way. It works for him.

I am not sure it was just a coincidence that all of the above were avid apnea divers.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

* Names and some details have been changed, but yes, Mike 1 and Mike 2 have the same first name.

Kunas

We got to meet many Kunas during our stay in San Blas, and it was always a lively and enriching interaction. Some of them only speak their native tongue, many speak Spanish with varying degrees of fluency.

From our anchorage in Cayo Holandés we rowed in the dinghy to the neighboring Diadup, a small island with a Kuna hamlet of four or five huts. We timidly approached the island with the uncomfortable feeling we were intruding, until we saw a display appear out of nothing: where there was just grass and palm trees a moment before, there was now a full exhibit of molas and crafts, plus three women.

Molas are hand-made textile pieces fashioned with several layers of cloth, where each layer is cut with intricate patterns to reveal the color of the layer underneath. The cuts are then sewn down with extremely fine, invisible stitches. They are part of the women’s traditional attire, and most of them are authentic artistic masterpieces.

In spite of their nonchalant attitude, it was patently obvious the women were expecting us to approach them. Only one of them, Marisa, spoke Spanish, but that didn’t prevent an animated conversation, which mostly followed this pattern: Kathy asks a question. We all look at Marisa, who thinks for a while and then says something unintelligible for us. The women giggle and chat friskily, occasionally glancing at us. We all look at Marisa, who comes up with an answer to Kathy’s question.

We selected a few molas to add to our treasures, and as soon as we left the display got dismantled, even more quickly than it was set.

Venancio and his brother approached Ñandú one morning on their dugout canoe to offer their molas. Venancio had a vast and amazing collection he claimed to have made himself. We knew molas are traditionally made by women, but we also knew Kunas embrace gender fluidity, and accept your gender according to how you express and identify yourself. Venancio made us look at every mola he had with a genuine concern to make sure we’d select the ones we liked the most. The whole process took easily two hours. It was really hard to buy just a few. So hard in fact that we failed, and bought more than just a few. We later learned that Venancio doesn’t really make the molas, but buys and resells them all over San Blas. We are slightly pissed to have gullibly fell, but the molas we got are still incredible pieces of art. Just not Venancio’s art.

Later on, on every anchorage we had more molas offered, but unquestionably made be the women offering them, so none of them had four barrels full of molas as Venancio had. Notable among them was Lisa, sweet, friendly, funny, and chatty. She said she likes to be called Mola Lisa, and upon knowing that we had bought so many molas from Venancio she grimaced and said, in a self-compassionate and accepting tone, “yeah, that’s been my problem my entire life: siempre llego tarde (I’m always late).” We couldn’t help it: with Lisa’s visit, our mola collection grew even more.

On a windy day, one of our last ones in the area, we saw a couple slowly approaching our boat, the old man struggling with his paddle to overcome the force of the wind. We thought they were coming to offer more molas but something seemed odd. It turns out that they came to ask us if, by any chance, we were going to Nuinudup that morning. They live there, upwind, and needed a tow, since it would have been impossible for them to get there paddling against that wind. Ricardo did not speak any Spanish, but Elia was quite fluent. He was a saila (a political and religious leader of the community), and they were both curanderos. They had come to Chichime the day before to collect some medicinal plants for Ricardo’s ailments. We welcomed them aboard and decided to put Nuinudup in our plans for that day. While I prepared things to weigh anchor, Kathy gave them some food as they hadn’t eaten much since the day before. And then off we went, their dugout cayuco tied to our stern. It was a smooth ride for their small vessel… until it wasn’t anymore. The last turn before reaching the destination put it sideways to the wind. The chop rocked the little canoe, which started to take water in. The more water it took, the lower it rode, and the more exposed it was to take even more water, with the few things inside tumbling around and barely retained by the waning sides of the canoe. We had to act quickly or all the contents of the canoe (mostly paddles and shoes) would be lost. I won’t get into the details of the operation, but we lost in the process one of Elia’s sandals and a plastic bottle. Yeah, more plastic trash floating around, but the amount of trash we recovered during our entire stay was several times that.

• 

• 

We entered the anchorage with the canoe’s gunwales and the waterline being one and the same. We tried several ways of bailing the water out, to no avail. At some point I went to the cockpit; I have no idea what Ricardo tried, but when I came back to Ñandú’s stern, the canoe was upside down. By then it was clear that the only solution was to use a dinghy to tow the canoe just as it was to the beach and deal with it on solid ground. We recruited the guy on a nearby boat, whose dinghy was already on the water, to finish the operation.

Armodio, our fish provider, had infinite patience to teach some Kuna words to Kathy

Cheil proudly showed us his island, Rio Azucar. The large thatched structure is the Congreso or town hall, put together exclusively with materials harvested from the jungle—not even nails in it.

---

Our experience cruising the islands was powerful and dazzling. We left Kuna Yala with wonderful memories (and some plastic trash).