Caribbean winter 2014-2015, part 2: San Blas

CC, Carolina and I continued the trip to San Blas while Suad and Nicola went back to freezing Boston.

General area

Little zoom

Major zoom: we were here.

Background info: During my research of things to do in Panamá, on the 5^th or 6^th page of search results I saw people raving about the San Blas Islands.  There were plenty of reviews, but no site for booking a stay or anything like that. I wound up on a site for a travel agency that worked with San Blas tours and crossed my fingers that the payment I sent them through a Panamanian version of Western Union did indeed get us from Panamá City to the islands and back.

IT WAS AWESOME. With the exception of the car rides. Let me explain:

CC, Carolina and I got picked up from our air BnB in Panamá City at 5:30am (all transport was included in the reservation price). We shared a van with a lovely group of girls from the UK, driving across Panamá and arriving at the dock a few hours later. The van ride was brutal – definitely the worst part of my whole trip. The roads outside of the city were not only full of whip-lash inducing hairpin turns, but also had extremely steep hills. Our driver, a small man who introduced himself as “Duende,” (which means ‘dwarf’ in Spanish), boasted that he had driven this path hundreds of times, he had even driven it before it was paved a few years back. Presumably to prove this point, Duende drove as fast as the van would go, often slamming on the accelerator right before the top of the hills, which made you feel like you were throwing up even if you weren’t (many people were). This treacherous portion of the drive is about 1.5 hours in duration, and may the lord help you if you don’t have witty UK girls’ glorious accents to get you through it.

We arrived at the dock and met our first Kuna Yalans, charged with bringing us by speedboat to the secluded islands where we would stay for the next 3 days. Kuna Yalans are some of the last Central Americans that escaped colonization by Spain (mostly because of their distance from mainland Panamá), and generally speaking they proudly avoid learning Spanish. All of the Kuna Yalans at the dock were male, the females stay on the islands until they island hop (more on this later). These guys were dressed in very western clothing (t-shirts and board shorts) and you could distinguish the tribal leaders from lesser members by body weight: the chief had an immense potbelly and the lowly teenagers had appendages like matchsticks.

Young Kuna Yalan at the helm as we land.

More vans arrived, and we all clamored into separate boats destined for different islands. We were loaded up with everything we would need for our stay: the islands have no electricity or refrigeration or running water, much less grocery stores, so we had to bring lots of bottled water and snacks. Our boat had about 7 other people on it. The Kuna Yalan teenagers are very skilled boaters, and by that I mean they can remain standing when everyone else is clutching anything in reach with the goal of staying inside the boat as it careens off of huge waves at the speed of light (approximation) and comes crashing down with (literally) bone crushing force. Our shrieks of delight and fear soon turned to a very real concern to arrive to the islands with a non-pulverized coccyx. I came up with the genius method of wearing one life jacket and sitting on another, which I highly recommend in all situations.

When we landed on the island (Isla Aroma), we were greeted by a gorgeous Hungarian couple (Adriana and Ben) that worked as volunteers. 

Ben and Adriana

Talking with these volunteers, I was eventually able to get a lot of interesting information on the tribe, but my first impression of Kuna Yalans was that they were quite surly toward tourists - they warmed up to us eventually (to a certain degree, some more than others). After seeing the men in such casual clothing, it was interesting to see their female counterparts in very formal dress: long, colorful, intricately folded dresses; beaded anklets that covered the entire shin from knee to foot; sandals (the men were always barefoot); and lots of gold jewelry.  I didn't take pictures so as not to treat them as a spectacle, but Nicola got a good one while we were still in the city. The women specialize in weaving molas, lovely swaths of cloth, often depicting island scenes of fish and birds.

Kuna Yalan lady in the city: watching the boats pass through the canal.

Molas for sale wave in the breeze on Isla Aroma.

There were also a few small children and maybe 3-4 teenagers in this particular tribe. All in all, on our small island, there were about 15 tourists and 12-18 Kuna Yalans. Tourists have the option of staying in tents or small huts; we sprang for huts and were very happy to have done so, especially when we saw huge coconuts falling unexpectedly from trees with enough force to kill a man (I’m pretty sure I’m not exaggerating).

Our one-room hut, shared amongst 4 people for 3 days

Sweet, deadly coconut

Adriana and Ben played the vital role of easing the tension between irreverent Kuna Yalans and demanding tourists, which they did as best they could. My first glimpse of Adriana, a tan, svelte multilingual goddess, was her talking a French family off the brink of emotional breakdown because they had to sit on tree stumps to eat instead of at a table. She and Carolina and I later talked extensively, and she shared that she was often frustrated, because as someone who has worked in the tourism industry for years, she has difficulty with the attitudes of the Kuna Yalans who simultaneously want tourism money but also want nothing to do with tourists. By the way, the stumps were more than satisfactory! In fact, I was in heaven, but I heard lots of complaints (let’s be honest, mostly from the French people) about how the food serving sizes were much too small, the beds were too sandy, etc. etc. Indeed the serving sizes were pretty small, but I was ok with it since it’s only for a few days, and also what the hell maybe I would end up looking like Adriana by the end of our stay, so totes worth it. And do you know why the beds were sandy? Because we were on a small island in the Caribbean with no buildings or cars or technology in sight. Which is what you WANTED, French people. So stfu.

Rough enough to be real, beautiful enough to be paradise.

Naps on secluded beaches

It was exhilarating to take showers in water that trickled out of big tubs perched on roofs that caught rain water, and to brush your teeth while standing in the sand at a small “sink” a few steps from Caribbean water, lit only by moonlight, and to not care how you look because there are no mirrors and no lights. 

This is where we brushed our teeth

Adriana gave us even more interesting insights into life with Kuna Yalans. For instance, they believe in inter-familial marriages, with such inbreeding resulting in a disproportional concentration of albinos in their population. These albinos are considered a magnificent blessing to a family, since these children are given royal status. However, if there is one place in the world where you don’t want to be albino, it’s in the unrelenting sun of the San Blas islands. They are not allowed outside until after sunset. We didn’t see any in our tribe though (of course I mean the tribe that we stayed with, which I have already selfishly appropriated in true western fashion as “our tribe.”). Another interesting fact is that about once a month, the entire tribe picks up and moves to another island in the San Blas chain. A different tribe comes to live at the recently vacated one. This keeps life minimalistic and prevents the desire to collect belongings from taking hold – crucial, since with the influx of tourism money, Kuna Yalans are becoming more materialistic. The women now have a penchant for gold, the men for brand name clothing and alcohol.

We stayed for 3 nights, and our last night on the island happened to be New Years Eve. That afternoon, the guys on the island gathered lots of firewood for what would later be an epic bonfire. Carolina and her gorgeous friend Cata shared an awesome Colombian New Year’s tradition with me: writing all the things you wanted to leave in the past and not bring with you into the new year on a small fabric “Old Year Man” that can really only be described as a voodoo doll. You write on him and then at midnight you burn him and he takes all the written burdens with him when he goes, allowing you a fresh start for the New Year. I had a lot to write about. Our Old Year Man took a lot of baggage with him.

Año viejo: Old year man

Another Colombian tradition is to pack a bag and run around wherever you are. This represents the travel you will have in the coming year, with the more you pack in your bag to run around directly correlating to the amount of travel you will experience. We prepared ALL of our luggage for the run, which would take place at midnight.

In the hours leading up to midnight, we gathered around the bonfire and sang songs. Sadly enough, someone brought a guitar and let me play it, which was widely regarded as a bad move because I suck. “Amanda, which songs did you play to such an international audience eager to sing along?” you ask. “Please don’t say ‘Country folk songs’!” you add. Yes. Country folk songs. I taught “Red river valley” and “You are my sunshine” to Kuna Yalan children, and in my opinion it was awesome. Everyone else passively approved, probably because they were drinking heavily.

Gather round, kiddies! Photo credit - CC

This is Casey, who constantly cracked me up with his antics, we were probably singing Michael Jackson songs here. Photo credit - CC

We also played a great game of zoo, which I taught to the local kids and tourists alike. Zoo requires each player to choose a sign and a sound for a certain animal (for instance, I might choose an elephant for my animal; with a hand gesture of my arm waving like a trunk and a sound like “barRRRA” which is obviously the sound an elephant makes). Once everyone has their animal gesture and sound, a player does his own animal moves before “passing” to another person by doing their animal motion and sound. Of course you end up in a mess of people (in some cases, rather dignified adults with impressive titles and corner offices) trying to remember their own animal then moo like a cow while waving their arms like a chicken in a desperate attempt to pass to the correct person, which leads to paroxysms of laughter with very few language barriers to overcome.

One Kuna Yalan child was UNCANNILY good at animal sounds. Really, it was scary. Another one (he was probably 16, his name was Casey) was a little bit drunk. When we went around choosing our animals, we got around the whole circle (Fish! Tiger! Horse! Monkey!) and then got to Casey. He was very shy and would not yell out his animal but insisted on telling me privately and then have me explain to the others for him. He leaned in close and kind of hovered there for a second, and I could smell LOTS of beer on his breath. After a dramatic pause, he whispered gravely in my ear: “Tell them I will be Michael Jackson.” After a good 30 seconds being paralyzed by laughter, I fruitlessly tried to explain that MJ was not an animal. Casey wouldn’t have it.  He even had the sound effect picked out: singing “We are the world.” It was the best game of zoo I’ve ever played.

The internet explains zoo. 

At midnight, we burned The Old Year man and ran around the island with our heavy bags like maniacs, and it was absolutely glorious. People sang Auld Lang Syne and I accompanied with about 1/3 of the chords, impressing myself deeply. We danced “Danza Kudoro” and basically had the time of our lives. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning drinking Panamanian beer with the Kuna Yalans, with bits of Spanglish interwoven with miming as the main form of communication.

The next morning, everyone was hung over (especially Casey), and we spent the morning in hammocks, reading and rehydrating. 

We left in the afternoon, ready to welcome real showers and electrical outlets and civilization back into our lives. We said heartfelt goodbyes to the Kuna Yalans and the Hungarian volunteers. Salt in our hair and life jackets under our butts, we rode the boats back to the dock and piled into vans to take us back to Panamá City. On the way back, our van broke down, which was actually a godsend because it allowed us to get out of the car and get some fresh air for a second (don’t forget that the path back to the city was MakeYouVomit Road). The people who had been the drunkest the night before were green by the time we made it to the city!

Most Understated Sign Ever.

We got back to Panamá City and all gorged on full-sized meals for the first time in days, took long showers, and prepared for the next part of our trips: Cata back to Chicago, Carolina back to Boston, and CC and I to Puerto Rico and St Kitts, which will be Part 3!

Note: When I got back to Boston, on the landing page of BBC.co.uk there was a long article about how San Blas is the place to go to really unplug and have an authentic island experience, so I’m sure it will be packed now!

Another note: Everyone is fine with being unplugged and natural until someone gets hurt! The last day, Cata stepped on a sea urchin and had to have a very skilled Kuna Yalan extract the painful spines from her foot. When stuff like that happens, you realize how far away you are from dependable medical care, and the charm of the island starts to be tempered with the desire for sanitation and easily accessible care.

In case you want to go:

Agency that books San Blas stays – Estela was very helpful and responded to emails within 24 hours. We did the “Ultimate San Blas” tour, staying in huts. 4 days, 3 nights. Bring LOTS of bottled water and sunscreen, plus any snacks you might want (meals are included but if you are used to American portions you will probably get pretty hungry). Also, be aware that there are no trash cans on the island – anything you bring with you must also be brought back (we stuffed trash into empty water bottles which made for easy transport).

This is the way to eat.

Caribbean winter 2014-2015, part 1: Panamá

Panamá City skyline as seen from the metropolitan park.

Once again, I have found myself in Boston in the dead of winter. My job situation is great, my living situation is still lovely (though fast becoming unsustainable, I will definitely move again in August… time will tell if that move will be to a different apartment or different state), and personally, well, it could be worse.  But I still can’t resign myself to staying straight through the winter here, and I had a month off for the holiday break (did I mention the job situation is great?). 

The decision of where to go this time was heavily influenced by an invitation from one of my best friends, Bri, who is studying to become a veterinarian in St. Kitts. Once I decided to go there and started setting up dates, I threw around ideas with other pockets of friends until some details started to stick and “maybe”s turned into “here’s our flight info”. It worked out magically!

Note: you’ll notice that for this trip I did not travel alone, and I didn’t couchsurf.  The former is because I am still being a big baby and didn’t want to be alone yet. The latter is because while it is easy to find a couch for one person, only professional hosts can deal with hosting 6 people.

Exhibit A: only the bold attempt hosting large numbers of surfers. 

Here, I hosted 5 - 2 from Colombia, 1 from Denmark, 2 from Germany.

Here I hosted seven (yes. seven.). 5 from South Korea, 2 from Brazil.

It is also hard to sell people on the concept of couchsurfing, especially when one’s friends are late-twenties/early-thirties professionals who would rather have the privacy and dependability of an Air BnB. I will say that it was fabulous to travel with friends and Air BnB’s are pretty nice. But I know I’ll come crawling back to couchsurfing when I next travel alone, just because I love that feeling you get when staying somewhere isn’t a business, but rather a cultural exchange full of stories and camaraderie and, yeah, a few awkward moments (For instance, when I couchsurfed in Montreal, I thought I was being helpful by bringing my own toilet paper so as not to use up all of my host's. However, Canadian toilets are not equipped to handle plush American 2-ply, and I unwittingly clogged up his toilet. He tried to use his plunger, which broke. He then borrowed his neighbor's plunger, which also broke. He ended up buying 2 new plungers and peeing in his back yard because I was so "helpful". That Amanda, needless to say, died of embarrassment. I am simply a new reincarnation of her.).

For those who are curious, before I go anywhere I usually type up a plan and keep it with me. This plan is meant to facilitate seamless transitions when I travel, and includes information such as directions to airports, notes about tipping, highly recommended activities in an area (hiking, snorkeling, etc.), and cultural anomalies to be aware of. The plan’s actual purpose, however, usually turns out to be a napkin for the tea I spill on myself before I even leave the Boston airport. Seriously though, it’s great to have a place to keep track of what you’ve done and what you want to do. I’ll show you mine.

So we went! 

Getting off the plane in Panama, I was hit by the most comforting brick wall of heat and humidity that I could have asked for. It’s kind of like leaving a frigid movie theater after drinking an iced drink, shivering and numb, and getting into your car that has been roasting in the Texas sun – except you don’t even get burned by your seatbelt buckle. Your skin is just like, “THANK YOU! I’m not even mad you had me in the freezer, I just want to keep feeling this solar hug.” So of course I was in a great mood going through the huge customs line with my travel buddy, CC. CC is from Lebanon and is disturbingly intelligent, well-travelled and up for anything, a fantastic travel buddy. Once through, we waited on the other side of the customs line for our other travel buddies: my gorgeous Azeri friend, Suad (follow her on twitter), and her adorable, animal-loving Italian boyfriend, Nicola. Little known fact, Suad has the cutest cat in the world (yes, I fully admit that Pip comes in 2^nd here). His name is Pinky, and he has WON AWARDS in Azerbaijan for being fluffy and wonderful.

Is this not the best thing that's happened to you ever?

Runner-up: Max

Runner-up: Pip

So there we are, CC and I waiting for Suad/Nicola’s flight to get in – a scheduled wait time of about 1 hour. We don’t have any signal with our US phones, so we had agreed beforehand to meet in the relatively small customs area. An hour goes by, and CC and I are calmly playing cards. 1.5 hours goes by, and the customs area has completely cleared out. We approach some employees and confirm that the flight in question landed ages ago.  Could they have walked by us and assumed we left? We were on our way out when a bedraggled Suad and Nicola come out of a door that no one else came out of. Poor Suad had had to spend all that time trying to explain to the customs officials where Azerbaijan was. They didn’t believe her until they googled it. Say what you will about America, but at least people don’t suspect us of making our country up.

For you, Suad.

We took a taxi (~$50 split 4 ways) from the airport to our Air BnB. The taxis in Panama are mostly dirt cheap, except for to/from the airport and to/from the canal, because Duh. Tourists. This taxi ride was very educational though, for instance we learned that some taxi drivers are very opinionated on the state of capitalism in their country. Here's a video of one vociferating on just that topic, with the Tornillo (screw) building in frame:

We also learned then and there that the currency of Panama was Balboas. The Balboa-Dollar ratio is exactly 1-1, yet American money is still preferred. Also, if you pay with American money, you’ll most likely get your change in Balboas. As everyone knows, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa was a Spanish conquistador who explored Panama in the 16^th century.

Our first full day, we hiked in the Parque Metropolitano, a large park very close to the city. When we paid our entry fees (~$5 each), we asked the employee if there were monkeys to be seen. He furtively looked around and said simply, “yes,” without making eye contact. We hiked for a while and then came back out. I had seen a small lizard and was rather satisfied, but apparently the insatiable thirst for monkeys among the rest of the group led us to the Parque Soberanía for another outing.

This park has amazing reviews online, rife with references to howler monkey sightings. We paid our $5 to a man who showed up pretty much out of nowhere and asked for it. Ever the wary traveler, I asked for a receipt. He held up an empty pad with rather convincing traces of paper along the top where, ostensibly, receipts had been ripped off (god knows how long ago) and said he was fresh out of receipts. 

A few hours and several small lizards later, we came to the end of the trail, monkey-less. We asked the man what we did wrong, and at that point he said “Ooooh you want to see the animals? You have to take a taxi to another entrance to the park, waaaaay over there.” The fact that this particular man made a living off charging people who thought they were going into the legitimate entrance to the park, even though he knew that was not the case, was quite apparent.

So of course we go to the other entrance, and the employee there is not swayed by our story of already having paid because of course we had no receipt. So we paid again (these $5 are starting to add up), asked for a receipt, and were once again shown the “fresh-out” empty receipt pad. I think I saw the guy smirk as he brandished it, knowing that we were powerless to demand a receipt when there were simply no receipts left, regardless of the fact that they probably ran out of receipts in 1975 when they discovered that instead of spending money on receipt paper, they could instead make dividends by equipping employees with the empty pads and stationing them at intervals around the gigantic park.

I should also mention that the other 3 members of our group apparently saw a majestic toucan in this last forest. I saw a flash of yellow disappear into the trees and had no idea what it was, but it was indeed majestic, and we were all quite contented when all was said and done.

Forsaken by the monkeys but ecstatic to be in Panama all the same, we planned our beach day. Isla Taboga is a sight for sore Boston eyes: colorful houses on a hillside spilling toward sun-soaked beaches and turquoise water.

According to our guides, Taboga is the home to the second oldest church in the western hemisphere, San Pedro church. Then the guide goes on to talk about hiking and beaches and such, with NO regard whatsoever to the fact that anyone who reads that entry is clearly dying to know what the first oldest church in the Western Hemisphere is. I am not so cruel as the Lonely Planet, I will tell you that the oldest church in the western hemisphere is St. Peter’s church in Bermuda. Anyway, we stayed on the beach all day (slathered in sunscreen, we won’t be reliving Thailand SunburnGate again anytime soon) and didn’t even look at the church.

The next day, we explored Panamá Viejo, or Old Panamá. This was the original site of the city, but it was burned and pillaged by England’s out of control pirate, Captain Henry Morgan, in 1671. From Wikipedia: “Because the sack of Panama violated the 1670 peace treaty between England and Spain, Morgan was arrested and conducted to the Kingdom of England in 1672. He proved he had no knowledge of the treaty. When Spanish and English relations deteriorated, Morgan was knighted in 1674 before returning to Jamaica the following year to take up the post of Lieutenant Governor.” When he fell out of favor with England, he became fat and boisterous and prone to drinking, thereby sealing forever his beloved status as an American frat boy the namesake of a brand of so-so rum.*

*Disclaimer: in the author’s opinion, all rum is so-so. The only respectable alcoholic drink is Moscato so sweet that it gives you instant cavities and diabetes.

The dowager countess knows what I'm about.

The four of us had a great time visiting the ruins of Panama Viejo and imagining the lives of Spanish settlers before Morgan and his men disembarked and caused pandemonium. In retrospect, this sweet nostalgic thought is probably more accurately described as CC, Suad and Nicola striding along the path, reading informational plaques in a dignified manner, interrupted at intervals by me clawing at a nondescript stone and squawking out to anyone who would listen, “You GUYS! I bet a villager stood RIGHT HERE and touched this stone 400 YEARS AGO!” and then lapsing into enraptured silence as my companions weighed the risk/benefit analysis of dumping me in the swamp.

After a while, though, it was time to leave the park, because we had an eerie hunch that it was closing soon (the origin of this hunch was probably a sign that I read on the way in, stating the closing time as 5:00pm. It was 5:15). We came to the gate at the end of the old city and, through a bit of quick detective work, concluded that it was indeed closed and locked with a large padlock. After a few minutes of hushed discussion (“Should we go back the way we came? Do you think there’s an exit somewhere else? Can we climb this fence?”), we saw some cops in the distance (on the other side of the fence) and waved them over. After gently scolding us for staying too late, they looked at the lock and confirmed that they didn’t have the key. Eyeing the 2 boys and then the 2 girls in their skirts, they dubiously suggested that we could climb over.

I am proud to say that if there were an award for “tourists who flashed the most Panamanian cops on December 27, 2014,” I am confident that Suad and I would be contenders. The cops were giggling at our shrieks of displeasure at climbing high pointy fences in skirts and flip flops.

Oh, we also saw the Panama Canal. Did you know that dozens of ships go through each day, and each one pays AT LEAST $300,000 in fees to pass through?!?!?!

Our last night in Panama City, we were joined by Carolina, my awesome friend/neighbor from Boston. Carolina was already in Colombia visiting her family for Christmas, so she came up one country to join us in the city, which was our departure point for the next destination: the islands of San Blas.

Handstand in Panama City: