Had a blast in San Blas

Yeah, I know, but I could not resist putting this title… 

Anyway, we have now reached Carpugana, a small and cute village on the Caribbean sea, close to the famous (or infamous?) Darrien Pit. The Darrien pit is a swampy jungle area between Panama and Colombia stretching over about fifty miles. There is no passable road there, and this is because of this small strip of jungle area that we had to go through all the complications and expenses of shipping our camper. Our camper is now on its way on a cargo to Carthagena and we will retrieve it, if all goes according to plan on Friday…

Instead of flying to Colombia, we decided to do the trip on a speed boat through the San Blas islands over four days an three nights, plus another day travel to Cartagena. This trip is called “San Blas Adventure”, and an adventure it was, indeed. So off we went on Friday morning, a pick up truck picked us up at our hotel at 5am and we drove for about two hours  on very steep roads to a small port on the Caribbean sea. It was raining cats and dogs so our bag was completely soaked by the time we arrived. Fortunately, the rain stopped when we boarded the speedboat. We were part of a group of 26 people, most of them backpackers in their twenties. We were the two oldest on the trip… Well, I guess we have to start to get used to this, it is not going to get any better as time goes on…

The San Blas islands, also called Kuna Yala is a territory that is technically part of Panama, but completely autonomous in reality. The Kuna people is an Indian community that managed to keep their land and gain their very cherished autonomy. The Panama government does not get involved in their issues, unless specifically requested. The downside of this, is that there is very little investment done and the whole area is quite backwards compared to the rest of the country.

This area is absolutely gorgeous, with hundreds of post cards islands, most of them inhabited, with just coconut trees and white sands beaches. We slept on one of them the first night on hammocks after a lobster dinner. It was the first time I was sleeping on a hammock. It is quite nice, but somehow I felt a bit cramped, because it is nearly impossible to move. But I still could sleep. I woke up at dawn and watched the sun rise on the archipelago, simply gorgeous. We spent the rest of the day sun bathing and snorkelling on the islands. 

Then we moved east and spent a night in a Kuna village… an experience I do not want to repeat. This place was hopelessly filthy. People live among piles of garbage that they do not pick up, there are plastic bottles and cans of beer floating everywhere near the village. We slept in a private house; the place was dreadful. I drank five cans of beer to give me the courage to climb into my hammock. We continued our journey the next day. There was a huge storm in the morning so we got completely soaked, fortunately we had wrapped our bad in a plastic bag. Then the sun suddenly appeared and everything was fine again. We had lunch on a deserted island and spent the night in a very simple but very nice hotel with a view on the islands.

This morning, we crossed the boarder and continued our journey to Capurgana. The sea was quite agitated so we got soaked again, by the waves this time. The ride was quite something, with the boat jumping the waves, taking off and landing at full blast, I was a bit afraid it would capsize at some point, but it did not. We got a glimpse of the Darrien area, from the sea: hilly, covered by jungle, deserted, a bit ominous… We are going to stay another day at Capurgana, before embarking on the journey to Cartagena. Another ride on a boat and nine hours by bus.

San Blas islands are gorgeous, but to the governments of both Panama and Colombia, what about an highway between your countries??? That would be sooooooooooo nice!!!