From El Valle we took a long bus to Panama City, we would be back after San Blas to check out Panama City properly, but for now we stayed one night before being picked up at 5am ready to make our way to the San Blas Islands.
The San Blas Islands are an archipelago comprising around 365 islands, of which 49 are inhabited. The area is home to a tribe of indigenous peoples known as the Guna. The Guna are self governing and decide who is granted entry into the islands. Tourists are only allowed on certain islands that are not inhabited by Guna families.
We started the day by driving four hours in a jeep along a potholed road through dense forest to get to the coast, from here we were greeted by Guna boats that would take us on another hour to the islands. We had been told that nothing is set on the islands, you could be placed anywhere, some days you get a trip, some days you don’t and where you go is random and never to schedule so you just have to go with the flow.
This was the case on our first day, we arrived with our small backpacks full of clothes and snacks for 3 days along with a big barrel of water to be told we were going on a trip straight away and wouldn’t be able to drop anything of first. So we arrived at ‘little dog island’ with all of our stuff and had to take it exploring with us.
The island itself was beautiful, golden soft sand and crystal blue waters. We got to relax here for a few hours, apparently there is a shipwreck in the water you can snorkel around, but we didn’t find out about this until after we’d left.
We got our first island meal here of deep fried fish, salad and potatoes (it would become our standard lunch and dinner meal for the next few days). Before lugging all our stuff back on a boat to explore some ‘natural pools’.
These natural pools were areas in the sea where sand had built up so that the sea was very shallow, it was interesting to see. We also saw some locals in a traditional boat and some star fish which was cool.
After a few hours swimming here we were taken back to the island we would be staying on, it was also beautiful and much quieter than the one we were on today. We were staying in a dorm which was basically thin weaved walls and a thatched roof all made from dried coconut leaves and branches.
That evening the family taking care of us on our island asked our names but after struggling with Grace and hearing it as ‘rice’ decided to rename Grace as ‘Arroz’ the Spanish for rice. There were also two Dutch girls Maude and Annabella, and Maude also got renamed to mouse. That evening we spent chatting with the girls and watching the sunset on the island before getting an early night, we were knackered after getting up at 5am.
The next day we were woken by someone blowing into a Conch Shell which is how we were called to every meal. So we got ready for the day. Today we would visit big dog island, this was another beautiful island this time slightly larger and with a lot more tourists, we watched as a group of American women took several hours to get the perfect ‘candid’ shot! We were more concerned with snorkeling the reefs surrounding the island.
At lunch Mouse mentioned it was her birthday and so the locals gave us all lots and lots of free alcohol and put on music, they also made her a cute fruit basket shaped like a bird.
We were also taken on a second trip but unfortunately it was to the same place as yesterday so this time we decided to snorkel around the sand build up of the natural pools. Two of the younger tour guides who had been giving us beers came to see what we were up to and when they saw we were snorkeling they were keen to join in. One of them was pointing out sting rays on the ocean floor but it was way to far down for us to see so he dove down at least 15, if not 20m deep (on one breath!), to poke the stingrays so that they moved and we could see them. He also went down a second time to pick up some starfish to show us. It was cool to see but I’m not sure how good it was for the health of the starfish!
After our trip was finished we were taken back to the beach and given more drinks where we decided if you couldn’t beat all the people having photo shoots you may as well join them. I should probably point out the following (very unflattering photos) were a result of us being a little drunk and very much taking the piss.
Although we did get some nice ones too! So we’re not total munters after all…
That evening we were alerted it was dinner time by the blowing of the Conch Shell and this time we asked if we could try blowing it, it’s a lot harder than it looks!
After dinner we bought a bottle of rum and played lots of drinking games for Mouse’s birthday. Including a very silly one called vikings, where one person is the Viking and has to wiggle some fingers on her head as viking horns, the people either side have to mime rowing a boat and everyone else has to sway about pretending to be a wave all shouting ‘Viki Viki Viki viki’ until the Viking points at someone else to be viking and everyone mush change thier action and the last one to do it drinks. It was really fun and some french guys in their 50s joined in with the games but they were soon verrry drunk as they had already had a bottle of rum before joining us. So at 10pm we all pretended to go to bed so that one of the guys could convince the drunker one it was time for them to go to bed too.
After they had gone to bed the rest of us came back out and watched the stars and chatted for a bit before heading off the bed ourselves.
The next day was our last, in the morning we chilled on the island and did some snorkeling and in the afternoon we were taken to the main Guna island where a lot of the population live and where most of the children got to school. There were children absolutely everywhere and they were all eager to say hello, practice their English or just show you a cool trick they could do it was really fun engaging with them.
We got to look around their town meeting room where they have debates and council meetings and we also got to see the shops selling supplies (I assume from what we ate of mostly rice beans and potatoes! ?) We also got to see the women working on traditional clothing and textiles they call molar. I didn’t take many photos as it feels a bit intrusive, but it was very interesting to see.
After our visit to the main island was done we headed back to the mainland and a jeep journey back to Panama City. Our time on San Blas was truly beautiful and not something we will forget in a hurry.
I’ll tell you all about Panama City soon, lots of love, Alice x