The San Blas Islands - Kuna Yala - 1st of April to 6th of April

The San Blas Islands or Kuna Yala as the native Kuna Indians call their islands belong to Panama officially but is ruled autonomously by the Kuna general "congreso". Kuna Yala consists of around 340 islands, some inhabited others are not. The islands are about a days sail to the east of Colon in Panama, where the entrance to the Panama Canal is.

The Kuna indians are still today very traditional, still live in their huts and have strict rules about their own lives and about visitors. No outside people are  allowed to have a business in Kuna Yala or purchase land. Also, the people are not allowed to intermarry with people from other countries. There are no resorts or any modern facilities. Just in the last few years, they started having mobile phones and currently the government is  starting to supply the villages with solar panels for some power. Some of the bigger villages which are closer to the main land, have water pipes coming to them. But at the outer islands, where often just a couple of families live on one island, people have to get their water in canisters. They look after their environment very well. When we checked in in Povenir (the island where immigration is, just one house on the island) we were given a set of rules:
No taking of coconuts! Not even on lonely islands. Every coconut belongs to a Kuna Indian!
No parties or loud music, no taking of anything out of the ocean. No water skiing, kite surfing surfing etc anything what could destroy the reefs, which are everywhere. no taking pictures of locals without asking their permission, no firearms or hunting, no drugs, no scuba diving, no throwing away of garbage (the islands are all very clean!) and no nudity (Lisa welcomed this rule very much, as there were quite a few more or less naked bodies on St Martin!) The people are very friendly and live a very peaceful relaxed live. Mostly they go to the mainland in their dug out canoes "ulus" to harvest fruit and vegies to bring back to their islands. They also do a lot of fishing and the traditional craft of the Molas, which they sell in Panama or to the coming cruising tourists, like us. No stress! Apparently the Kuna Indians live a very long and healthy live... Wonder why? Maybe we should have a bit better look at this... The traditional Kuna dress is so colourful!

 The traditional Kuna dress is so colourful! This Kuna lady allowed us to take a photo of her because we bought a couple of bangles.

After we checked in at Isla Povenir Pete made friends with a Kuna Indian who spoke a bit of English, Nestla, who invited us to come over to his island, which was just a couple of islands down from Povenir. So interesting! We had a look at his hut, they have just one room, where everybody just sleeps in a hammock. It was so nice to meet his family. Trying to make each other understand with a bit broken Spanish.

Nesta with his little girl.

Nesta's dugout canoe

His hut

The Kuna ladies where beads all up their legs and arms. Love it!

His dugout transforming into a sailing boat.

Later in the afternoon we sailed to the Coco Banderas, as this little island group of San Blas was called. It was just like paradise! Little islands with no people living there on 3 of them and on one a couple of families. So beautiful! We stayed there a couple of days and visited another couple of island groups for the next few days. They were all beautiful, but we liked our islands in the Coco Banderas the best!

Hut building by Lisa and Jack

The rest of the time at Kuna Yala we spend with a bit more island hopping. 

Haircut time!

Don't ask!

All purchases (food, craft) were made from the canoes. One morning we were woken up early by knocking on the boat. It was a Kuna selling us a big beautiful fish and he told us (well, after lots of trying to tell us with my very little spanish....) that his friend had told him to sell the fish to us and not to the blue boat (which  was anchored next to us). Because, the day before a Kuna came to our boat and it took us forever to understand what he wanted. He wanted us to pull him with our dinghy to his island (only some Kuna's have little outboard motors, most just have a paddle). So Pete and Ben gave him a lift to his island, where they showed them around.

Yummy fish.

We also bought some beautiful molas of a kuna family from a canoe.

Our last stop was at dog island, where you can snorkel at an old wreck. So many beautiful fish. Ben took lots of underwater photos, I will get him  to put some together for the blog. Wrecks are very common around the islands, as there are reefs everywhere. You can only sail Kuna Yala in the daytime, as you can not rely on charts. When we approached the first lot of islands, the charts were telling us we were sailing ontop of an island. So all you can do is, go very carefully and have one or two people at the front of the boat reef spotting.

Banded shrimp (in the middle of the picture)

 Lion Fish

Pete snorkeling at the wreck