LA CULTURA INDIGENA ES LA FUERZA DEL FUTURO QUE SOLO ESPERA EL ALIENTO DE UNA SOLIDA PREPARACION EN LA EDUCACION.
- Nele Kantule -



Map: ©Microsoft Encarta World Atlas


Kuna Yala

Paradise?

There seems to be certain ingredients always present in the classic cruising paradise, in the ultimate cruising destination and in the image of a perfect day cruising:



Even people who live in the tropics, surrounded by beautiful bare-breasted bronze skinned natives, white sandy beaches and swaying palm trees can't wait to head offshore, overseas, somewhere as far as possible from home to find those TRULY magical places of the beautiful bare-breasted... oh, you get the idea. Sorry about repeating the words "bare breasted". I just happen to like the image of it in my mind. I'm a tit-man. Oh, sorry. Back to the story.

Where was I? In paradise? That's right. I'm in Kuna Yala or San Blas - the place often cited as the ultimate paradise. While I can think of a few contenders, I admit that there are some magic spots in Kuna Yala - which ever way you define "magic". And which ever way you define a "paradise": Culturally, climatically, scenically, aquatically, metaphysically, technically, geographically, philosophically, historically...
Here's my experience:




In Puerto Obaldia, like everywhere in Panama, rubber stamps are still the only way to make a paper and a matter important and official. This guy has obviously been putting too many rubber stamps on documents and needs to give his wrist a little rest.




1. Guerillas in the Mist (Puerto Obaldia)

Puerto Obaldia, the border town between Colombia and Panama, was just that, a border town. The airport (the rough concrete strip) was closed and judging from the state of the heavy earth moving equipment sitting on a pile of dirt, the building of the new airstrip had been seriously delayed. There are no roads in or out. (I suppose if there was one road in, you could use the same one out too...) There is no real harbour, just an open bay with a long jetty leading to the heavily armed military post. Supplies, diesel and passengers are moving frequently on board large open fibre glass boats typically running a 200 hp Yamaha outboard. Yeeeee-ha! The drug runners use large open boats too, always with 4 or 5 Yamaha 200 hp outboards and they can sometimes be seen dropping off large bags of some mysterious white powder in Kuna Yala. Wonder what that is... (We saw none but heard enough first-hand stories not to doubt the reality. No danger for cruisers, though)

The town was lovely. Ok, there's nothing lovely about old tattered concrete buildings or back streets of run down houses and shacks. Nothing particularly lovely about people walking around with machine guns or groups of soldiers in full combat gear hanging out. Yet, the feeling was lovely. People were lazy (=lovely) and the town was quiet (=lovely). There was not one single car in town (=lovely) and all the sounds and smells came from the lush, moist vegetation surrounding this isolated little outpost (=lovely). The atmosphere was friendly and helpful and despite a real lack of any kind of tourism, we were mostly ignored. Another gringo - they come and go - life goes on.








Young men like machine guns. The carry them along when off duty, when shopping and eagerly show them to visitors trying to walk past the "safe zone" in Puerto Obaldia.




There was an air of danger, which of course for a world traveller writing about his travels is absolutely super lovely! Fortunately the real danger was not visible and my contact with any sort of danger was limited to breathing the air of it. At each end of the township there was a camouflaged hut with soldiers sitting inside. On an evening walk towards the beach behind S/y Aliisa at the bay, I walked past the army station and managed to continue about 10 meters before hearing a whistle behind me. "No further", said the soldier behind me and pointed at the end of the narrow concrete path that I had just crossed. "Why?", I asked. "Guerillas, Colombia", he replied and pointed to the green hills behind the bay. "Guerillas?" My spanish is almost limited to the famous one-liner of Arnold in Terminator and the guy noticed it. "pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa", he said, holding his machine gun and pointing, again, up the hills. Bloody hell, mate. You're joking, sure? I wasn't going to go trekking up the mountains, you know, I was only wanting to walk on the beach 200 meters away. I asked permission to take a photo and he eagerly accepted.

I suppose somewhere there in the beautiful cloud covered rain forest are Guerillas in the Mist. But why? Who is their enemy? Why are they camping in the bush, up the hills? I bet they're just swimming under waterfalls, smoking dope and guarding their plantations.

Despite Puerto Obaldia being part of Kuna Yala only a few indians were loitering around. They were short, very short and at least to me they looked very "indian-like", whatever that means. Flat nose, straight black hair, athletic and strong, friendly with a fierce sense of their own identity. That's indian for me. Throughout this text I have chosen to use the word Kuna Yala for the self-governing republic of the kuna-people. The area - part of Panama - is more commonly known by the spanish name San Blas.



We started from the border and made our way slowly towards Panama. Here's the trip - written in a hurry. I might do a more lengthy dribbling exercise about the Kuna people a little later, ok? Right now I need to get rid of the feeling of "having to do the update" and the only way to do that is to... do it. Here we go:


2. Puerto Escoses - Receipt book indians

With a colourful history of failed Scottish settlements, this quiet bay had only a few huts built on shallow coral. They were apparently just for temporary camping and used by Kuna men tending their plots of land nearby. Our very first real indian experience was rather bizarre, given that in this remote little bay was only a few huts and one of them had an Australian flag hoisted up a pole! As soon as we got the anchor to hold a single canoe was paddling towards us from a distance. Two men, one obviously the "driver" (he had the paddle) and the other one obviously the official (he had the receipt book). I noticed a wrist watch on him, which I thought was odd. Does it matter here whether the time is 1.30 PM or 2.15 PM? They politely asked for US ten bucks and gave us a stamped receipt which was printed with the village name. It was a bit steep but at least the "tax" would allow us three months in the area of Mulatup-Sasardi. Yeeehaaa!




Kuna hut with an Aussie flag


I had heard many complaints from cruisers about the fees that Kuna's charge for anchoring or visiting the islands. Funny that people driving their sometimes quite expensive yachts into a foreign territory, infront of a village, uninvited, freezers full of their own food, producing bags of rubbish and empty bottles, sometimes throwing shit in the water, sometimes wanting to burn their rubbish on the beach and still complaining about a 5, 8 or even 10 dollar (US) once-only fee. Back home you couldn't leave your car parked into a secure car park overnight for the same amount of money. I adopted a "no complaints" attitude and happily paid all fees and obeyed all rules imposed upon us by the kunas, as long as it was reasonable and fair. Oh, and as long as I got a receipt with a rubber stamp on it!

Each morning men would paddle past and though they never came alongside they waved happily from their dugout canoes. One yelled out for me to join them and I was quite ready for it, just not until the next morning. He never came back, the bastard. He misunderstood my "Mañana" for the more common meaning of "maybe one day" instead of the literal "tomorrow". We spent a good four days relaxing, swimming and chilling.


3. Soskandup - one coke with ice, please.

A narrow and shallow channel led us to the inshore island of Soskandup, within sight of Mulatupu - our first real village. Shy as we are, we took refuge one more time in an uninhabited anchorage. Yeah, there's always a continuing conflict between wanting to mind your own business and wanting to see the world and experience the local culture. But there were lots of villages to come and no danger of skipping the "cultural" part of our Indian Summer. We took one more night in a flat pool of water behind Soskandup. The local culture here was represented by sand flies (Local scientific name: No Seeum). Annina rushed to put on the two double-bed mozzie nets that she had sown together to cover the entire cockpit. They worked like magic by keeping both the bugs and the breeze out. I slept in the hammock. While minding our own business, a large canoe loaded with palm leaves (for roofing) and a family of five had some business to do as well and they needed our toilet for it. While at it, we invited them all for a drink. There was a clear disappointment when only warm, sweet cordial was offered. The captain got a cold beer, though.




Kuna woman on the deck of Aliisa. Their daughter wanted to use our toilet and we invited the whole family for a drink.




"cola?", "ice?" were two of the words I understood from the mother before she fixed her eyes on our spice rack above the stove. Over 30 different items, jars and little bottles were intriguing. "Medical cabinet", she said with conviction and there was no way I could explain why we should put such a crazy amount medicine on our cooking! They left and we promised to visit them in their village "mañana".

4. Mulatupu - shattered illusions.

It was only a few miles to Mulatupu, our first real Kuna village. Navigation in the area is said to be difficult and charts very inaccurate. We had saved our money and not bothered with any charts at all. The only source of data for navigation was our Cmap (very little detail in this area) and the 2007 edition of Eric Bauhaus: Panama Cruising Guide. (See: Sailorsnet.com. The cruising guide was one of the two GOOD cruising guides that I've seen in my 12 years of cruising. (The other one covers the Whitsunday Islands and is called "100 Magic Miles". I'll put a link here once I find it somewhere...) Like all cruising guides should, it had minimal amount of irrelevant information about the world climate regions and how to choose a good dinghy or protect yourself from mozzies. Instead the author had concentrated on the more important: Accurate charts with a lat/long grid, satellite photos and aerial photos, all with lots of soundings and down-to-the-meter waypoints.




In addition to the albinos, Kuna Yala also has a steady amount of she-males, men brought up as women. I presume the reason is similar than in some Pacific islands.



A kuna albino came to ask for sunscreen. If you really want to do good in your travels and you're heading out to Kuna Yala, pack your boat full of small tubes of 30+ sunscreen - you'll increase the life expectancy of many albinos here! Albinism is very common in Kuna Yala and due to the restrictions in inter-marriage, is likely to continue to be so.



Mulatupu's alleys were narrow. Some Kuna villages are built extremely tight, leaving only a tiny "town square" in the centre. Sports, such as the popular soccer, is played on uninhabited neighbouring islands or mainland. There has been cases of Colombian drug lords burning down entire villages when their Kuna courier has lost a load of cocaine. I'd imagine it only takes one match to do it...


We dropped the pick in front of Mulatupu, jumped into the leaking dinghy and went ashore. The village was quite big - several thousand people - and had a large concrete jetty with a 60 ft wooden trading boat from Colombia tied on it. The Colombian traders have been coming here forever, after all, Panama was once a province of Colombia. We parked the old Zodiac next to a pile of rubbish at the corner of the jetty. People were sitting around, helpful, friendly and smiling but not really too excited about our arrival. Despite this being the least visited part of Kuna Yala, there are still many yachts visiting every year. More importantly, "outsiders" starting from the Ameircans during WWI and WWII, had been influencing the area for decades. While the Kuna people have been able to protect their culture and exclude non-kunas from the area, there has always been people passing by. People weren't too bothered to talk to us, sell anything to us, ask anything from us. I stepped on chewing gum and while I was scraping it off I noticed a large satellite dish and a few phone booths next to it. Despite the the buildings being exclusively cane huts with palm roofs, my childish fantasy of a Kuna village was shattered.

We entered the maze of very narrow alleys between huts, passing uncomfortably close to people's homes. That was our heritage - privacy of your own home. The Kuna's didn't have that. They lived meters away from one another and each hut was an open space with hammocks for sleeping and a fire place for cooking. The only people who really noticed us were the children. "Photo! Photo!", they yelled and ran towards us quickly arranging themself into a tightly packed wallowing blob of american rap-culture-style "cool dude" hand symbols and poses, elbowing any smaller kids out of the way. They all knew that the photo was visible in the little lcd-screen of my camera and without encouragement they attacked me like a pack of wolves to see their own face on it. Perhaps for them, it was their moment of "fame", being immortalised into a screen shot, expanding their wild dreams into the big world in an image that they knew would travel somewhere far.




While the life of Kunas is still very unique and influenced strongly by their own culture and their own ways, the world is changing very rapidly. Almost every village has a Cable&Wireless satellite and there is a mobile phone network covering most of the area. At the same time the tribe is divided by those who want to maintain tradition and those who want to open it up to the world. Thousands of Kunas live in Panama City and the people in Kuna Yala are by no means isolated from the rest of the world.




In deed, the people knew that we'd be gone very soon, gone for good. The Kuna law prohibits marriage to a non-Kuna and only indians are allowed to reside in the area and own land here. There was no mixed-blood here, only pure blood, real-deal, fair-dinkum, genuine Kuna indians. The women quickly turned away when they saw my camera, knowing that it was THEM that I wanted to shoot. And why wouldn't I? They wore highly decorative mola-stitched clothing, colourful head scarfs, golden nose rings and up-to-the-knee "anklets" We pushed through all the wild packs of children and reached the village hospital. We were looking for a guy who has written a book about Kuna culture, but he was "overseas" visiting another village. Instead we had a quick chat with Emmerson, a doctor at the hospital. I asked him what the most common medical problem here was. "Parasites", he said. We walked back to the harbour and noted children fishing and swimming only meters away from the "long-drop" toilets that were lining the islands shallow shores.

I didn't quite dare to try my luck with the telephones yet, after all we were trying to be "in the jungle" and away from the world, but we did make a stop at the local shop and bought a few icy cold soft drinks. Surprisingly the young man (Rueben) in the shop spoke quite good English. "I've learnt it in Panama City", he said. "I think it's good to speak english because tourism is going to be big here". You're not wrong mate, I thought.

Back at the boat we had frequent visits from canoes full of pre-teen to early-teen kids just coming to look at us and say hello. Finally the Mulatupu women's net ball team fund-raising trio came to ask for a donation for their prizes. The most attractive girl was a boy. I wondered if the matrilineal society of Kuna Yala - where women play a very dominant and important part of the society - had the same tradition than some Pacific islands: to raise one boy as a girl if no girls are born into the family? I'll let you know in the educational Kuna culture section, coming soon. In fact, I'll post it ...... mañana. "She" posed happily for a photo and left with a 5 dollar donation. I later realised why "she" seemed so strikingly beautiful: "She" had long hair! All kuna girls have their hair cut short at the becoming-of-age ritual and they never grow it long again. The only long haired women you see in Kuna Yala are the transvestites.





David, Annina and the kids in Isla Pinos. The women shy away, the men seem cheerful and the kids are always near you. Isla Pinos was an example of a village with wide streets and plenty of nature around.




5. Isla Pinos

A few miles from Mulatupu was a quiet, beautiful island called Isla Pinos, A village of 300 people and a few lovely white palm-fringed sandy beaches. We anchored in about 2.2 meters of water. Again, the first person to rush to meet us was the Saila's (village chief) secretary who approached us with a receipt book and a request for 5 dollars. We had heard from another yacht about a young man called David who would be the perfect tour-guide on the island.

David duly paddled out at dusk and spoke all his english at once. We added a few words of spanish to the conversation and managed to arrange a tour for... mañana! This time the term worked and we met David the next morning at the village. A visit to the Saila's hut to pay our respects. The old toothless man enquired our place of origin and gave us his official permission to walk the village. David boasted his experience as a guide, his career spanning over eight years. Yet, he only wanted to use our outboard motor to go shopping for sim-cards in the neigbouring island. The village was clean-swept and quiet. Picturesque and beautiful.




Young girls can still grow their hair long but once they go through the ceremony of becoming an adult, their hair is cut short and it stays short for the rest of their lives. Isla Pinos.





When the Colombian trading boat came in, I helped David to carry some coconuts on board. Coconuts are the main income for the Kunas and fetch a price around 20-30 cents a piece. Almost all the trading is done with Colombians. Lobster, crabs and mola fabrics are also "exported".


We got our first squall here, at about 7 AM, 40kn or so with a nasty half-meter chop. It was then that the problem of shallow anchorage hit me. We were in 2.1 meters of water and once the squall hit us there was no catenary whatsoever in the anchor chain. Once the chain stretched out, it was like anchoring with a solid rod; every wave on the bow would transfer the motion straight into the anchor. Off we went, backwards. No dramas, though, we had plenty of room. The followin day David lost interest in us after he realised that we're not throwing money around too much and didn't even lend our outboard to him. Time for another village. The biggest one of them all.

6. Ustupu and the grave of Nele Kantule

A village of 8000 people is hardly a village. A town, rather. Concrete buildings and all, though even the largest villages in Kuna Yala are tightly built with cane huts and thatched roofs. As in all Kuna villages the "streets", alleyways and pathways were swept clean every morning, leaving nothing but sand and huts with a few palms, rose bushes or plants here and there. Very tidy indeed. Pity about the lack of waste management. All the rubbish was lining the shores together with corrugated iron sheet toilets sitting at the end of a plank of wood over the shallow water.


A young girl doing domestic chores was happy to pose, but as soon as the picture was taken, her angry grandma rushed out demanding a dollar! I kindly refused. It is almost impossible to take picture of a woman without paying for it. Since Kuna post cards fetch a dollar in Panama City, they consider that the price for taking the picture.


For thousands of years the Kunas had been throwing their rubbish on the beach. In the old days it was nothing but coconut shells, banana leaves and other organic stuff. The rice bags are made into sails for the canoes and any other useful items would have been kept. These days the old ways continue, only the rubbish is different: plastic bags, plastic bottles, cans, packaging, broken plastic chairs and toys, styrofoam, even broken fridges and stoves! The water was clean but the surface unfortunately covered in floating junk and plastic. Paradise? Perhaps paradise redefined?


Beach erosion is a serious problem in Kuna Yala and many beautiful islands are getting smaller every year with shallow-root coconut palms falling flat in the shallow water. (Green Island)



As we approached Ustupu we saw two american yachts sailing the other way. We heard about them in the village. "Americano malo!" yelled the chief's secretary. "I don't want any fucking gringos here ever!". The Yanks had left without paying their "impuesto", the tax imposed on visiting yachts. We got a good ear bashing for nothing, really, but the situation calmed down when I joined him with cursing the Americans, stomping my foot on the ground and looking very convincing. "We are from Finlandia and Australia, Finlandia bien! Australia bien! Yeah?" It was quite a comical scene.

Some cruisers in Kuna Yala seem to forget that THEY are the foreigners here and that THEY are uninvited visitors who need to respect the fact that they are allowed to be here in the first place. That should be lesson number one in world travelling. Some yachts have no respect for locals and the cruiser arriving after them will suffer the consequences in the way of worsening relationship between cruising yachts and locals. Never mind. Everyone was happy as soon as I handed him the required 8 dollars. Later the man ran to me with a receipt and nearly hugged me as a sign of true 8-dollars-worth-of friendship.

Opposite Ustupu was a small islet with a cemetary. This one was significant because on it was the graves of Nele Kantule and his wife. Nele was the leader of the famous 1925 Kuna revolution, a violent event that many indians remember as the fight for their freedom. It was Nele Kantule who led his people to become a self-governing republic, though still part of Panama. It was Nele Kantule who helped Kunas to maintain their identity and unity - both qualities being currently endangered. Nele's grave was surrounded by empty plastic bottles and there were kids playing soccer behind it. Hardly the "sacred islet" that our cruising guide called it. The school in Ustupu - massive and modern - had 20 computers and some of them connected to the internet, we were told. That's good. Only education can save the people as they battle and juggle the mixing of ancient to modern.

7. Mamitupu - traditional Cosmopolitan ways

The Eric Bauhaus cruising guide promised a well-educated writer of Kuna history in Mulatupu, our first village. Unfortunately he was not home. Our spanish skills were dismally poor (something I'm a little ashamed of) and I wanted to find one kuna person who could converse in English well enough for me to ask about a thousand questions. Pablo Nunes in Mamitupu would be the one. We weaved our way to his beautiful little island that has one of the most traditional villages in Kuna Yala. Unfortunately it was the very traditional way that prevented us from going ashore. The village chief himself came to advise that for 3 months each year they practise traditional ways and do not allow any visitors on the islands, not even the Colombian traders. We're talking about some real traditional stuff here because the Colombian traders have been coming here for yonks.




Mamitupu chief, his secretary and Pablo. Despite forcing his village to live without foreign influence, the chief was keen to have a cold beer and then asked for some magazines to take home. My gift was a Newsweek for him and a Cosmopolitan for his wife, but the chief chose just the Cosmo, oogling at all the underwear ads in it with a big smile on his face.


They had had a lot of flu going around and to stop the epidemic, the entire village meditated for 8 days, using spiritual powers and traditional medicine. The Sailas, typically three elderly men in each village, are not only village chiefs in the political sense but also the keepers of traditional knowledge. In the case of Mamitupu people were complaining about the length of the 3-month "quarantine". The women wanted fabrics and rice from the trading boats, but the chief would not budge. We were not allowed ashore, but we could remain at anchor and Pablo was free to visit us. Good.




Mamitupu kids came paddling with a stick, offering us a turtle. Afterwards I was angry with myself for not buying it and then secretly release it. But then, who am I to change 1000-year-old hunting and eating rituals. It's just that the poor turtle was just a baby!


We didn't want to let Pablo go. Journalistically he was very valuable. A man with a story and good conversational english. He was also intelligent with an ability to see things in perspective. He was born 1951 in Mamitupu, forced to attend the missionary school in Ailigandi and slowly lost his interest in living in Kuna Yala.

I have an opinion on missionairies. I even wrote it here, but I took it off after realising that it could really hurt some well-meaning (though misguided) persons feelings. I don't want to hurt feelings. Let's just say they aren't doing God's work.

Pablo was told that his parent's souls could not be saved any more but if he stopped believing in the wrong god and switched to the right one, he may one day get to the great land of the US of A with lots of God given lovely things such as Coca Cola etc. Pablo wanted to leave his village. He lived in Panama City, then in the US and later married a Brittish woman and lived in England for 8 years. After his divorce he returned to his home village and accepted a more traditional life, writing about Kuna culture in his diary and making and selling soap from coconut oil. And that's Pablo in a coco nutshell.



We spent an evening with Pablo and his brother-in-law Jacinto, the master chef. Jacinto cooked us a meal with plantain, crab and lobster and we supplied the beers - a drink that almost all Kuna indians love more than anything else! Being a pure-blood Kuna indian and living in one of the best preserved indigenous cultures in the world can be painful. Ten cans of beer certainly provides relief from that pain, for a moment. Pablo and Jacinto descended back into their canoes late at night. I don't know what Jacinto told his wife, after all he jumped on Aliisa while on his way home, it was "traditional time" in the village and when he finally wabbled home at midnite, drunk from beer, he had fed all his crabs and lobsters to some foreign yacht anchored at the bay! Given the high position of women in Kuna society, Jacinto probably got a good beating.




Garlic, lemon and salt. "Keep it simple", said Jacinto and fried some plantains (hard banana variety used in cooking) to go with our seafood. He had worked in Panama City as a cook and used Aliisa's galley with ease and confidence.


WE gained some very personal insights of the Kuna world through Pablo's diary and his stories. I wish to write more about them, but I need to get Pablo's permission first. Maybe I'll do that in... mañana. We didn't really want to leave so soon, but were disappointed about the "quarantine" and too impatient to wait for another week for it to end. We decided to move on and find some clear water a bit further off shore.

8. Islandia - a resort setting

A group of three islands forming a semi-sheltered anchorage provided us our first taste of really clear water and our first introduction to tourism in Kuna Yala. We passed a "large" resort - a row of about 10 little "villas" or cabins on the foreshore of one island. Islandia also had one, though only four little cabins. The price, we were told, is US 100 per night including food and local tours but not drinks. The "resort" was empty with only one staff duly lying in his hammock and waiting for business. A gas fridge with cool soft drinks and beer plus a good selection of wines was something I did not expect in this part of the world. The closest airport is actually very close to the ultra-traditional Mamitupu, which gives new meaning to the word "traditional". Tourists from all around the world fly from Panama City and are transferred to their lodges by boat. A Colombian/Venezuelan gay couple were happily snorkeling the waters around the island, their boat driver telling us that many visitors come from Europe.


Kuna tour-guide in Islandia bar. (Sorry mate, I can't remember your name!) While being very modern and business-like with good english, he refused any connection with Panama. "We are not Panama", he said, "We are Kuna Yala". While he represented a new way of life, I was delighted to see the pride that he had for being a Kuna. We should all be proud of who we are, and let others do the same.


9. Ailigandi

Ailigandi was a large village and one of the first to accept missionaries into Kuna Yala. Most villages refused them but Ailigandi agreed and even had a "mountain-Kuna" married to an American missionary. (In Kuna Yala, marriage with a non-Kuna will still results in expulsion from the community, hence there is no mixing of races or tribes in the area.) A mix of modern and traditional life, the island had a university and lots of students from other islands walking around, dressed in their school uniforms and talking to their mobile phones like in any other place on earth.


I didn't dare to take pictures during the congresso meeting, but here's a empty congresso hut from Isla Pinos. The Sailas lie in their hammocks, the villagers sit on the benches. The proceedings may cover anything from practical day-to-day issues of the village to spiritual singing and meditating.


But it wasn't quite like any other place on earth. In the village square was a large traditional building, the Congresso. There's one in each Kuna village and it's the place where the three Sailas will gather all villagers for a meeting to discuss local matters, in some villages every single night. I heard an almost magical song from the congresso hut, sang by three old men lying in their hammocks in the centre of the hut. Around them were long rows of benches filled mostly with women and children. The song was a story of some kind and the tune was simple and repetitious. What made it beautiful was the way the men sang it: in harmony and in canon*. Much to the surprise and discomfort of a Kuna lady, I bowed through the door (All kuna doorways are extremely low as the people are one of the shortest on the planet.) and sat down next to her. This was tradition in action. I noted that while the Sailas were always men, it seemed that only the women were holding on to the traditions and the congresso hut was filled with women. That, of course, is a statement made without any knowledge of what was going on. Maybe the Saila's were singing some new mola-sowing patterns for the women, eh?

*A musical technique in which different voices enter one after the other, each singing exactly the same sequence of notes, resulting in often complex counterpoint.

10. Tupile

After scoring some bread, a frozen chicken and a few vegetables from the local shops we pulled anchor and continued our travels. That's basically what we do, you know. We spend an awful amount of money to drag a 25-year-old steel tub around the world in all oceans, covering so far over 33 000 nautical miles, only to be able to score some frozen chicken and vegetables, pull anchor and continue our travels. That's cruising. Back to the story.... where was I?




"Oh, bugger me!" someone must have said, "This shit doesn't rot like the banana leaves do, ay?" Yep. The best part of Kuna Yala is covered in rubbish and while some of it drifts from the open ocean, mostly it is the the result of the indian waste management system. (The bay opposite Tupile)


Oh yeah. Tupile. Not a really good looking anchorage but it was situated perfectly about a few hours from the previous one and we didn't really want to travel more than that in one day. A wide open bay provided good holding in 5m of water, but the nearest village, Tupile, was over a mile away. The shallow reefs further off shore were protecting us from the swell and there was hardly any wind to cause any chop. Nice, private and comfortable. I took the dinghy to the village and found a shop stocked up with everything essential in life: Potatoes, onions, soft drinks, beer and wine. Well, if they are not the essentials in life, you better make them essential because that's all they had. The odd fisherman here too paddled past and offered crabs and lobsters, sometimes fish. One guy paddled past us just to ask the time. What's with this obsession with the time of day. Even I can look up at the sky and tell the time within a few hours. But modern day Kuna wifes must have supper ready at 5:15 PM and men don't want to be late. More likely the soccer game between Brazil and Uruguay is starting at 4:20 and they really don't want to be late.



12. Niadup (Devil Cays)




Chicken here always comes with the head attached, so if you've always wanted to swing your biggest knife to cut someones head off, here's the chance.




11. Aridup

Time for clear water again. Aridup was a poorly sheltered anchorage, open to the swell that rolled us around during the first night. Much to our surprise, another yacht joined us in the anchorage. We had only seen one other yacht in Kuna Yala so far but not spoken to any. A good 40kn squall the next morning flattened the seas and confirmed the holding to be good, so we stayed a few days. Eventually it turned out to be a great anchorage.

The island of Aridup was clean swept, though there was no village. Three huts served as a camp for the men who sailed their canoes from the mainland in pursuit of bigger fish and lobster. We walked on the island and greeted the boys there. Soon they ran back to us and one boy gave Annina a handful of beautiful polished shells. For nothing. Wow! I grabbed my wife's hand and said: "C'mon darling, I don't like this place..." (Not really)


Aliisa's wind instrument (Aerogen) is showing 10kn of wind.





Aridup diver and his deck watch stopped by for a beer. The divers here reach 20m easily and bring back lobster, fish, crabs, octopus and conch shells.





Kuna men go to work (tending gardens in the bush, or fishing) very early and return home soon after midday to spend time with their families and help at home. Truly a paradise from a city working mom's point of view.





Mobile phones are everywhere and it's not uncommon for a familiar ring-tone to break the magical moment of cane huts, swaying palms and open-fire cooking.





All Kuna toilets are built over the water, where flushing is provided naturally. Unfortunately children use the shallow water for playing and fishing. "Parasites", said the doctor in village when I asked about the most common medical problem in the area.


13. Isla Tigre

Another island. Another village. Annina was getting bored with villages. "They all look the same", she said. When most people rave about San Blas, they are referring to the uninhabited islands in the western area. To me Kuna Yala was the indians, their lifestyle and culture, their villages. But I'm no hard-core traveller and I don't speak much spanish. Yet, I did enjoy just walking around the villages and note little differences here and there. Isla Tigre was on the "border" of the "beaten track" and I could see more western influence. There was a regional soccer tournament going on and massive canoes loaded with players and supporters were gliding in from other villages. Chanting and hurraying was loud as all teams were building their confidence and reassuring their imminent victory.




Kuna women taking money for anchoring in Isla Tigre. Women typically handle all business matters in the Kuna society.


There was a small solar panel and a car-battery in each hut, providing a light and perhaps facility to charge the Nokia. While cane huts were still in fashion, the admin building was very western and the number of outboard engines caught my eye. We were nearing the more "modern" part of Kuna Yala.

He had a decent chicken meal next to the soccer field, in a restaurant, while watching the game. We were told about a "coming of age" ritual being performed for a girl nearby and I immediately went looking for it. The search was in vain and no-one was willing to guide me to the right place. Back home we bought a lobster from a passing canoe and put it in our lobster-basket in the water. Next morning it was dead and smelling putrid. It was time to move on, again.


Kuna canoe, one of those larger ones...





Girls were texting and talking in their mobiles behind a grave stone during the soccer game.



Isla Tigre soccer team

14. Nargana




Nargana village edge with the customary row of toilets circling the entire island.


Nargana was big. So big, in fact, that the Saila's secretary never found us and after being encouraged by other cruisers, we left without paying our tax - for the first time. You kinda get a bit hardened after enough time on the front line. Like a soldier in combat or cruise ship tourist in the local souvenir markets, you learn the game and realise that it's a dog-eat-dog world, no mercy, no-one to look after you but yourself. ha ha. Here, for the first time in Kuna Yala, we saw several other cruising yachts and the VHF Ch72 indicated many many more.

We were bitterly disappointed in Nargana. But as we know, disappointment is ALWAYS the result of false expectations. We were expecting better shopping (fruit, vege, wine, cheese, bread) and were under the impression that even internet would be available. (Funny enough, any indian with a decent enough mobile phone could do internet on their handset...) The shops were small and poorly stocked up. We got some basics and two big chicken - frozen into one. The internet was there but it had been broken for some months. The final decision to pull anchor was made next morning when the smell of 8000 people doing their morning shit into the sea provided a stench that no swaying palm tree could compensate for. Enough villages now. Gimme an island with no-one on it!



Nargana was "slummish" with very little left of the Kuna culture externally. The "indian" experience was now behind us in the east and it was time to head out to the beaten track and just enjoy the swaying palms, beaches and clear water. I completed my own idea of a paradise by bringing my own private pair of bare breasts and enough cheap wine and charcoal to do my own uka-puka dancing around the fire at night. Magic!



15. Green Island




Aliisa between the palm fronds, Green Island


Nothing matters to the man who says: "nothing matters"
- Lin Yutang -



While someone might say that all Kuna villages look the same, I've seen (and lived on) enough palm fringed tropical islands in my life to say the same about them. Nevertheless (is that the only compound word made of 3 different words in english language?) I much enjoyed the change. I walked naked around Green Island, no other yachts and no other people in sight, and felt one with the nature again. I'm a living paradox of seeking some kind of peace and connection with mother earth, communicating all that in zeros and ones and never having enough electronics, toys and gadgets. I'm torn between two worlds and that one afternoon on Green Island, I was happily torn completely to the nature side of things. During my life, I've felt one with nature many times, but I'll snap out of it as soon as someone yells out: "broadband internet!"

16. Coco Banderos

Five days of R'n'R (Reggae and Red wine?) on a uninhabited island with nothing to do was enough for us. Before life would become too boring, we decided to find another uninhabited island with nothing to do. Coco Banderos was close enough. So far we had enjoyed mostly private anchorages but Coco Banderos was one of the more popular places in Kuna Yala. We drove in through the gap between the reefs and anchored among 5 other yachts. I was expecting to join the semi-retired American cruising community with lots of pizza nights and pot-lucks. To my surprise, all the yachts were steel and none of them carried stars and stripes.

Don't get me wrong here, I've got nothing against American people. I'm referring to a stereotype cruiser which mostly materialises in the form of a cheap 40-50ft plastic-fantastic, fitted with small tanks, a big watermaker, continuously running gensets, big freezers, wide Texan accents and a 5-10 year cruising experience - all in the Caribbean basin. (In other words, all the things that I wish for myself when I'm retired...) "They" cruise hand-in-hand, keeping constantly in touch and never go anywhere without getting other people's opinions on the place first. I like to poke fun at them and their sometimes narrow-minded and fixed ways of "travelling", but I have made many good friends from that very "category" of cruisers. It's an imaginary "box" or a "class" of cruising people that doesn't really exist, because we are all different and we all seek happiness and purpose for our lives in our own ways. That's called freedom. Yet, I will continue to poke fun at "them". Until one day I become one of them. Whatever and whoever "they" are.


There is no waste management in Kuna Yala. The locals may happily take your rubbish, but only to have a quick look incase there's something useful, after which they dump it in the sea. We burned ours on the beach - not the ideal solution but better than carrying 2 months worth of smelly garbage onboard.




Despite the comments above - attempting to avoid offence and give licence for me to carry on with my insults and insensitive shit dribbling - there were definite cultural differences between cruisers. The typical Americans, for example, seem to like watching DVD's together with other yachties, something we found very awkward and anti-social. One American cruiser called a european sailor a "foreigner", seemingly forgetting that we were all in Panama - hence the Panamanians would be the only NON-foreigners!

Back to Coco Banderos, which became a kind of a highlight of our search of a "paradise". Four beautiful islands, white sand, swaying palms, clear water, no bare breasts but coral, fish, birds and to top it all off, "our very own" beach BBQ with lots of good company and enough wine to continue to do the excoticexoticka fire dancing til dawn. What else can I say? Once Amy and Symian from Sy Quartermoon joined us, a good time was had by all, apparently. (I presume the stomach pain in the morning was the result of laughing too much...)

We hang out in Cocos for more than a week. When you're cruising, it's hardly worth stopping for less than a week but after two weeks it seems that you've stayed too long. The locals came around with canoes and surprisingly did the same than we did - brought an esky full of drinks, set a fire on the beach and had a party before returning home for the night. Good stuff.


Aliisa in Coco Banderos


17. West Lemon Cays

I debated for a while with myself about joinining the crowds in the "swimming pool", "hot tub" or Lemon Cays etc. There's a great social thing going on in Kuna Yala - by this point called San Blas with the 'a' pronounced as in "stacked". (Sän Blääs) PotLucks and pizza-nights. Some people were sitting in their "own little paradise" for months at a time. Nothing wrong with that, but we didn't really crave the company of others and did our best to find our.... own little paradise!

West Lemons was just a stop. Clear water and some tourist stuff ashore. We didn't go ashore, but instead had a night with Amy and Symian, again. When they sailed away, we moved on to:

18. Dog Island




A cleaner wrasse setting up a cleaning station infront of a stag horn coral and brain coral. Dog Island wreck.





Within a few hours (if you can travel at 30 knots) form Colon, the western Kuna Yala was showing signs of the big world.




Dog Island. Lovely spot, good snorkeling and a decent anchorage for one or two. There was a very old little wreck off the beach for snorkeling. The family that lives on the island apparently asks for a $1.00 landing fee, but we never paid it. Instead we charged their mobile phones. The proximity of Colon and Panama-proper was obvious. Large game boats were coming out for the weekends and some people were dropped off and picked up by a helicopter. A true Kuna Indian experience, I'm sure.... We were now firmly in "San Blas" and away from "Kuna Yala". We made one more attempt to escape the crowds and pointed our bow south to Nubesidup, Gunboat Island.






Christmas tree worm on Brain coral at the wreck, Dog Island.


19. Nubesidup (Gunboat Island)


Helping the locals to burn off some rubbish on Gunboat Island.


Nubesidup was the property of Marcos Dennis and his family. When we arrived, Marcos was out diving and his friends tending the weekend camp ashore. , tidying up and building a hut. A few high-tech tents brought an air of sophistication, compared to the more traditional eastern islands. "It's noisy and busy back home in Rio Sitra (A large village nearby) and I like to come here for fishing and relaxing on my days off", Marcos said. He worked at the hospital. Ashore the boys were gathering palm fronds ready for burning. Marcos had a large book by James Howe: The history of the Kuna. I brought along a few cold beers and helped the guys a little. Marcos must have called his wife with his mobile phone, because the next morning we had her and her sister-in-law alongside with bucket load of molas and other souvenirs. A lot of haggling and a few dollars later I was a proud owner of a mola cap and a bracelet.


20. Porvenir

Porvenir is the end of Kuna Yala. Or the beginning, depending on where you're coming from. It is a tiny island with one air-strip, customs, immigration and one hotel. There is no village, nor any services but the nearby islands have shops and basic produce available. We came to Porvenir to mark our anchorage 20 and to get our zarpe (outward clearance) from San Blas to the district of Colon.


There was a wreck marked on our chart at the entrance to Isla Porvenir. The wreck had long disintegrated on the reef but a few weeks before we arrived, an elderly French couple decided to update the chart. (According to reports) she was cooking down below, he was driving in with the sun against him. BANG! On the reef, off the reef, 360 degree turn and back on the reef. End of cruising. When we arrived, the boat was completely stripped with not even the floorboards left inside. The Kuna's were still working on removing the rigging. The boat stank of diesel and kept shuddering under the constant swell, moving the carcass slowly deeper onto the reef. Not surprisingly some of huts in the nearby villages had turned into ship chandleries. The misfortunate elderly couple had flown home - perhaps retiring from cruising for good.






Fishing in Kuna Yala can be hard, but if you're quick enough you might be able to haul your catch out of the water before the sharks take it...




We only planned to stay a day and do our outward clearance but the stay dragged on a little after meeting with a few other cruisers. Our next destination was Puerto Lindo, 40 nautical miles away. For Aliisa 40Nm is a pain in the ass, particularly with a current flowing against us. Rather than attempting it in a day, we finally pulled anchor at sunset and made our way overnight to Panama proper.

Perhaps Kuna Yala is the ultimate paradise for those who haven't travelled much. Out of 20 anchorages there were other boats in seven and in 13 of them we were the only yacht. (In dog island we had some day-trippers nearby.) There were no bare-breasted women. Bugger. The palms were swaying, the canoes were full of lobsters, crabs and fish. The water was clean and occasionally very clear too. Paradise? Maybe. For me? Life is a walk in a paradise called Earth.


A cold beer in a wet bar at the beach of Dog Island, Kuna Yala



Kuna woman in a one-dollar shot. (I've still got the money in my left hand)




A rain shower with shampoo. Despite being wet season, the 2009 monsoon was surprisingly kind to us. The weather was mostly good and even the sand-flies and bugs only bothered us in a handful of places.




PS. We were in Kuna Yala during the "wet", in the quiet season. Our experience about anchorages etc. reflects the weather we had and the people we met. Most people visit the area during the "summer" (they reverse the seasons in Panama and call their dry season the "summer", while it technically is the northern hemisphere winter). During that time there is much less to worry about squalls, thunderstorms and wind shifts, the trades are blowing steady from NNE to ENE. On the other hand, anchorages in the most popular areas can be crowded. Whatever the case and whatever I write, your experience is likely to be different than mine. Enjoy!