Apr-2016
[Journal] A few days in Paradise at Kuna Yala
I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I wanted to go there. Being there meant that I could finally understand the lyrics of an old Dutch children’s song from “kinderen voor kinderen” called op een onbewoond eiland. They sing about life on a uninhabited island and it’s one of my favorites kids songs. Now a dream was coming true.
We booked a cabin at Cabanas Miro and we had no idea what to expect besides a private room, three meals a day and that it’s all on a island in the Caribbean. The cabin could be standing on top of poles in the sea or maybe it has a sandy floor on the beach. How I was desperately hoping for that sandy floor… Probably with walls made of bamboo and most likely no electricity at all, let alone internet. It’s interesting how happy the thought of not having WiFi made me.
An early morning pick-up at 5:30 was booked at the Mamallena hostal in Panama City and after about 3 hours and a bit of a delay due to Easter we arrived to the Kuna Yala territory with a 4×4 vehicle. The indigenous people owns the San Blas islands and even though it’s part of Panama they still make their own laws. Even the port police is not allowed in the Kuna Yala waters because of the Kuna law and that means that a visit to our island by let’s say a Colombian drug boat is perhaps easier made.
You really hope to be able to trust the local people on the island and also the fellow tourists as the doors of the cabins have no locks and there is no deposit or such for your valuables. On the other hand, who would normally bring all kinds of valuable things to such a place? To a tropical island. The toilet needs to be flushed with a bucket of water and the shower exists out of a hut with also a bucket of water for you to throw on yourself. You really get into the island life style by these things and the simplicity becomes more and more appealing every single day.
As I look around I spot six other little islands and on or two palm trees seem to be growing somewhere out of sea. As my boyfriend and I walk around the island we spot a couple more of those tiny islands on the other side too. They say there are almost 400 of these little paradises over here, so I guess one for each day of the year.
Snorkeling at our San Blas island and we spotted a Lion Fish!
I’m curious how our night will be. Maybe it’s already getting dark in one hour, but it could also take five more hours. I’ve got no sense of time here. I look at my boyfriend and ask him if he knows the time, while I know I shouldn’t bother asking. Of course also he doesn’t know the time here.
The following day
We finally got to spend a day in paradise on this little island and experienced the island way of showering. A little hut with not that much privacy was awaiting us and we decided that throwing water over each other was going to be our island thing. I volunteered to go first and so Thom got to poor the bucket with cold water over my head first. Then he had to do it again while I tried to remove the sand of my body. We were noticing how see-through the hut was, but then we realized that we really couldn’t care less. After the “shower” we walked back to our huts to get dressed for dinner. While getting dressed one of the Kuna guys started talking to us from outside the hut saying that he needed the extra mosquito-net that was hanging in our hut. I told him to wait, but as he walked in anyway he finally realized that maybe it would be good to go back outside and wait there. It got me thinking that maybe the Kuna people have little need of privacy as it felt quite normal for him to walk into the cabin. They are very friendly and seem more civilized as you’d expect from indigenous people, but some things in our cultures are of course a bit different.
Picture by Thom Mattsson
Kuna child playing in a canoe
After diner we walked around the island until we found a big hammock hanging between two palm trees. We tried to get in together and eventually got comfortable. Swaying together in the hammock a few meters away from the sea under the stars was very relaxing and also caused us to become sleepy early. We walked back to the hut after we had been perfecting our hammock sway for a while. With sand on our feet to build a sandcastle with we climbed into our bed and spread our mosquito net around it. The sound of the sea started whaling us to sleep together with the occasional noise of some geckos chasing each other in our hut.
Would you like to spend some time on the San Blas islands of the Kuna people?
Read more about visiting San Blas at this Travel Guide.
About Renate Rigters
Ever since I left my home country I felt at home at any other place I went to. I enjoy getting to know more cultures by talking to strangers and hearing their philosophy about life. Speaking with gestures when you can not find a shared language, finding places only the locals go to and learn about their customs and values. Hanging out with local people makes me happy. The experience of every new place is a step out of your comfort zone where I like to wander around until it feels like a second home.
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