We stayed the night in Turbo, which is basically a hole. Grabbed some supplies for the trip, stayed in a shifty hostel. Woke up and found the room had flooded somehow and my only pair of shorts were dripping wet and the rest of my luggage partially wet. So this is how I ended up wearing a ridiculous maxi dress tied up around my knees on the long boat ride to Capurgana.
We waited at the dock and wrapped out belongings in garbage bags before finally getting to board our fast boat. The boat ride was insanely rough like a roller coaster as we jumped and smacked down over 8ft swells. I enjoyed probably 80% of the trip, yelling and laughing. Others didn't enjoy it so much.
Almost 4h later we got off the boat at Capurgana where we were to meet the rest of our group for the next 4 days. We also met our group leader Tess and helpers Chantal and Bas. Lunch, chatting, etc. Had to stamp out of Colombia at the immigration office there so was technically nowhere overnight.
THEN we caught another boat 10min to Sapzurro where we were to stay the night. As we were getting all the luggage out of the boat, an Aussie guy in the group hopped back in to pass the luggage out. He had just climbed in and had his hand resting on the side of the boat when it bumped back into the dock, completely squishing and pulverising his pinky finger. I saw bone. And blood. Lots of blood. They quickly evacuated him back to Capurgana, as there's slightly more chance of medical help there then in Sapzurro. Luckily and coincidentally there was a Western doctor couple staying there and they were able to give him some good drugs and put the finger back onto the (broken) bone and wrap it up... But he then had to take the 3-4h boat back to Turbo that night for surgery. Booooo.
Meanwhile a few of us took a stroll over to Panama. I amused myself by jumping between the two countries and then sitting on the statue that demarcates the borderline, therefore technically sitting betweeeeeen the two countries. I felt invincible but realistically I'm sure the dudes with big guns there could still shoot my ass.
Dinner was a whole baked fish. Yum. I somehow managed to score a double bed and slept spread eagle.
The next morning was the official start to the trip through the Islands. Half the day was spent going through Panama immigration (had to pull all out bags out of their waterproof wrappings so they could get the sniffer dog to go through them all... Ironically the sniffer dogs never went near us, nor were we even patted down) and then boating to our first island for lunch. On the way we passed the area where Scotland attempted and failed to colonise part of the Darien in the late 17th century which lead to Scotland almost bankrupting itself. I'd never heard of this before and have done a bit of residing on it since - very interesting. The area is still uninhabited except for probably a bunch of druglords and you can apparently still find a bunch of ruins from the first attempts at Scottish settlement. If I were rich, I'd hire a bunch of body guards and go find them all.
We stayed in a Kuna village on one of the Islands that night and learnt a lot about Kuna culture. Here's some kuna facts for you. The Kuna people originated in what is now Colombia but were pushed up into the Darien by the conquistadors. Then they moved out to the Islands. They removed most of the mangroves and planted palm trees. This is where they earn most their income. Every coconut in the San Blas belongs to someone. There's even a system in place where they can get monetary loans from Colombia and pay them back in coconuts. There are 362 Islands and I think 42 Kuna village. They are completely self governed after they fought for their independence in 1925. Panama started imposing taxes and laws and restrictions on them so they waited until the night of Panama's Independence Day when everyone was drunk and ran in and massacred a bunch of people. And no one has messed with the Kuna since. Each island has their own chief called a 'silas', elected democratically, and then a 'congresso' of advisors. The chief is responsible for learning all the history I the kuna and transmitting this information to the people via song. The marriage ritual is particularly interesting, part of which involves the husband and wife being swung around naked in a hammock. Girls are also very much revered as bearers of life, and there are big celebrations when a girl turns 5 and when a girl starts menstruating, which involve the whole island getting drunk on a liquor they make themselves. Final fun fact, they consider albinos "children of the moon" and when there's a lunar eclipse all the albinos go outdoors and shoot arrows at the dragon covering the moon, while everyone else must stay indoors. Because of this special position they have in Kuna society, vs being shunned like a lot of the rest of the world, the San Blas actually has the third highest albino population in the world, supposedly.
On the second day we went and played on "No Name Jungle Island" which is it's legitimate name. Lots of snorkelling and frolicking. Then we stayed in another Kuna village that night. Went for a walk from one side of the island to the other. There was a family with a weird sort of mini zoo set up on their patio with some love birds, and iguana, a turtle, a mini monkey and a HONEY BADGER. I don't know for sure that it was a honey badger but I think it was and so I'm going to say it was. Saw some traditional dancing, an albino, had kids jump all over me, found a church some missionaries built a long time ago, and watched a pack of young guys jog around the island doing military chants. A very interesting stroll. I was also carrying around a tiny 5 week old orphan kitten named Jessica who I decided to make my baby for the night. Saaaa cute.
The next day we boated to an island that we would stay on for the whole day and night. Quite a bit smaller, only one kuna family living on it, and surrounding by reef and turquoise water. On the way though we did get into a boat crash. How does this happen when you have an entire ocean around you? Beats me. We saw another fast boat on a direct collision course with us for about half a minute, and we were all sitting there thinking it must have been a joke because no one was doing anything about it. Until the lat few seconds when it became clear yet were about to T-bone us. They turned their boat at the last second and we clashed side on, luckily no one had their fingers outside the boat this time. It was funny seeing everyone's reactions, diving for the water, crouching down and covering themselves etc. I just remember watching the boat coming, thinking "yep this boat is a wreck and we'll be in the water shortly" and watching the terrified faces of the kuna women on the other boat as they clutched their children close. Luckily there was miraculously no damage in the end but we were all pretty shaken and thinking.. wtf just happened. I think the two drivers both kept second guessing each other, thinking the other would turn. And the other driver was probably drunk. It took about 5min for my adrenaline to properly kick in but I was flying after that. WE'RE ALIVE BITCHES WOOOOOOO!!!
But then we got to our paradise island. We all did the usual island stuff but some of the guys organised a Survivor style island Olympics as well which was very fun and got everyone involved, and slightly intoxicated. Seafood dinner, so much lobster we couldn't even eat it all. Bonfire, roasted marshmallows, ukulele singalongs, skinny dipping with PHOSPHORESCENCE in the water!! Have you ever seen phosphorescence? It's the most beautiful thing. This was the second time I've seen it and I think I stayed in the ocean about an hour just splashing around to see it light up like underwater stars.
Leisurely morning, pack up, went to our smallest and last island for the trip. Was like a postcard. This little bit of land, full of palm trees, white sand and surrounded by crystal clear water. It even had palm trees leaning out over the water like you see in resort brochures. More snorkelling. Tonnes of giant starfish and I even saw two stingrays. The water is so salty that it takes zero effort to float, making snorkelling super easy. At one point I was floating in the midst of a school of thousands of tiny colourful fish.
It really was such an amazing adventure and I will never ever forget my days in paradise. Panama post coming soon x
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