When you're travelling for a number of months, or a year in my case, it's difficult to make concrete plans. Initially we'd planned to take six months travelling South America, up through Central America to Mexico, the remainder in Europe and India. Now that plan's gone out the window we've had to re-think some things and this time, Europe's come out on top, mainly because we've got a lot of friends living over that way. But Central America hasn't entirely got the boot. Lured by its rave reviews we're breezing through to Guatemala for a few weeks before a month in Mexico. One other place that made the Central America short list, a result of our penchant for beaches, was the beautiful San Blas islands that lie off the coast of Panama. It only took one google image for us to book a flight from Cartagena to Panama City for a few days of bliss before 42 hours on a Guatemala-bound bus.
As soon as we hit Panama City we were in a different world. We could have been in Miami for all I knew, and it only took a failed hostel reservation and a cab driver intent on ripping us off before we were itching to get out of the city and onto the beach. And that's pretty much exactly what we did. After a day relaxing in the hostel lounge researching the islands, we had a return booking on a jeep which was to leave our hostel at 5.30 the following morning to take us to the point for island departures.
As like a number of my anecdotes our day didn't get off to the best start. To begin with, I awoke to the less-than-impressed jeep driver shaking my leg while I lay asleep in my dorm bed, hissing: 'Chicas, you're late!'. It was already 5.30 and the two alarms we set hadn't gone off (or perhaps were rolled on when they went off). It was the first sure sign that we weren't in South America anymore, Panamanians actually run to time. Or maybe not. Free of peak hour, the trip that could have taken three hours took five. First was a stop at a supermarket for anyone who needed supplies. The supposedly quick pit stop turned into an hour of waiting for people who appeared to be rationing for a month on the islands. Following this was a stretch in the carpark watching one of the drivers change a jeep tyre. Maybe that was something that could have been checked the night before? Once in the car we drove for about a kilometre before pulling into a petrol station to top up, yet again an obvious essential that could have been dealt with pre-passenger pick up. It was fortunate my ipod was in the back of the jeep because I had nothing to throw at the driver when he announced after 20 more minutes on the road that he needed a coffee break and we pulled over yet again. The little voice inside my head was yelling: 'JUST GET ON WITH IT!!', but I restrained myself. That wasn't the end of it though. You know those times in life when you just have to suck it up, put frustrations aside and laugh? Well this particular morning turned out to be one of them. Finally we reached the pick up and were immediately met by Carlo who was to take us in a motorised canoe-like contraption to ‘Isla Diablo’ (‘Devil Island’), our chosen island. At last, things were looking up. It seemed our beach time was in sight! But alas, it was just not meant to be. As it would turn out it wasn't until 1pm that we actually reached our island, that is after we'd stopped on one island to buy food, another to get petrol...a trend was emerging here.
But it was also around 1pm when our morning issues seemed to evaporate, when we stepped out of the boat and into the clearest water imaginable, surrounded by those same shades of blue we'd been wowed by at Playa Blanca (without the hoard of beach vendors), onto an island strewn with palm trees. We'd arrived! Two days of blissful nothing! And what's more, after our lunch of fresh fish we watched as three tourists left. This left us the little island completely to ourselves, well us and its full-time inhabitants, a small Kuna community, an indigenous group who occupy about 36 of the 365 islands that sprawl the coastline. The community living on our island consisted of about three or four families. The women donned traditional dress, their arms and legs covered in lines of bead bracelets that ran up the most part of their limbs. The men preferred modern t-shirts, shorts and American baseball caps. Apart from cooking our three daily meals, they largely kept to themselves and it was interesting to observe their lives from a distance. We soon found out that just because you live on an island paradise that doesn’t mean you’re free of chores, chores such as weeding (with a machete), and my personal favourite, sweeping away seaweed swept up on the shoreline. I guess they can’t let nature’s equivalent to dust build up in any sandy crevices. It is their home after all and it’s important to keep up appearances, there’s a lot of competition out there – 364 other islands!
Over the next day and a half our activities were pretty consistent: reading, sunbaking, swimming, eating. We did take time to explore the island but, being the tiny size it was, our exploration only lasted ten minutes. Being the rainy season the clouds remained ominous but the rain never came until the evenings when we were curled up in our cabanas on our lilo mattresses where we were able to enjoy the lightening show. On our second day we visited ‘Isla Perro’ (‘Dog Island’), about 150 metres from our island and with an alluring shipwreck off its shores. It was late afternoon when we visited and after a good half hour exploring the wreck, we were shuttled back by a local in a hollowed out tree trunk and just beat the evening thunderstorm.
Refreshed and rejuvenated, the following day it was time for us to return to reality (well maybe not quite reality, we are travelling free as birds for a year). In any case, it was time to again contemplate long haul buses and return to playing waiting games. Yes, we were definitely back to reality and it came to me in the literal form at 3am the next morning when it bit me on the bum…BED BUGS!! Damn Panama City hostel. Oh well, San Blas, so worth it.
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