Goodbye Central America

This is written from high up in the Andes, in Quito, but I shall try to imagine myself back at sea level in the Caribbean in order to tell you about my time in the San Blas archipelago of Panama.

For a variety of reasons alluded to in the last post, plus the fact that most of my favourite people all went to see Blur in Hyde Park on Friday, leaving civilisation for a while and going to a deserted island without electricity, phones, internet or indeed anything else seemed like a really good idea. Bref, I was right. You often don´t realise how much you need to spend a few days reading, sleeping in hammocks, sunbathing and swimming until that´s what you´re doing.

San Blas is a group of islands, which form part of an autonomous area of Panama ruled by the Kuna people. They have their own tribal way of deciding things, a very distinctive way of dressing, and a very indigenous way of seeing the world. They are the only people allowed to own property and run businesses in San Blas, meaning that it may be just about the only Caribbean paradise that will never be overrun with resort hotels and Americans. Kuna women have short, Western style hair, which is cut when they turn 13 or 14 to signify that they are now women and can marry, so they look markedly different to everyone else in Panama and indeed Central America, as short hair is a rare thing around these parts. The children don´t speak Spanish, and although there is a school on a nearby island, they don´t go often, as according to one mother, 'it´s a bit far and no one sees the point'. They are incredibly poor, incredibly welcoming and incredibly religious.

I stayed on an island called Naranjo Chico to the locals (population about 20), but Robinson Island to tourists, for the simple reason that the basic huts we stayed in were owned by a local called Robinson. For 20USD a day, we got to stay in bamboo huts right on the beach and have 3 meals per day cooked for us. Aside from the tiny shop that sold beer, Coca Cola and rum, there was literally nothing else to spend money on. Going to the toilet involved walking along a plank to a makeshift wooden hut suspended over the sea, and showering involved scooping water from a tub that was left out to collect rainwater. My days were spent hanging out, having long conversations with the Chilean couple and French girl that were my island companions for the first few days until the inevitable group of 25 partying Israelis turned up on my last day and drowned everyone out by shouting in Hebrew and being rude to the locals. Poor Israelis - so nice alone, so awful in big groups.

Whilst there, I was woken up at 5am by my second Central American earthquake. It wasn´t a very big one, and was actually pretty fun. I went outside of my little hut and saw all the locals running around touching everything and making their children run into the sea. Apparently they believe that the earth is held up by a man, and earthquakes happen when he gets tired and passes the earth from one hand to another. After a quake, they have to touch everything they own to make sure that its soul hasn´t fallen into the abyss. The next day none of the locals went into the sea, as they believed that the earthquake had woken up all the evil beasts that live there, and they had to wait for them to go back to sleep before they could swim again.

After 3 days my impending flight required me to leave, although I could have happily stayed longer. And now my Central American time is over - goodbye awful food and endless mosquitoes, I enjoyed my time with you but right now all I can think about is South America! In my 4 months, you can expect me to visit everywhere, except Venezuela and the 3 little Guyanas. Exciting!