Written by Jon:

Not all the visitors to the Guna Yala aka San Blas visit the easternmost islands and communities, but we were eager to see the very traditional villages and even though it meant a day of motoring at the end of our passage from Colombia. We normally sail when we can so this was an unusual decision and we are happy we did as we feel we were much rewarded for coming this way.

One of our favourite stops was Mamitupu because it has a lovely community feeling which we felt a part of, and because we learned a lot about the culture of the Guna. Lots of little experiences made this island our favourite.

Our selection of simple moments included, spending a short while sitting with some of the old men in the village, eating freshly deep fried donuts outside a hut under a palm tree, talking with two young missionaries from America about their work in the local community and hanging off the back of the boat talking to a local guy and his kid about hunting for lobsters and what to do with your kids on school holidays.

Another magic moment was when we stumbled upon four Guna men carving and painting canoes, the Guna call them “ulu”. There will be a few people in each community who spend their time making these pieces of transport, beautiful enough to be art. Of the four men working, the elder guy was clearly in charge and overseeing the work of the younger guys in their early twenties. We had a chat with the man in charge and he told us a little about his work.  He said it is based on interest and others in the community prefer to fish or grow things, or in the case of many in the younger generation move to the city. But he was happy to be teaching these three young guys his skills. Luckily for us, he was happy to tell us about creating ulu and over the next few days we learned about this art.

First they need to find the right sort of tree; nothing suitable grows on the islands being mostly palm trees, instead they have sites up river where they know the correct kind of trees grow. They find one of suitable size, which is very big for even the smallest canoe and fell it with axes. On site they dig a bit more out with their axes and machetes mostly to make them easier to move.

Next they bring it back to the village where they strip all the bark and do the finer carving, making both the outside and inside fairly smooth, again using nothing more than axes and machete. The man in charge was telling us that there is often wood worm and showed where they were leaving behind traces, but they treat the boats with paint which stops it. In the old days they would use extract from fruits to paint, but modern times require modern methods in some areas. They paint the whole boat inside and out and they often leave a strip at the top and paint it another colour. Many have additional plank seats resting inside to sit drier. Also, in some ulu the plank fitted in the centre of the boat can have a hole into which to fit a mast for sailing.

These canoes are made from a singe tree, hollowed out and we spotted a few of them on land where they park their boats, that were at least 5 meters long. That must be some tree! Some of the bigger ones have an outboard engine on them and have planks at the top to make them deeper and more seaworthy. He told us that they take a month or two to make and last between 12 and 15 years doing daily work. They haul them out rather than leave them in the water so they last longer. Most of these guys paddle everywhere, setting off before sunrise to start their work on the mainland, substance farming, foraging, fishing etc. and return at midday for lunch.

We are not up early enough to see them depart but watch them return early afternoon. One afternoon we bought some mangoes from a dad in one boat and two teenaged sons in a second boat. Most afternoons someone would stop by and chat on their way home. We learned that each family has at least one ulu and they depend on it for their daily chores. They don’t push their goods onto us, unlike in the Caribbean islands, and seem happy just to hang off the back and chat, with a genuine interest in where we are from and where we going next.

We had read about a local named Pablo who had lived abroad and returned to Mamitupu and has some unique business ideas and is happy to practice his English with visitors. We met him one afternoon and talked about his business cold pressing coconut oil by hand and the work involved in the process. It seems like you need 200 coconuts and 20 hours to make about 6 gallons of oil and takes a lot of hard work. He is a bit of a celebrity in the area and it was no problem finding someone to help us find him. And he was also able to shed some light on a topic we had lots of questions about, one that broke our hearts a little bit: we talked about the trash problem on the islands. 

Pablo had just come from a council meeting with the elders, and he was frustrated as they simply wouldn’t listen to him about the need to clear the islands of the plastic trash which is everywhere. It is pilled up in the streets and covers the beaches. It washes up on the shores, both windward and leeward; it is everywhere and the locals seem to just not see it. These islands would delight the photographers of National Geographic and Conde Naste and they seems blasé about the trash, it is heart wrenching! Pablo told me that he remembers his mother and grandmother clearing the islands and starting everyday clearing the street outside their hut and occasionally joining forces with neighbours to clean the shoreline, too. But now when they clear the beaches one day, the next day they are covered again, because it just keep on coming from the sea and it seems impossible to fight it. The Guna Yala islands have a very rough deal, being at the end of the Gulf Stream coming down from Europe and across from Africa. It gets pushed into the Caribbean sea, collecting more trash from the islands and from Colombia before ending up on the shores of Panama and the islands of Guna Yala. Some of it will continue the Gulf Stream north up and past Florida back into the northern atlantic, but most dies with the winds here. Looking at sorts of trash we found on the windward beaches, it wasn’t local trash – these people without electricity are unlikely to buy fabric softener. But once you live in trash then you stop caring about if you make more or not, so we saw locals just dropped plastic food wrapper in the streets and among the palm trees. They have a huge problem with trash and the solution is not obvious. Maybe the booming tourism business will force the locals to clean up the islands, but I suspect without the support of the Panama government it will just be dumped out of sight in some of the most pristine and virgin rainforest in the world, the Darien, which is the mainland behind these islands. At the moment there is no organised trash collection in the area and collecting it will do little good without a means to dispose of it sensibly.

We hope to return to this magical place someday and see lots more ulu and lots less trash.

Eastern Guna Yala

It is said that the only island in the Caribbean that Columbus would recognise is Dominica. This could well be true, but I’m fairly sure he or more likely the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa would recognise the majority of the eastern San Blas (Guna Yala) without difficulty.

The Guna Yala (San Blas as it was known by the Spanish explorers) is a group of around 350 islands, mostly uninhabited, along the Caribbean coast of Panama towards Colombia.

The history of these islands, and their people the Guna, is an unfortunate one. To paraphrase the words of the local people ‘we don’t pan for gold in these rivers, as whenever we find something people want, they come and take it from us’. The Guna people were originally from the mountains of Panama and it is said they lived a quiet harmonious existence, but when the conquistadors arrived they fled to the islands and the relative safety they offered. Their population is now a mere ten percent of what it was 500 years ago, only around 70,000 remain and the population is slowly declining.

After Panama separated from Colombia the Guna traditions were under attack from the Panama government, which lead to a revolution from the islanders. In the 1920’s they were given semi autonomy from the Panama government and over the years the separation and autonomy has increased.  There is much to read and learn about these people and their way of life which is very interesting, wikipedia is worth a browse to those who are interested.

But back to our adventures…

We arrived into the eastern most port, Obaldia around 10am and cleared into customs and immigration without difficulty, but oh so slowly. Due to technical difficulties and incredible amount of bureaucracy we didn’t to leave Obaldia until around 4pm. The anchorage is safe in settled weather but uncomfortable due to the swell rolling in from the Caribbean, so we quickly motored onto Puerto Perme. Navigation is tricky in this part of the world as it was never properly surveyed, so no good quality official charts exist for the area. Instead we rely on the Panama Cruising Guide by Eric Bauhaus whose charts are vital for cruising this area safely.

Puerto Perme isn’t really a port at all, it’s just a small bay surrounded by palm trees near a local village. We spend a couple of days here, relaxing after our bumpy passage down from Colombia. After spending so much time in marinas and busy anchorages in the last few months this was a breath of fresh air. The protected little bay we were in was almost perfect, with still calm waters and only the sounds of birds and other wildlife around us and the occasional shout from children playing on the scrub land outside the nearby village to remind us we weren’t completely alone. I think we would have stayed for longer if it weren’t for the no-see-ums which hovered around the boat, ignored the mosquito nets and enjoyed feeding on us day and night. So New Years Eve came and went without much to-do in these unusual surroundings. We watched a movie and jumped off the sofa into 2018.

Before leaving we popped ashore to meet the locals and take a walk through the village. The Guna were friendly and welcoming and speaking Spanish is a great help! Their kids are super cute, waving and giggling at us from a nervous distance, with the occasional shout of ‘Hola!’. Their houses are almost exclusively built using traditional methods, branches for walls, palm fronds tied with vines for thick roofs. The only deviation from these traditional methods is the occasional use of yellow nylon twine instead of jungle vines, but the technique is identical. Amazingly these roofs are water tight in even the most tropical downpour and last for about 10-15 years before they need to be replaced. Far longer, better and quieter than the noisy corrugated tin roofs of modern methods. We chatted with a fisherman and helped him launch his boat and group of ladies out with their kids stopped to ask where we are from and they were itching to touch Teo’s blonde hair.

We left Puerto Perme and headed up the coast towards Saledup, a little island about 3 hours motor westward, but unfortunately arrived a little too late in the day so we didn’t have the sun overhead which is highly recommend in this part of the world to more easily see the reefs and sand banks. In addition the chart we had for this particular bay was noted as not being very accurate and after one failed attempt to navigate the entrance to the bay where we wanted to anchor, we decided to go with Plan B. We came very close to running aground on a sand bank on our approach to Saledup, the depth sounder showed around 20cm (8 inches) between the bottom of the boat and the bottom. Given that is was just sand and gently shallowing rather than reef or rock this in itself isn’t dangerous and Itchy Foot can quite comfortably deal with much worse without damage. The problem in this part of the world is that there is almost no-one around to help you if you get stuck. There is no tide to play with, which means you can’t just count on a rising water level to get you free and with so few cruisers around to lend a hand you have to be self sufficient. So we didn’t want to push a bad situation and went with plan B and headed towards Puerto Escoses.

The approach to Puerto Escoses is simple enough and we anchored without trouble and settled down for a quiet night onboard Itchy Foot. The next morning we woke to enjoy the sights and sounds of this rainforest bay. The sounds of the jungle drifted across the water, parrots, frogs and what sounded like wild boars (but we’re not sure! – note – we’ve since discovered they were howler monkeys) We spent the day enjoying the simple pleasures of fishing with Teo off the back of Itchy Foot and exploring the bay in the dinghy. We went ashore to try to find any signs of the 500 year old Fort Saint Andrews but without luck and the only signs of civilisation were some abandoned huts.

Since then I’ve done more research on this abandoned fort and wish we’d spent more time hunting for signs of it in the jungle. It is a truly fascinating tale of international politics, betrayal, lies, vast sums of money and was pivotal in the formation of the United Kingdom and union between Scotland and England. I’d recommend anyone to read about it by searching Wikipedia for ‘Darien scheme’. The short version is that at the end of the 1600’s Scotland was feeling poor and wanted to become an international trading company. They managed to raise over 20% of all the money in Scotland as capital for a huge project and decided to build a trading route in Panama between the Atlantic and the Pacific (like the canal but without a canal). So they took 2000 men to build a fort on  the Atlantic side of Panama. It was a complete disaster and most died from lack of food and disease, but to keep morale up back home they sent back positive letters of their success. So the Scots got a few more ships and another 2000 men and sent them down to help. They found the camp abandoned and full of shallow graves. They too tried and failed to build a fort and village. But again, before they could warn Scotland that all was not well another 2000 men were sent from Scotland. They too found the place almost empty, but they continued work on this fort and fearing an attack from the Spanish they decided to mount a daring and successful attack on a Spanish fort nearby. Unfortunately this just enraged the Spanish fleet who promptly showed up and laid siege to Fort Saint Andrews demanding their surrender. Which, after a time they did, allowing the few remaining Scots to leave with their boats and cannons. They tried to seek refuge in Jamaica but the English at the time, not wanting to upset the Spanish, told them to sling their hook. Those who tried to return to Scotland were shunned as failures and most of the survivors settled in New York, which at the time was little more than a village. After all this Scotland was broke and came to the conclusion that the best route to international fortune was to join forces with the English and form a union. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The next morning, after waking to the sound of howler monkeys, we left at about 10am (when the light improved) and headed up to our next anchorage of Isla de Pinos. Once again our expensive Navionics charts were completely off the mark, putting us clearly on the beach and a good 200m in the wrong direction. This uneventful little island was nice enough, and much of our time there was mixed between torrential rain and beautiful rainbows. In the late afternoon the light was amazing, almost perfectly monochromatic so other than taking a few photos we had a relaxing day. We left the next day once the light improved and headed westward along the coast to Ustupu.

Ustupu is the ‘main island’ in the eastern Guna Yala. It has a school, high school and even a few courses for a university. The town has a population of about 2000 people, with a health clinic and an airport. But despite all that, the majority of the population live in traditional huts made from sticks and palm roofs. We arrived in the afternoon and after ashore in the dinghy took a walk around the town. Kids were playing football in the streets, basket ball with a couple of Mormon missionaries and often came running up to say hello and even a couple tried out some broken english. In our hunt to find bread we met a lovely guy who is a teacher at the local school, and his sister bakes and sells bread out of their house. We sat and chatted with him for a while and found out more about the village and community in Ustupu. While it is not obligatory, the majority of children attend formal education in Guna Yala from the age 5 until about 12, when some of those who live on  more remote islands would stop. But those who want can continue their education into high school and even university without leaving the islands. Most who want to go to university however and up going to panama city to study. The kids take a long ‘summer’ holiday in the dry season (January to March) and then seeming spend a lot of time playing around the village or heading to work with their dads on the canoe, picking coconuts or fishing.

Before heading back to Itchy Foot for the evening (they prefer visitors leave before dark) we found a group of young kids flying kites on the windward side of the island. Between 4 and 14 years old they were building kites out of cheap plastic shopping bags, the ones that are so light they rip the first time you use them. The wooden cross bars are made from little strips of wood from the roofs or their houses. The tails are made from more plastic bags in strips. And finally the string for flying them is nylon sowing thread stolen from Grandma’s Mola making kit. The whole thing makes a kit which is surprisingly strong and very very light, which means they manage to fly them amazingly high. One kite was so high it took me about a minute to ‘spot’ it in the sky. According to the elder kids the record is 2000m (over a mile) high, which they achieved by tying more and more nylon thread spools together. It sounds incredible but given the dedication and ingenuity of these kids I’m prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The eastern Guna Yala is possibly my favourite destination so far on our little adventure, with beautiful places, warm people, incredibly interesting local culture and very limited tourism, it left us feeling that we experienced something magical, something that quite likely won’t exist in it’s current form in another 20 years. We are feeling very fortunate.