Feb 20th
We woke up to catch a pre-dawn van ride to take us clear across the country to the north coast to the shores of the Guna Yala Gulf. The Guna Yala (formerly San Blas) is an indigenous province of Panama that allows for significant self rule over the territory within Panama. Within the Guna Yala Gulf, there is a series of islands known as the San Blas islands (its unclear to me if they are also known as Guna Yala islands, but most tourist material says San Blas, so thats what I’m going with here). These islands played a role with the Spanish conquistadors back in the day but are now fully run by the Guna Yala peoples.
The van ride there was 1.5-2 hours that starts on the pan-american highway and then exits onto windy mountain roads that will make any motion sick person have serious issues. We were in the van with a few other people, mostly younger europeans headed off to party islands. The different islands seemed to have different drop-off points, so when our turn came, it was just the three of us getting out. We were told to stand and wait and someone would come talk to us.
With patience, this did eventually happen and they slowly organized us onto motor boats. These were basically canopy covered aluminum fishing boats that held 10-12 people. One side note. Because we were planning on going straight to the airport from the islands, we had brought all of our luggage (one carry-on suitcase and 3 backpacks), which most of the guides/drivers were not super thrilled about. It ended up not really being an issue though. We definitely played the role of annoying americans that don’t properly listen to the rules/advice laid out. I guess once in a while its bound to happen that you end up being ‘that guy’.
When we headed out, we should have know that we were in for a wild ride when the guide at the front of the boat covered herself entirely in black garbage bag and would remain covered for the duration of the ride. The water was seriously choppy and the 45 minute boat ride was pretty crazy. I basically spent the whole time like I was on a motorcycle, holding the back of the seat in front of me and not fully seated to let my legs be shock absorbers for each wave we crashed over as the metal seats were otherwise destroying my tailbone. In the very least, it was a unique ride.
When we arrived at the island, the sun was bright, the wind was strong, and the air was hot. A friendly dog, named Alex came to meet us as we got off the boat and we settled up payment with the island owners. Two side notes. Everything is done in cash here. I hadn’t fully realized that until the night before and had to track down an atm and use 3 separate bank cards to pull out the money needed. Mark one down for my poor planning for sure. And the second note, the San Blas islands are basically a bunch of small islands that are owned by individual families that build them up and run them more or less how they want to and band together to find guests. It’s an interesting, intermixed system that I didn’t fully figure out, but also didn’t try that hard to understand because I was on vacation.
A couple of years ago, a guy I play pickup soccer with had sent the group chat a picture of ‘why he couldn’t play this week’ from one of these islands. It had stuck in my head as an interesting get away that wasn’t too expensive (https://sanblasdreams.com/san-blas-tours/cayos-holandeses-adventure-from-pelicano-island/). Since then, they’ve gained some exposure due to them very briefly showing up in in the spanish TV show La Casa de Papel. Basically, there are a bunch of different island options and each have different housing setups. In the end, we went for one that seemed more suited for families and that went to the fancy beach as well. For our island, Yanis Island, there was a central structure that acted as the dining area and central gathering point for anything. It was the only building with actual power (or cabin had a solar powered light, but no outlets). You had to charge your phone up during the day at the central structure. They served 3 meals a day and you could buy snacks, beer and rum for cheap there as well. The meals were limited to 2 choices (one vegetarian) and were decent enough, if not good. The island itself was probably 200 yards square at best. It really was the quintessential ‘island’ with palm trees that you could imagine. Overall, its a trip for people who are comfortable camping and with adapting to their accommodations, it is a far cry from luxury.
We checked out our cabin. We had opted to pay a bit extra to get a cabin on stilts over the water. Given that it wasn’t that much extra, I’m glad we did, even if it didn’t really make much of a difference overall other than to say we did. We had our first fish lunch (honestly, I liked all the food the whole tie there), and hung out on the beach for the rest of the day - doing a little bit of snorkeling and playing on the big water swing. We found out quickly that the floaties we bought would not be of much use to us given the wind - though we made an exception for the ring. The wind really never eased up much, while the weather was good overall, it never was ideal. In fact, due to the weather, we never were able to make it to the fancy beach. Sometimes you eat the bar.
We spent the day out, had a shrimp dinner, and brought some beers back to the cabin to drink on the back porch that overlooked the water, brightly lit by the moon.
The next day started as yesterday’s afternoon had ended - laying out and snorkeling around the beach. However, as ava and I snorkeled out near the dock, I caught sight of a giant grey fish in front of me that looked suspiciously like an 8-9 foot shark. I grabbed Ava and went back onto shore. After asking one of the family guys, I found out that it was nurse shark, common in these waters and pretty scary looking, but basically harmless. However, they do seem to have the most bites of any shark due to people trying to pet them. As it turned out, we would see 3 of them quite often, even having them brush up against us while they would swim past. It was quite fun.
In the afternoon we would take one of the daily trips that would bring us to a different island for a few hours to see something different. This first one was to Perro Chico island which had a sunken ship you could snorkel around. We had a blast. Afterward they took us to a natural pool to further swim and snorkel in - they had a couple of giant starfish to see, but that part was less interesting (except for the starfish, which was cool). After heading back to Yanis Island, the rest of the night was more or less a repeat of the previous evening, which was lovely.
Usually when we travel, Ava brings a stuffed cat with her named Kitty. Somehow, Kitty was left behind on this trip, so while in Panama City, we picked up a cute little sloth for her to have that she appropriately named Slothy. On this night, shortly after going to bed a storm swept in. Falling asleep with the storm in the background was surprisingly easy, though I was awakened with Ava saying, “Slothy is wet!”. I went over to see what was going on and noticed it wasn’t just slothy, but half her bed. See, the cabin was built with gaps between the boards, I’m guessing specifically to manage the wind and not get blown over in a storm, however, it meant that on a windy night, it would blow through the cabin. And on a night like tonight, when the winds whipped up they would blew through the cabin. Likewise, when it was windy and raining, the wind also blew in the rain. With Ava’s bed right on the edge of the cabin, the rain was coming down on it. We moved the bed in from the wall and mad a giant bed for all of us to stay dry. Definitely not luxury accommodations. Ha.
The nights we were on Yanis Island were nights near full moon for most of the night. However, due to the storm, this was the one night that was dark. I happened to go out on the balcony around 2-3am and looked out over the water. You could see sparkling bioluminesce everywhere in the water. I’d seen limited versions of this in the past, but I’d never seen it where everything was so lit up everywhere - I don’t know if the storm was making it particularly active with the rougher water, or if this was just how it would be if the moon wasn’t out. It was a very cool sight to see.
The next day was another lovely day, but not lovely enough for the fancy beach. Nonetheless, we went to a couple of new islands. For the second we were given a choice and everyone chose Pappagano(?) because they had cocktails available there and the Russian/French lady was really wanting a pina colada and lobbied the rest of the boat to agree. This island was neat, as it was ‘newer’ in development had had some water hammocks, a conch farm and a volleyball court - all of which we had time to explore (since we were staying on Yanis, the boat guide let us stay late and pass most of the afternoon into the evening here (well, the Russian/French woman talked him into letting us stay on after everyone else and having the boat come pick us up later - she was quite the force of personality).
We eventually got back just in time for dinner, which was again tasty, although it somehow led to Ava getting food poisoning (although I had had the same thing, so its possible it was something else…). It was a rough night. Having a sick kid while in rougher accommodations is just not ideal. I guess its a normal part of traveling. Sucks though. Really can suck.
Feb 21
This was our last day here. The normal checkout process would have us out after breakfast and back on our way, but we had opted for the late checkout to leave in the afternoon so we could go directly to the airport. I didn’t see the point of going back to Panama City just for the afternoon.
It was a bit of a rinse and repeat day for us. Breakfast, snorkeling, and a boat trip to another island, this time Perro Grande for additional snorkeling. The weather was a bit grayer and not as warm, but it was still a pleasant wrap up to our time in San Blas.
After our last lunch, we grabbed our things and got on a boat again to head back to the mainland. This time the water was calm and the ride was smooth all the way in. It gave me a chance to really look around and see all the various islands which was great, and as we got closer to the mainland, we took a slight detour to drop-off a couple of people who, presumably, were the additional cooks for Yanis Island. Their island was bigger with a lot of houses, almost like a ‘downtown’ island with much higher density than where we had been. It was all quite fascinating how it all worked.
We made it back to shore without incident and jumped into a car with a few other folk and we were on our way. On the ride back, we were all very tired and half slept our way until arriving at the airport were we made a clothing change stop in the restrooms before heading off to our redeye flight.