Panama Update #121
January 22, 2008
Early yesterday (Wednesday) morning we took a small plane that seats 20 people to the San Blas/Kuna Yala Region on the Carribean side of Panama. The region is part of Panama, yet is independently governed. Tourists go there to enjoy the nice beaches. Nikki, Swami Ritavan and I took the 20 minute flight on the smallest plane I had ever been on. Eric, our other guest, decided to take a day trip on his own to a place called El Valle. He wanted to see a dormant volcano and hike in the forest. He took a bus there and back, which was about 2 and 1/2 hours each way.
The airport where we landed was in Cortis and had a small concrete building for a terminal. We had arranged ahead of time to stay in the family home of one of the Kuna Yala (Indigenous) people. The host met us as we got off the plane and brought us to a boat that looked like a lifeboat from the Titanic. We were told it would be a half an hour boat ride to where we were staying, but it ended up taking 1 and 1/2 hours. The water was very choppy, which made me more than a little nauseous, but I did not throw up. The family we stayed with were great hosts and we learned a lot about the culture. They lived in a bamboo house that is divided into separate rooms for the bedrooms and kitchen. Most of them sleep on Hammocks. The Kuna have their own language, but the host also spoke Spanish. Since I knew more Spanish than the others, I was the translator for the group, which gave me a lot of practice in listening and speaking. We also met the Chief of the village and saw the hut where they have the gathering place for the village. That is where the governing body meets to discuss the business of the day. It sounds they have a modified communal lifestyle where all the money and crops that are taken in are shared with the whole village. We even had to pay a tax of $3 when we landed and departed, which is the equivalent of a Tourist Visa. The next morning our boat came at 5:00 AM and we just barely made our 6:30 AM flight back to Panama City.
Today we went on a tour of Panama Viejo, which was founded in about 1500 but was destroyed by pirates (Henry Morgan)and then moved to Casco Viejo, another part of Panama, in the 1700s. They have dug up a lot of the remains and you can walk around and see what they have done. There is also a museum explaining everything.
