Our friend Eynar used to be a travel agent, so he was able to set up a trip for us over this past weekend. We went to the Caribbean side of Panama to San Blas, an area full of hundreds of little islands, most of them still uninhabited. San Blas is an area that is still run by the indigenous tribes, so there is very little development.
We got up at 530 on Saturday morning to catch a 745 plane from Panama City to a small airstrip on the northern coast, only about a 25 minute flight. From the 'airport' we got on a small motor boat that was only big enough for about 15 people (we had 11 in our group) and cruised out into the open Caribbean Sea for about an hour.
We were all soaked from all the splashing waves by the time we reached the island. The Island was just big enough for 10 cabins (8 of which were ours). The cabins were nothing more than wooden huts with beds and a shelf for luggage. The floors were the sand.
We had all weekend to sit on our own island and do nothing. There was pretty decent snorkeling, and we were able to swim around the entire island. The 4 people that lived on the island made all our meals for us, lots of rice and salad, plus whatever they caught that day. There was only electricity from 6-11 at night, so nighttime was spent having drinks, dancing and staring at the hundreds of thousands of stars in the sky. Both nights I slept in hammocks.
The nearest island was within swimming distance, a few of us put on our snorkels and swam about 10-15 minutes to it, it was completely empty of anyone or anything except sand and palm trees. The boat was only there for one night, they totally crowded our space.
On Sunday we had them take us in the boat to another island. I was looking for something to do so I picked up a coconut off the ground and spent some time busting it open on a rock. I drank the milk and ate the meat, then kept the shell to drink rum out of later. I became a man that day.
Everyone except me and Andy had to work today, so we had to leave the island very early in the morning. The boat to take us back to the mainland left at 515. It was still dark out and we were on a small motor boat miles out in the ocean. This was by far one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
I spent alot of time playing with my new camera taking pictures. Heres some of my favorites that arent already above:
Ive also gotten a bunch of pictures from others that were there, so i cant take credit for them but they help sum up the trip:
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