When planning out my Central American trip I tentatively planned to travel onwards to Panama but left open the possibility of returning from Panama City if my mother's deteriorating condition required me to go home. Things apparently haven’t changed too much with her since my departure, so I’m continuing on my way.

The eastern part of Panama near the Colombian border is known as the Darien Gap, a nearly impenetrable jungle that’s nearly impossible to cross overland because there is no through road . Yes, there’s a significant gap in the Pan-American Highway between Panama and Colombia. Supposedly you can go to the end of the road in Panama, find a local Indian to guide you across the rugged snake-infested hills, and then brave things on the Colombian side, one of the few areas of the country where FARC rebels still operate in 2016. If you don’t die of a snakebite, get robbed by bandits, starve along the way, or get kidnapped by the FARC, you can count yourself among the lucky few who’ve made one of the last nearly impossible journeys in the world.

But that’s not for me. The most common way to get between Panama and Cartagena is to fly, apparently very expensive for a flight of such relatively short distance because it’s mostly tourist types who take it. There once was a car ferry between Colon, Panama and Cartagena, but it sounds like that hasn’t been running for a while. The remaining ground level option is on sailboats which travel regularly between the two and ferry tourists in the mood to spend four to five days cruising the San Blas Islands and crossing the sea for about 40 hours . I found there’s a fairly easy system for booking a spot on a boat online and chose a sailing for March 12^th, the day after my Explore cycling tour ended in Panama City. I had considered giving myself an extra day or two in Panama, but there aren’t boats running every day and the two boats leaving on the 14^th were already fully booked.

My eastern Panama adventure began with an early morning shared four wheel drive ride northeastward to Carti on the Caribbean coast. If I thought western Panama was quite empty, it’s nothing compared to the wild eastern part of the country east of Panama City and the Canal. Crossing to the Caribbean side of the isthmus you head into the Comarca de Kuna Yala, the self-governing semi-autonomous region of the Kuna Wala Indians. The Kuna Yala Indians charge a $20 fee to enter their region at the border.

I was surprised when my Jeep arrived at the port what a significant staging area it was for small boats to take travelers to small basic resorts in the San Blas Islands and along the Kuna Yala Coast, mostly primitive kinds of places for a few days of Gilligan’s Island experiences . I had to wait with the crowds for quite a while for the rest of the people on my trip to arrive for a small boat to take us out to our sailboat. One thing that surprised me was the Kuna Yalas’ yellow and red flags and license plates with a swastika in the center. As in eastern religions, it’s said to be a symbol of peace for them.  

Home for the next four days is the M/S Quest, a sailboat that takes only eight passengers at a time, flies under the flag of Saint Vincent, and is owned and operated by Swedish captain Goran Persson. The boat is fantastic, although the captain quickly informed us that probably not very much of the trip will actually be under sail since the winds aren’t strong in March and not it a very favorable direction to our route when they do pick up somewhat. I want my money back!

Our first two days involved sailing around the idyllic San Blas Islands, an archipelago of supposedly 365 islets in the Caribbean, most of which are little more than sand spits with a few coconut palm trees surrounded by coral reefs. What is it about 365 being such a magic number for islands? They claim the same number at Las Isletas in Nicaragua too. Most are uninhabited, while others have small resorts or a few homes of Kuna Yala tribe members. There are a few island villages too, such as El Porvenir and Wichi Wala Village, the latter of which we visited briefly from Quest via its dinghy .  

The Kuna Yala are said to be the world’s second smallest people after the African Pygmies. This doesn’t make a lot of sense for island dwelling people who get a lot of protein from a fish heavy diet, but the Kuna Yala have only been living on the islands in recent centuries. Like the Pygmies in Africa, they long lived in thick rainforests of the Darien Gap, an environment where natural selection apparently favors survival of the smallest. When anchored by the islands our boat was continually visited by Kuna Yala people in dugout canoes selling some of their handicrafts or freshly caught fish and lobsters. Hmmm, with all this fresh seafood around why is our only fish meal o the trip one with canned tuna? My recommendation to the Kuna Yala is "Bring beer!" The only drinks besides water on the boat are those we brought ourselves from the mainland……and I’m rapidly running out of diet coke and boxed wine.

The cast for this Gilligan’s Island like four day sailing includes Goran, the Swedish captain, Natalya, the Russian cook, and eight passengers including Germans, an Australian, an Englishman, my American self, and a couple of the Texan nationality . Yeay, I get a four day break from having to understand or trying to express myself in Spanish! Three meals a day are served on deck and eaten together and we get to help out a bit on the boat, although with doing only a limited amount of actual sailing the tasks are limited.

Our first forty-eight hours on Quest were fairly leisurely with short “sailings” between islands within the San Blas archipelago and long stops near beside islands and reefs for swimming and snorkeling. Our first night’s stop was beside Chichimai Island, one of the larger ones on which there are a few tourist bungalows. The second night was anchored between several uninhabited islands not far from one on which an extended family of Kuna Yala lives together in several wood and thatch huts. I wouldn’t want to be here in a hurricane! Panama, though, lives south of the hurricane belt and doesn’t experience them, but the islands will all likely be fully submerged within half a century because of melting ice sheets due to global warming.

I have to admit, though, that compared to what I saw in the Maldives two years ago the undersea life in Panama was somewhat disappointing. According to the captain, several periods high water temperatures in the area in recent years have significantly damaged the reefs in Panama, a phenomenon known as coral bleaching.