The beach – Part 2

 
I feel bad for bashing a country like Panama (see the previous post). It's not their fault some Panamanians would rather pick-pocket foreigners than work. I'm sure they had a tough childhood.

Anyway, to counterbalance the negative image portrayed until now, you should have a look at the following few pictures.

The San Blas islands are located on the Caribbean coast of Panama. San Blas really looks like a tropical paradise: small islands with white & sandy beaches, crystal-clear to turquoise water, and nothing but coconut trees. Tourism there has increased strongly over the past few years, but given the beauty of the islands, it's still at acceptable levels. If you want, you can have an island to yourself for some $30-40.

 

The region around the islands is governed autonomously by the Kuna Yala tribe, who long struggled to gain quasi-independence from the central government. While the Kuna men nowadays dress in Western style clothing, Kuna women still wear their traditional dress with lots of bracelets & ornaments. Since we didn't want to add to the human zoo, we didn't take any pictures of them. In case you're interested, google them, there's plenty of pics online. The Kuna work ethic is special, too. It's not exactly Calvinist, if you know what I mean.

We spent 3 days on a small island with one Kuna family, 4 huts, 220 coconut trees, many cockroaches & no fresh water. Essentially, we did nothing but sunbathing, swimming, sleeping, reading, eating, and drinking. Kind of Kuna, really.
 
Ya volvemos con “The beach – Part 3”. Gracias por su visita.