Island life with the Kunas

We've actually made it to Ecuador now and we're currently sitting in a cloud forest watching humming birds dart around.  our mission here was to see a toucan again but no luck on our walk this morning but as i'm sitting here writing the blog the lady who owns the place runs over to us to show us a toucan which she is holding.  Not exactly the way i expected to see a toucan and we had no idea why she was holding it.  Turns out some other people staying in the hostel had run out saying there's a rat in our room and she went into investigate and found a toucan under the bed.  Now that's my kind of rat!

Anyway better get back to Panama and playing catch up.  We headed to San Blas a remote set of hundreds of islands all owned and run by indigenous people.  After a rough jeep ride we caught a boat to our chosen island and flew across the caribbean sea bouncing over the waves.  When we turned up it looked as though we had swam as we were drenched but exhilarated from the ride.  Island life couldn't have been more different than Panama City!!  We could walk around the island in under 10 mins, there were only 3 families living on the island and 3 sets of cabins.  The island was stunning, with crystal clear carribbean water and palm tree lined beaches.

Days followed a similar pattern, swimming, snorkelling, reading, chatting to fellow shipwrecked travellers.  Busy busy schedules!!  Days were punctuated by several memorable moments.  The first being when Jonty went for his first swim in the sea and suddenly found that he was a human climbing frame as two local children climbed all over him.  After looking a little confused and concerned  he soon realised what they wanted and proceeded to flip them in the air and into the sea.  Very sweet.

Another highlight had to be a bumpy boat trip to an uninhabited island with a few other travellers where the sea floor was just covered in star fish.  It was very cool.  There were orange, yellow and red ones and we'd never seen so many.  

The passing of the days were often marked by meal times where we would all sit around the table together and eat.  After 3 meals the same - chicken, chicken and more chicken we were besides ourselves when a catch of lobster and a massive red snapper came in.  The atmosphere was fab that night as we feasted like kings and the night was finished off with a campfire on the beach- a pretty violent one as it was fueled by palm tree leaves which go up in seconds.  We found the kuna people fascinating who lived on the island.  The women wore the most incredible brightly coloured traditional dress with beads wound all up their legs and the children were very sweet and were keen to join in whenever we were playing a game like frisbee.

Our final night we had a persistent visitor in our straw hut we were sleeping in on the beach-a very cute but playful kitten.  After putting it out twice and it sneaking back in we decided that the kitten would play this game all night so we made a bed for it where it happily slept.

Island life had been pretty special but not sure if we're cut out for it long term as we think we might have gone a bit stir crazy staying there for any longer than a week.  After 4 days it was time to head to the mainland and to see what on earth we looked like in a mirror!

Katie and Jonty xx