San Blas Pix

Click on these images to see larger views. I had a real hard time selecting which shots to use to upload from San Blas. I don't have access to image editing software at the moment, & these are ancient machines with slow

connections. There's a shot of the 400 San Blas islands (most of them uninhabited) taken from Dog Island where we snorkeled at the site of an old shipwreck. Then there's a snorkeling shot showing fish & corral on the deck of the wreck. I also shot a lot of underwater movies which I won't be uploading now. Finally there's Shar (feeling quite tall--the Kuna are second only to the Pygmies of Africa in being the most diminutively statured folks on the planet) shopping for molas. Ciao for now!

San Blas

It is difficult to convey how beautiful our stay in San Blas was. Each day we went to a different small island where only one Kuna family lived, swam, snorkeled and relaxed. I think I may be spoiled for snorkeling anywhere else after the fish and coral and clear water we were in.
The Kuna women are constantly sewing on the molas they sell from their houses and even out on these tiny islands. I always appreciate purchasing crafts and artwork from the makers and artists so this was a real treat for me.
The place we stayed, Ukuptupu, included our meals. We had conch twice, octopus, crab and lobster twice. Oh darn, lobster again for dinner? These were all more plentiful than fish.
I'm sure I`ll never be anywhere like this in the world. We enjoyed it thoroughly and are so glad we made the trip out there. It made our whole Panama leg of the trip worth it. Pictures will follow later.

San Blas to Bocas

We just got back from the San Blas Islands this morning. I thought the pilot reading the newspaper during most of the flight was a nice touch. The San Blas experience was truly amazing! As long as the Kuna maintain their independence, there's a chance the place won`t be trashed. My card reader is packed away in my backpack so I can't post any pictures now--hopefully I can soon.

We met interesting folks from England, Denmark, Israel, France etc. too. It seems most of the folks we run into are travel writers of one sort or another--working for guidebooks, magazines or whatever. They must all be writing about each other. I certainly hope I don't make it into any of their pages.
While waiting for our next plane we went to see Miraflores locks. We had had no intention of doing so, but several Panamanians told us that if we saw NOTHING else in Panama, we MUST see the locks. (Seems they're quite proud of it.) So since we had 5 hours to kill we caught a cab, & checked it out. It is an amazing feat of engineering. We're waitng to catch another plane to Bocas del Toro. (Another archipelago just east of the Costa Rican border on the Caribbean.) We'll spend a day or two there--then we'll take a water taxi up the Rio Changuinola to where we can walk across an old railroad bridge over Rio Sixaola into Costa Rica, & catch a bus to Puerto Viejo on the Carribean. Ciao!

BTW, please forgive any wierd spellings etc. in my posts for the next few weeks--even though this about my 8th trip to Central America, I´ve yet to get the hang of Spanish keyboards. We´re getting up at 4:30 in the morning tomorrow to catch a small plance to the San Blas Islands in the Comarca de Kuna Yala. Shar is now wishing she had written out our will, since it´s been thundering & lightning-ing today & she says she´s keeping my leatherman handy for when she gets fed up with me laughing about just how close the lightning got to our little plane. Little does she know my plan is to be pouring rum for the pilot. I´ll tell him to do a roll, or nose dive when she comes after me with the knife.
We spent a day in Santa Clara. I am sorry to say that place seemed to combine some of the worst of Latino & American culture. The beach had weekend ATV types using people on foot as markers for an obstacle course. There were also jetskis which I´ve never seen in C.A. The funky hotel we stayed at blared music till late hours, the people in the next room to us (which was open to us above the sheet of 1/16 in. plywood separating the two rooms) blared cartoons on the TV all night. On the neighboring beach, guys with those rigs with 150,000 watt sound systems and 36 in. bass speakers in the trunks had a competition of booming reggae-tone. Some sort of cultural experience. We left and found digs a few miles to the east at Playa Palmar Surf Camp. Cheaper and infinitely nicer. Beautiful place, nice folks. The locals (or whoever they were--I never figured it out) sat around with us last night singing and passing guitars around. They wanted blues & 70s American & English rock & roll! I come here to do latin music! One more casualty of US imperialism. The oldest of the guys there explained to me that he learned all this music from "Zonians," US guys he used to surf with when the canal was the US.

Panama July ´08

Click on these pix for larger views. Here´s Shar talkin´baskets with Wounaan women in San Antonio on Rio Chagres. We also picked up quite a bit of their work there. There´s also the shot of the blue crowned mot mot in the back yard of where we stayed in Gamboa. The place is a mecca for birders. (If I get access to a machine with image editing software I may do something about these pix.) We left Gamboa today & are in El Valle. We´ll hit the Sunday public market here tomorrow, & then head over to the Pacific for a couple days. Ciao!

Time to fire up the blog, see if I remember my passwords and how to post. We leave for Panama and Costa Rica soon and will post as the technology allows. -Sharle

Well this visit is winding down. We've spent the past 3 days with Jonathan & Carolyn from New Jersey. With Jonathan here I could actually know the names of the birds I was seeing. Here is a partial list of the critters (excluding the sea creatures) we've identified on this visit:
Mammals- howler monkey, white-faced monkey, two-toed sloth, three-toed sloth, crab-eating raccoon, armadillo
Birds- spectacled owl, great-tailed grackle, bay wren, Montezuma oropendula, chestnut-headed oropendula, chestnut-backed antbird, white-collared manakin, red-capped manakin, slaty-tailed trogon, laughing falcon, red-rumped tanager, mealy parrot, chestnut-colored woodpecker, black-cheeked woodpecker, chestnut-billed toucan, keel-billed toucan, black vulture, common black hawk, bananaquit, long-tailed hermit hummingbird, rufous-tailed hummingbird, spotted sandpiper, variable seedeater.
Reptiles- caiman, eyelash viper, green vine snake, gecko (2 species), striped baselisk, hooded baselisk, slider turtle.
Amphibians- strawberry poison dart frog, green poison dart frog, cane toad
Arthropods- too numerous to list--including many strange & wonderful butterflies (& caterpillars), katydids, cicadas, ants, crabs, beetles, spiders; & not so wonderful mosquitoes.

I'm going to wait until we get home before I post more pictures. Ciao!