Arriving at Obaldía the most eastern village at the Atlantic side of Panamá
Right at the border to Colombia. Here in Obaldía we checked in and were welcomed by friendly military officers. They control the border area, drug cartels are still busy in Colombia. Puerto Obaldía is the smallest and easternmost of the four corregimientos of the Guna Yala indigenous region. That is a mainland area which does not contain any islands. It has an aerodrome but no roads to get there. Its main industry is border and customs control. The reason for us to have stopped there. I can’t say it was a pretty village, rather functional-at least for us.
we had just arrived at the bay in Obaldía and hurrying up to get our papers donethe north side of the baywaiting for the person in charge to come…somewhere there was Puerto Perme where we wanted to head to after checking innext to the harbour masters officesomewhere in the villageAltimate waiting for us to get going
Puerto Perme our first impression of Guna Yala
Puerto Perme how it looked when we arrivedso pretty Guna man fishinga horse just walking at the shore linesome Guna kids fishingthe pelicanwas also fishingits hard to see but the hut with the roof was a tribune for the playing field, when we passed some pupils were practicing soccerthe pueblo Permethe bay of Permeand some calabash sometime I will harvest one and try to make a bowlsome dugouts or “Ulu” how the Gunas call itjust enjoying sitting on the greenthe dog wallowing in the green and the horse happily grazing, ain’t that beautiful?so greeeeeeeenthe way to townafter our stroll ashore, this scary looking boat anchored right next to us; later we learned that this was a typical grocery delivery boat providing food for the islands
Suledup, a high uninhabited island (over 100 meters) about 16 nm north west of Perme
on our way to Saledup we caught a nice little tunathe very high Suledup island , well at least a part of itthe main land and some more small mangrove islandsthe islands are often surrounded by reefs, it was a big challenge for us to enter here (shallowest point was 1,2m depth)I have the feeling I need to whisper write, it was so calm and quiet there nobody but usthe high island those Gunas asked for some water to drink
Caledonia, the island where we were forced to drink😉 and some impressions of our trip to Ustupu
the village of Caledonia, we were anchored in front of the village but only for one night it was not the best anchorageI tried to get some impressions …I was not very successful the west end of Caledonia with a brick housethose square little huts are the toiletsits best not to tie your dinghy next to those huts…this Guna lady did row a long way to another islandon our way to Ustupu we passed several villagesquite often the Gunas build bridges from one island to the nextat any age the Gunas keep rowing this bridge ended suddenly
Ustupu, the largest village in San Blas
I loved Ustupu as it was so very interesting to see how the Gunas live. Here we were even allowed to take some pics. Toyo, the teacher showed us around and helped us to find some molas. Not that it was really difficult as usually Guna women paddled out in there ulu as soon as we anchored somewhere or when we went ashore they were often were showing us there molas and trying to sell them, but it was nice to understand a little how they were made. Molas are beautiful appliqué blouses made by Guna women. It is an intricately work I can’t imagine how they are doing it. By sewing and cutting different layers of colourful cloth they produce amazing abstract forms of birds, animals or marine life. Every single mola is unique! It must take ages to finish one. Often they sell just the square art piece of the mola, which cruisers use for cushions or place mat. We needed some veggies and here we could harvest our own cucumbers. That was so cool! To be honest I didn’t even know how exactly they grew🙈. We also met another teacher who had started to grow some vegetables like the cucumbers and tomatoes. Very unusual for the islands. Also very interesting to see that the Gunas play alot of sports like basketball, soccer and volleyball. Here in Ustupu they were extremely good in playing volleyball. Even the young kids knew already very well how to play it. They have quite a few tournaments in between the islands. We wouldn;t have guessed that.
Ruffian awaiting us at Ustuputhe view to the east and a small part of UstupuGunas sometimes pass by and offer fruit and vegetableI love “pipa” the coconut water is just deliciousFiona from Ruffian, Toyo the teacher and me exploring Ustuputhey do have a lot of kids, in the back on the right there was the volleyball field: I was waiting for the man on the phone sitting in the front, he was a chief and I needed to pay the anchor fee and more curious kidsthe beginning of a molaa mola in workhere a finished onethey are all beautifulthe more modern ones have animal formsthis is a more traditional form and a complete mola, which means ready to wearhere one can see how the women wear the molas, unfortunately the pic is not very good but as they usually don’t like to be photographed I tried to hurry the lady is showing another mola and Fiona took the picToyos class again
Achutupu
We had a lot of fun here but somehow I didn’t take much fotos. It was the island where we were allowed to join the celebration of the first hair cut party.
this was a tiny island with no name; we were allowed to do our workout here- veeery nice! Fiona and Alexthis little fellow was searching for a new home – he was soooooo cute, but I stayed stronghis best friend was this turtle they always slept cuddled togetherhere one can see how small this cutie wasthis pic was taken for Ann our workout teacher at that time somewhere in GrenadaAlex, Fiona and me struggling with push ups (especially for the pic)our boats in the back Ruffian, Free Spirit and Basta; Altimate was further leftthanks to Ruffian another nice drone pic of Altimate and the area😁we were doggy sitting Theo, Bastas little dogthe only pic I had from Mamitupu, the island just east of Achutupu where we wanted to buy some coconut oil; it’s a very traditionell island so no photosour workout island or the island with no namethis was Waga showing us her beads, she worked out with us and made a nice bbq for all of us one evening on her island; the one with no nameso far I only know that as more beads the Gunas are wearing the richer they are; I have to find out more about it!
SY Altimate 