The Kuna Yana

The flight to Mamitupu left at the horrendously early time of 6:00 AM. Am I the only person in the world who actually enjoys sleeping? Why is travelling synonomous with waking up really really early? Whatever, I wasn't happy about it but I wasn't going to let it keep me from taking this trip either.

So I made it to the airport slightly before 5. And by 6:30 we were starting to board our little 2-prop, 19 seat, island hopper. I had enough coffee in me by this time that I knew I wasn't going to sleep so I just stared out the window and pondered instead.

But soon enough the plane touched down and I was the first one out on the runway. I had come without making any arrangements in advance and I was really hoping to be able to find a cheap place to stay without too much trouble.

I wandered around for just a couple minutes to check out the scene and it was confusing. We had touched down outside of Playon Chico, but the landing strip and a few other building were located on the mainland, and there was a bridge to the pueblo. I soon learned this was because the mainland was not part of Kuna Yana (aka the Land of the Kuna aka the San Blas Islands) and was open to anyone allowed to enter Panama. But in order to enter the pueblo of Playon Chico one needed permission from the Kuna Lana. So the landing strip, school, hospital and Mormon church were all on the mainland. And not much else.

Well the first Kuna I talked to after I stepped off the plane told me about his hotel that only cost $150 a night. Ouch. A little out of my price range, "no tengo mucho plata" I explained. Well he sent me over to another guy with a hotel who started out at $70, but then came down to $50 a night. Still more than I wanted to spend.

The Kuna have some sort of communication network, the speed of which puts the internet to shame, by which all the pertinent information of the day is diseminated to exactly who needs to know it. Within a few minutes everyone knew there was a cheap gringo on the island looking for a place to stay. It was then that I met Mundo.

Mundo works at the local Post Office. He's one of the few Kuna that have an actual "job" with a regular paycheck and time at which he's required to show up. He was waiting at the airstrip, as he does everyday, for the mail to come in. After talking for a few minutes Mundo offered to put me up in his house for the next two days for $25 a night. Sold!

House might be too generous a term for where Mundo and his family lived. Hut is probably the best term I can come up with, it did have a thatched roof after all. But they were fairly well off by Kuna standards, you could tell that because they had a concrete floor, quite the luxury. And it turns out there was electricity in the evenings when the pueblo's generator's ran, and running water although only the public bathroom at the edge of the pueblo.

My spanish is passable, but Mundo's son Paolo spoke a little english, so it was decided he would be my tour guide for the next two days. The Kuna are very protective of their land and their heritage. While they seem to appreciate the money tourism brings into their land, they don't want foriegners just wandering off by themselves.

Mundo worked on figuring out breakfast and lunch for me. He had to go see what the local kids had caught today. They told me to relax and in the afternoon they'd work on finding a boat with a motor and we'd head to an island. Excellent!