on board the Purtugandi.
Today was a day spent on the horizontal. Calm sea, clear sky with a soft breeze and a strong sun. And me, lying on the top platform of this mercantile boat, with a 360 degrees view of the Caribbean sea.
We passed through dozen of small islands, many of them deserted, with fine sand and some coconuts. True fantasy islands. Other in contrast, overpopulated, covered with bamboo huts.
The Purtugandi stopped along the way on many of those islands to unload merchandise and passengers. Rice, beer, flour, canned products, gasoline, anything that the islanders could afford. Even the occasional fridge or TV set. The Purtugandi is, literally, a floating warehouse. Purchase by catalogue at sea. I say this because a great deal of the merchandise have been previously ordered to the captains of the many boats that ply the 37 inhabited islands of the archipelago of San Blas.
The products are bought in the "zona libre" of Colon, a tax free zone of mainly American and Chinese cheap junk. In some of the poorest islands where there is no electricity or potable water and whose only building that is not made of bamboo is the school built by the central government, the arrival of the Purtugandi is an entertainment attended by many.
Women and youth children gather around the pier as soon the boat is at sight. Man are at sea fishing on the cayocos (dugout canoes). Kuna women seem to take control of most of the islands business. They verify the merchandise, help with the unload, check the invoices, pay and make new orders. The younger ones load the heavy stuff like gasoline barrels or flour bags.
Each stop can take something between 10 minutes and a few hours.
At the end of the day the boat docks in Playon Chico for the night. Another Kuna island. This one close enough to the mainland to be connected with a bridge. On the main land there is a school, a Mormon church and a small aircraft landing strip. Daily flights connects Playon Chico with Panama city and some of the other islands. Essentially to load lobster and shellfish but also for passengers. Kuna who decided to live in the Latin world, and tourists for the nearby rustic resort. (Note that there aren't any Cancun style resorts around here. thanks God!)
A get off the boat and go for a stroll. I met a group of youngsters with whom I would spent the rest of night. They showed me around the island and spoke with enthusiasm about Kuna culture. Kuna are a proud people. They are the most organized aboriginal group in panama and the only one (so said my friends) with a legislative representative. They govern the juridical district of Kuna Yala with little interference from the central government.
The majority of them live in one of the 37 inhabited islands of the 365 islands that dot the coast between Provenir and the Colombian border. The lack of roads always kept them more isolated from the world then the other aboriginal groups, and the dugout canoes are the main means of transportation for the communities that exist in the islands and along the coast.
Each community has a Cacique, or chieftain, that chooses the representative for the central government and has decision power over the community - some times arbitrary. As one of the guys told me: "one day I was found in bed with a girl from another community and they fine me 5 balboas" (same as dollars). We ended up the rest of the evening in one of the guys house drinking shots of rum. It was (another) bamboo hut where some women embroidered Molas by hand, under a oil lamp`s light.
Molas are embroidered pieces of cloth that are part of their garments.
Day 5: Playon Chico to "paradise" island
on board the Purtugandi
We left the dock was well past 8 Am. It was going to be another day of deambulation through the lost paradises of the archipelago of San Blas.
With each island we visited, the more and more fascinated with those people I was. A world apart in Central America.
Today I changed boats. The Kuna boat where I was travelling was going to stop for 2 days in Istupo.
Here in this island that I don't know the name yet, there is another boat docked that goes tomorrow to Puerto Obaldia, near the Colombian border. It will be there in 2 or 3 days. They don't know yet. Both captain of the boats were in agreement. It was better and quicker for me to change boats. So I did.
My new boat had a very different atmosphere. The crew was only 4 black people (as opposed to the purtugandi that had 8 or 10). They were all from Colon and where here in the coconut business. They buy it from the Kuna and sell it to the Colombians. The atmosphere of the new boat is less likable but its compensated by the island where we spend the night. A little paradise.
Day 6: From "paradise" island to Ballena Island
on board the Colon
I wake up on my hammock mounted on the bilge. The racket of the engine woke me up. The sun was not up over the infinite line of the horizon, when the Colon left the dock and sailed in the dark and smooth waters of the bay. Those guys were early birds. It was going to be another long day at sea. Much longer then I ever imagined.
This new boat - in contrast with the Purtugandi - made very few stops. It sailed among the islands, some of them authentic paradisaical postcards. A fine sand mount, sprouting of the turquoise water with some coconut palms on it. Some of those islands were used by Colombian narcotic traffickers and smugglers, as I would witness far too close later on in the day.
One of the articles on the autonomous status of the juridical district of Kuna Yala, prohibits the Panamanian navy or the American DEA (drugs enforcement agency) to patrol its waters, turning the region in some sort of contraband "free-zone". Police post exist in some islands but they make little to stop the contraband.
We arrived in isla Ballena (that means wale island, so called by the shape of the island that resembles that animal), in early morning and anchored in the bay. The pier was too shallow to dock. A Colombian trawler leans against the boat and they initiate the long and arduous work of load transfer: Coconuts!
35.000 coconuts were passed and counted one by one from one boat to the other. A process supervised by both captains with a piece of cardboard and a pencil. It took the entire day. I tried to kill the time between some dips in the ocean, my hammock and my book.
The coconuts were sold to the Colombians for 11 cents each. the Kuna that harvested them received even less. coconuts of better quality then in Colombia (they have a thicker inner white) were taken to that country to do the most varied products. A arduous and little lucrative work that, according to the crew, was in decay. the Kuna Indians no longer want to harvest coconuts. They prefer to dedicate their time with the more lucrative lobster business or drugs trafficking.
During the day, several people came on board. They would came in cayocos or small boats to buy gasoline or other stuff, or just to chat away with the crew. One of those people said that he was a captain ( that I understood from the Colombian Trawler), and told me that he was going to Colombia next day, and would take me with him for 50 dollars.
I asked him where in Colombia, but his answer was very vague. "near Cartagena", he said. If what he said was true, that would save me a few days of travelling.. And although I found the fare expensive, it still would be cheaper then going via Puerto Obaldia.
I grab my bicycle and bags and paid the captain of the colon 5 dollars for the 24 hours I spent on board, and moved to the Colombian boat. just before sunset, the Colombian trawler overloaded with 35.000 coconuts plus a lot of other stuff, docked in the island for the night.
Someone offered me dinner (on the previous boats, food was also included. Usually the catch of the day with rice). In the pier where also other boats and trawler. Most of them of contraband. There wasn't many people around but the atmosphere felt quite busy, with people loading and unloading stuff from one boat to another.
A sailor indicates me to put my bicycle and my bags on the pier, that the boat to Colombia was about to leave.
I didn't understand anything anymore!
So we were not leaving tomorrow? And was not on the Colombian trawler full of coconuts? Shortly afterwards "my captain" appeared on board of a Small boat with no more then 2 meters width and 15 or 20 meters long , with two powerful engines and heavily loaded - I never found out of what!
"Pass me your stuff, get in. we going to leave!", he said. Leave to Colombia, during the night, in this....thing? through the open sea? I was petrified.
"Yes, we go. To Colombia. You want to go or not?", he asked me with a suddenly agitated voice, as if he was now in a hurry.
I didn't know what to do. I have to make a decision, and fast! I look at the other people that were watching the all scene in search for an answer. An affirmative look. Any indication that I was taking the right decision. But nothing. Some were laughing, others looked at me with indifferent eyes.
"You want to go to Colombia, right?", the "captain insisted, "lets go!"
He was right. I wanted to go to Colombia, and could not afford to spend a week in boats that stopped in every island along the way. I have to be in Cartagena before the 24th and didn't have many days left.
- We go!, I said.
I place my bicycle over the load already covered with a thick plastic cover, and managed, some how, to place the luggage under it. We leave the pier and the boat disappeared in the darkness of the night.
I just entered a Colombian contraband boat heading to an unknown place and would be entering the country illegally. The 11 hours that followed were an hallucinating trip that i will never forget.
The third and last part of the crossing will follow in the next few days.
Nuno brilhante
In Maria la Baja, Colombia
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