Don´t Stand, Sit or Camp Under the Coconut Tree
Over Christmas week I did a kayak trip with Explorer´s Corner of Berkeley to the San Blas Archipelago in Panama. It seems like a lifetime ago (Bacu and modern Panama City and Colombia have made it more dreamlike than real) that I visited paradise. The archipelago is part of Kuna Yala – an autonomous district of Panama´s Caribbean coast populated soley with the Kuna indigenous people. Kuna Yala contains 350+ small, coconut-covered sand islands as well as a swath of the mainland. About 50,000 Kunas live there.
The Kuna farm, fish and hunt. Most of the farming is done on the mainland where they also get fresh water. Each community is within two kilometers of the mainland for this reason. They tend coconut groves on the uninhabited islands. There are enough coconuts on these islands to sell 3,000,000 per year to Colombia alone. The fishing is done using spears while free-diving from their dugout canoes. They also collect lobster, crabs, conch, etc. while free-diving. Lobster is flown daily to Panama City and is in danger of disappearing from too much collection. Hunting occurs on the mainland and the prey includes tapirs, peccary, deer and other mammals.
Between what the Kuna told us and what I read in a Kuna history book, it seems the origin of the Kuna people is murky at best. They seem to have originated from the mainland, possibly in Colombia or the Darien Gap region in southernmost Panama where some Kuna still live today. Most of the group was forced to move to their current area and take up ocean skills which they would not have had in the inland jungles. Possibly, their use of dugout canoes is carried over from how they moved on jungle rivers. They are masters at building the boats and at paddling and sailing them in the ocean waters. The Kuna guides told us that they were big people hundreds of years ago before moving to the islands. They are now very small just like the other indigenous peoples of Latin America. I find the claim dubious at best because jungle living results in smaller statures just as much as island living and there are no big peoples in Latin America.
The Kuna have a matriarchal society where the women own and inherit the land. I did not really see where there was any difference between their matriarchal system and others. The men farm, fish, hunt and make boats, houses, etc. and the women raise the children, manage the home and make molas for clothes and to sell to tourists. The Kuna used to have 7-10 children per family and they would farm and fish more than they do today. While visiting a Kuna cemetery on the mainland, our Kuna guide, Ernie, told us that the Kuna used to live to be old people and now only live to be about 50 years old. He blames this on less work and more sedentary lifestyles including television and cellphones as well as a poorer diet.
Each community has a school. The Kuna are on school break December until March so it was impossible to tell how many of the children attend and to what age. My guess is that they all go to primary school and fewer attend each year thereafter. The Kuna speak their language as well as Spanish, but very few speak English. Most of the English-speakers seem to get involved in tourism. Tourism to this area is fairly limited. Some people come out to stay on the island with a no-frills resort of palm-frond huts while even fewer come out to kayak and camp. The largest group of visitors seems to be sailing vessels. We met a couple who have been sailing around the world for ten years! Because the island chain is so well protected by shallow, corral-filled waters, the Kuna never see large ships. Well, except for the couple of rotting hulks that had the misfortune to run aground apparently n storms or while the captains were drinking too much. The shallows were scary enough in kayaks and I can´t imagine sailing in this area unless you are really talented and very sober.
The shallow waters are the reason these islands can even exist because each island normally less than an acre in size is really just an exposed sand bar. There is nothing to them. The Kuna added the coconut trees and they now all look like the classic Gilligan Island. In fact, I couldn´t get that damn song out of my head all week… Just sit right back and you´ll hear a tale…
Our guide from Exporer´s Corner was Nancy Moore. There were only three customers – Nancy, Robin and me. The Kuna provided a guide and three other staff for cooking, portering, etc. The Kuna followed the paddlers each day in a large motorized dugout. We used two kayaks which we constructed the first day by putting the aluminum frame together and then filling the pontoons with air. I was glad Nancy had many trips with these boats under her belt because I was dubious at best regarding blown up boats over coral waters without her optimism and experience. They are not the kind of boats I would ever use at home, but I have to admit that they work very good for expeditions and they provided excellent platforms for ocean paddling and swims. Most days we paddled from one island to a new one although we spent two nights on the best island.
We camped in tents on the islands except for the last night which was spent in one of the huts on the ¨resort¨. The camping was great since we were basically on our own paradise island with the ocean breaking on the reefs and shore to lull us to sleep. Sleep came early each night after so much paddling, swimming and sun each day. We quickly learned how dangerous coconut grove islands can be. The trade winds were regular and they caused coconuts and old fronds to fall. I have seen two coconuts fall within a few feet of me in Hawaii and Mexico and let me tell you how much it gets your attention. I woke up one night in Kuna Yala hearing a noise in the closest palm and then the thud of the coconut that fell thirty feet landing about two meters from my tent. On another island, I was awoken by the thud of a coconut landing. The next morning I found it about five meters away, but the thud was so loud because the coconut was huge. I truly believe the stories about more people being killed by coconuts each year than by…
The week or so that I spent with the two Nancys and Robin was just about perfect. It was nice to be with the Kuna and enjoyning the remoteness of their land especially over the hectic holiday season. Other than the coconuts there was just one more danger. One day we stopped at the islet of Osmanidup for lunch. In the shallow area between the oceanside reef and the island we saw a reddish rimmed, blue-green fin appear out of the water. It looked like a shark at first. Then a skate or something else. Finally, we decided it was a large parrot fish eating coral, but because it was so large and the water so shallow when it was eating off the bottom its tail popped out of the water. After lunch I decided to snorkel to it even though the water was shallow and the surf was severe out at the reef. I was amazed by the amount of different corals (Kuna Yala is full corals and sponges). Unfortunately, there was a single outlet of water going from the shallows to through the reef and I was suddenly sucked out to the outside of the reef. It was a beautiful ride past the reef and I was not concerned about being out there. That is until I realized that the island was passing by me due the strong current which was headed towards one of the shipwrecks. I started to swim as hard as I could not wanting my loss at sea to go on Nancy´s record and I tried to get back in through the gap, but that was not possible. I realized that I would have to go in the same way as the water was going – over the coral reef. Worse, it flowed over the reef at an angle so it was a long trip. Worse yet is that the coral reef was full of fire coral (touch it and you get a reaction like poison oak/ivy). But the absolute worst part of the situation is that the coral was only inches below the surface when the water receded and my fat belly is more than those few inches below the surface. I got pushed across a large field of fire coral and I had to use my hands to bounce off it so I didn´t get ¨wrecked¨. Needless to say my wrists, belly and knees came in contact with the coral. I´m always cursing other snorkelers for trashing coral so I was more upset with what I was doing to the coral than it was doing to me. I ended up on the other end of the island after my diagonal drag across the reef before swimming back to the starting point in the tranquil shallow water. The overall damage to me was not as bad as I expected and I hope the same is true for the reef.
Tags: Central America, panama, Travel
vagabondrick
Rick: This analysis of Kuna was absolutely fascinating – especially that man’s versions of what they once were like and why they are now like they are! And I am so glad that the coral reef experience turned out all right in the long run. What a grand X-mas you had! All my love and best wishes for the coming year (already here but still wishes for the best) – Kathy C