Sunday, October 11, 2009

The San Blas Islands – one of my highlights of the trip! There are 365 islands in the San Blas archipelago. We anchored off several of them but only had tender service to one of them – Carti Island. This is the home of the Cuna Indians. They are very primitive with no running water, sewer but they do have electricity part time that is made by generator. So there were TV’s in some of their huts. The women do Molas which are appliquéd panels. They are beautiful!

The children sit along the dirt paths with anything they can find trying to get you to take their photo – “One dollar” is their English vocabulary! We saw kids with kittens, puppies, monkeys, parrots, and even a pig! All holding them like babies and some with bottles in their mouths!

We bought only 5 molas this trip to go along with the ones that I have from our 2000 trip here! We spent a couple hours walking around the island in horrible heat – at least 95 degrees and 95% humidity! Back to the ship to cool off. Several of the natives brought their dugout canoes out to our ship to beg. One had some lobsters and crabs that they had caught to show us. He wanted us to take photos and throw him money, fruit or bottled water.

It was a wonderful day!

Typical housing....note the power pole (they only have power when the generator is running which isn't very often!)
This is a "one dollar" photo! (It's a monkey!)
Typical "street" on the island.
This is a bathroom - over the ocean open pit.
Ladies hang their Molas out and sit with them.
Class room of the school on the island.
Molas, molas everywhere! Which ones should I buy?!




Notice the lady trying to sell her molas.
We bought this Noah's Ark.
This is the island where we were.


Notice the lady peeking out from behind her molas on the left.


One building island!
Locals in their sail boat.
This appeared to be a local water taxi!
Another local water taxi!
These guys have lobster and crabs. They show them to you and then ask for "one dollar"!
The lobster!