If you're visiting San Blas you have the option of staying overnight in the huts, which would be awesome! But we only had time for a daytrip so our driver picked us up at 4:45 am. What a beautiful sunrise behind the Panama City skyline that morning! The windy road! We took a wonderful 25 minute speedboat ride to the first island where we had breakfast. The first island that we went to for breakfast. Look how clear that water is! Gorgeous! The guides anchored the boat at a sandbar for a while and we got to walk around and search for starfish. Huts under construction! The beauty around us reminded us of how creative our God is and it was amazing to see how the Lord put people in our path. I have to share this one story in particular. The man in between us at the beach is Walter, a Peruvian that we met in our boat. He asked me to take a picture of him with his phone and I saw that he had a Bible app on his phone. Later he mentioned his Father in heaven so I asked if he was a believer. He said he had been for a year and talked about how his relationship with Jesus had changed his life. We went out looking for sand dollars because he had never seen one before and after a while of looking he said in Spanish that he had asked his Father in Heaven to show us a sand dollar and then he dove underwater and came back up with one in each hand - one for me and one for Rachel in perfect condition, saying "¡Dios es bueno!" He most certainly is and what a sweet thing it is to meet others from around the world, where although we are from different geographic cultures, we share a transcendent culture as belonging to the family of God. A traditional lunch of fish, squash, and rice. As we were waiting to board the bus we were reading the signs and we thought the middle one was strange, "please don't scream" :D | View from the car as we were driving through the mountains. We were afraid that it would rain while we were at the islands, but luckily it turned out to be a beautiful day!! El muelle de San Blas (the harbor) :) The first island we passed. San Blas has 365 islands total, 49 of which are inhabited by the Kuna people, like this one. If you are not Kuna, you can't purchase an island; they're passed on through inheritance and members of the family that owns it take turns caring for it for a period of time. Breakfast of coffee, tortilla cakes, and eggs. These are called "molas." They are the traditional handcraft of the Kuna women. I spoke with the woman that made these and she said that it takes 5 DAYS to make a small one. They are very intricate. Una estrella del mar :) Fresh coconut from the island! Una estrella del mar! They're actually not slimy, but hard and spiky. Yes... that's me holding a starfish. Usually I'm squeamish with things like that! We got back to San Jose at 2:30 in the morning. Another 15 hour bus ride but we had a BLAST! We met the Brazilian woman in the photo on our bus to and from Panama and she is quite a character! She had us laughing almost the whole way :) Oh and one more story! Just after we had crossed the Costa Rican border, we were stopped at a police checkpoint and the police were checking under the bus where the suitcases were stored. I was sitting by the window and an officer looked at me (the whitest person on the bus), whistled to another officer and shined a flashlight in my face, like "look what we've got here." Not long after, they came into the bus and walked back to where we were sitting and hovered for several minutes. Rachel and I were laughing about what happened outside and about to lose it but were worried that we'd look suspicious so we had to hold it together. What a great trip! I'll be off the grid for the next few weeks but I'll update the blog when I get back! :) ¡Hasta pronto! |