Hey,
I thought I'd share my experience of visiting the San Blas Islands and what i found to be the best way to do it. I'm currently circumnavigating the globe on a scooter and sideca, going for the Guinness World Record of the longest journey by scooter and sidecar and trying to raise awareness of modern slavery as I go. Our America's leg will take us all the way from Santiago, Chile to Anchorage, Alaska. Unfortunately, there's a big chunk of forest called the Darien Gap that blocks the way so we had to ship the scooter around it. While the scooter headed North on a container ship we had some time to kill and thought that rather than flying over the Darien it would be cool to sail around via the San Blas Islands. We knew nothing about the San Blas Islands or the options so I started doing a load of research on the best way to do it. Here's what I found it:
There's two options.
1) Get a sailing boat out of Cartagena and take a few days sailing through to Panama.
2) Travel by bus to Necocli, get a small boat over to Capurganá and then take local speed boats through the islands to Panama.
At first glance, I immediately thought option 1 was a no brainer. It was a bit more expensive but there would be no busses and I'd be on a sailing boat! Then I did some more research and realised how wrong I was. Option 1 sounds super cool at first but then you realise you are literally on a sailing boat for 80-90% of your time. So if you're really in to sailing that could be cool but I wanted to see the islands! Option 2 was the complete opposite of this. I would spend 90% of my time on the islands. But then I thought I've still got to get a bus and a boat to this random place - Capurganá. Again, I did some research and realised that it was in fact, a good thing.
Capurganá is an absolute must visit in itself. It's a super cool place. We ended up going for a few days in advance. In Capurganá there are no cars and the main form of transport is horse back. You can actually fly in from Medellin if you really don't want to take the boat and when you arrive you'll be taken in to Capurganá on a trailer being towed by a horse. It's nuts. You can base yourself out of Capurganá and hike out to a waterfall complex at El Cielo, perfect beaches at La Miel or the lovely Sapzurro (where your trip through the San Blas will actually start).
Also, day one of Option 1 - the sailing - is an open water crossing. Which only means one thing - sea sickness. It actually became a no brainer for us that we should take the speed boat option.
We crossed the San Blas islands with San Blas Advemtures. It was awesome. There were two main reasons we booked with San Blas Adventures:
- They say 90% of your time will be spent on the islands
- They ask you to pay in cash because they use the cash to pay local people on route. (This meant to us they that they really did try to use our tourist dollars to support the local Guna community - something we thought was super important).
Here's a quick day by day of how our trip went:
Day 1 - Wake up bright and early to take your first boat ride to the San Blas. The first half of the day is spent doing customs and immigration. It's about an hours boat ride and you're in Panama. Then its a few hours of waiting for all of the formalities to finish up. It's not too stressful though because you don't have to be present and everyone sits in a really nice bakery and chills out. Then you have another 30 mins or so on the boat and arrive in paradise. Our first San Blas Island was just incredible. It was a completely picture perfect beach and crystal clear water. After my welcome coconut drink, i got the snorkel gear on and jumped straight in. It was pretty good snorkelling and i followed a sting ray around for about 15 minutes. A completely incredible start to my San Blas adventure!
After a few hours in paradise we jumped in a local canoe and paddled our way around the corner to a Guna village where we would stay for the night. The accommodation is super, super basic. It's completely in keeping with the Guna village. There are no nice hotels/hostels on the islands. You either get a hammock or a dorm bed in one of the wooden shacks that the Guna live in. You wouldn't want it any other way either - its a really cool experience. You can hear the waves washing up against the island all night and in some of the rooms you can watch the fish below you through the cracks in the floor boards. On the first night we ate at a local Guna restaurant. I chose an octopus and sea snail mix with rice and beans. Amazingly i liked the sea snail more than the octopus and I love octopus. Make sure you try it if you go.
Day 2 - We jumped back on the boat for a 2 hour ride through the islands until we arrived at another private, perfect desert island. The boat ride is by no means wasted time either. There's always stuff to see and on this one we saw a dolphin - it swam with us for a few minutes as we cruised past another village. The San Blas really is a completely incredible place. I spent Day 2 on the volleyball court. The Guna guys love volleyball and they're awesome at it. They gave us a couple of tips and I got completely addicted to it. The only thing that dragged me away was the lunch. Lunch with San Blas Adventures is just next level good. It's a mix of fresh salads and other stuff. I'm not usually a salad kind of guy but this isn't your standard iceberg lettuce and cucumber mix. I don't have a clue what was in it but it will blow you away.
After a day on the island we headed to another Guna Village for the night. Here we heard stories about how the Guna revolted against Panamanian rule in 1925 and more about their incredible history.
Day 3 - We kicked off with another two hour boat ride to yet another perfect island. We chilled here for half the day until heading off to another island after lunch which would be our final island. The final island is kind of the party island but its not like one of those horrible booze cruise things. You can drink throughout the whole trip but this last island is kind of a last day celebration thing. We had a complimentary rum punch and a crazy nice lobster dinner. We chilled on the beach in the day and then had a few beers around the camp fire that night. Then there was the obligatory dip in the sea after dark before sleeping in a hammock on the beach for the night. It was a fantastic last night.
Day 4 - The next morning we all swam out for a final snorkel where a couple of people saw a reef shark. What a way to top of a truly fantastic few days on the islands. We then got back in the boat for an hours ride to the mainland where you jump in a jeep and drive back to Panama City.
So that's how we spent 4 days chilling on the San Blas Islands. I could not recommend it enough and I couldn't recommend going with San Blas Adventures enough. I'm sure you'll have an amazing time whether you chose to sail through or island hop. The scenery is just out of this world. If you go for the San Blas Adventures option though you'll get to visit Capurganá, spend more time on the islands, experience what it's like to stay in a Guna village and eat the best lobster of your life.
Either way, go for it. You'll love it! If anyone has any questions let me know.
