| Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 | |
San Blas Help!Country forums / Central America / Panama | ||
Greetings! I am looking to book a two night trip to San Blas in March 2008. I have been looking at the different accomodation options and am surprised as to how expensive they are per night/per person. I have received these quotes so far: Hotel Porvenir- price is $ 235 p.p. and includes, one night accommodation, flight, food, Dad Ibe Lodge 1st night USD 115.00 I am attempting to contact the Hotel San Blas but have not heard anything back yet. Are there any cheaper options available. My girlfriend and I are both broke high school teachers and really need to find something cheaper THANKS -daniel | ||
There are places heaps cheaper than that. There's quite a few mid range sort of places that charge around $35, all inclusive. We deal with a couple of places that charge $25 a night, all inclusive. They're located on the Carti islands and include 3 meals a day and daily transport to the islands for swimming and snorkeling. Transport to get there is $25 each way in a 4x4. It's about a 3.5 hour drive to where they pick you up by boat. These places are very basic though, it's sort of a cross between a hostel and a homestay. You're in the families compun but there will be other travellers there as well. Stuart | 1 | |
The Kuna control tourism in their area. Many locals (Kunas in San Blas) seem to have rights to islands, where they take tourists or allow agencies to arrange trips. I am a middle-aged Canadian and January spent 2.5 weeks in Panama, including an overnight trip to San Blas with a friend. I speak Spanish quite well, which was a help. Here is how it went... We enquired (in Panama City) about various packages, but they were somewhat expensive. One that wasn't too bad was at Futura Travel, phone 360-2030. That would have been $212 for airfare and one night. However, a friend of a friend had gone recently and gave us the number of someone named Ricardo. Turned out that he lived on Mamartupu (an island off Rio Sidra). He said "buy your air ticket from Panama City to Rio Sidra and I'll pick you up there and take care of everything." So we went to the regional airport in Panama City the day before and bought tickets. Came to about $100 with taxes, etc. for the return trip. Flew to Rio Sidra at 7 a.m. and asked among the miscellaneous bystanders, for Ricardo. Got shown to Ricardo, who ushered us to a motorized dugout canoe. Puttered along (with a young couple from Israel) to a populated island (Mamartupu). Changed boats, Israelis got off and went in another boat. Ricardo's son took us for 30 minutes to Isla Pelicano where 3 French young people were staying. Island was about 60 x 100 m covered in coconut palm trees, had a "dining pavilion", rustic shower, about 4 rustic thatched huts with beds. Served us breakfast. We explored the island (not much to do). Lunch was fish. Got our host (Ricardo's son) to take us to another location for snorkeling and then back to Mamartupu to see how the locals live. That would have been hard if I hadn't spoken Spanish. We did that and had a very interesting tour of the island community. Came back and had lobster for dinner. Next morning got up at 4:45 a.m. for the trip (in the dark) back to catch the early (only) flight back to Panama City. The trip was great, but not for the faint of heart. Leaky dugout canoe with no life jackets, etc. I slept in a hammock because I didn't like the look of the beds. However, at the Panama airport I was talking to a fellow (Kuna Indian business man, who spoke English reasonably well). He does tourism and gave me his card. So, you might like to contact him. I am guessing that his operation would be a little more sophisticated than what we did. (After all, Ricardo didn't have cards!) Try this website, where a contact email is also provided. The person I talked to was named Pasquel Archibold, general manager. http://kuanidup.8k.com/index.html It doesn't give any prices on the website. But we paid about $100 for airfare, $20/night for the accommodation and meals, $15 for the boat transport to and around the island, and a $6 landing tax (I think that is a Kuna tax. We were told in advance, and paid it along with our accommodation, etc.) It was a really adventure, so go ahead and do it! I hope this helps. I'd be interested in seeing a posting on Thorntree whether this information has been useful.
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Also, if you mean Hotel Porvenir, which is on El Porvenir, here's their homepage which lists 45 USD per person per night. http://hotelporvenir.com/ | 3 | |