Guest Log Entry #2

Margaret and Lloyd continue to share their adventures....here it is:

So, we have to leave tomorrow and are going home with a wonderful week under our belt. We've seen pipe fish and lion fish and camo fish of all kinds. We've done a reef a day and marveled at how different they are one to another – some much denser with coral than others, some primarily sponges and softer animals. And then we met the veggie boat, and a couple of mola ladies, and bought crab (twice!) and lobsters from the Kuna who come up beside the boat. Apparently we have lucked out and gotten much more fresh fruit and veggies than other guests may have enjoyed. And then there are lovely cans of cold Balboa beer that somehow pop out of the fridge just when you want them the most.

It was disconcerting tonight to watch the Kuna kids watching TV tonight when we gave Barbara a cook's night off and ate at a little restaurant in Corazon de Jesus. The disconnect between the subsistence culture here and the hyper TV shows was enormous for me. The kids here hang with the adults doing the business of the family – gathering water in the river because the water pipe to the island is now broken, fishing, hawking molas or bracelets to the tourists. They seem very quiet and don't have much more than the clothes on their backs. Then on the TV are teens with skateboards hanging out with some other guy with his ATV, buzzing around in places that could not be more different than how they live here.

Since we last wrote, we visited Salardup and Cambombia – both inhabited islands. We could snorkel from Astarte both days. We shared Cambombia with 5 catamarans – the San Blas have definitely been discovered. Now that we have come into Corazon de Jesus/Nargana, we do not wish to get in the water at all, so had a river trip on Air Mary to see fabulous birds, butterflies, and the Kuna doing laundry and gathering water. We didn't see any monkeys, though there could be both white faced and howler monkeys in there. Barbara and Michael will go back tomorrow to do laundry of their own. So we shall think of them as we wing our way back to the apparently snowy northeast. So many thanks are due.

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