(if you hate my writing and are only here for pictures, click on them and they’ll get bigger)
This blog is being updated too late. A new chapter of life has started. I am no longer chasing a free spirit… I am chasing a goal. I will miss traveling but I wont regret what I am doing right now. We are as variable, excited and stunning as each part of what we discover within ourselves (I lied, I effing miss traveling and want nothing to do but the travel, damn it).
You will also notice that my spelling/grammar is better in this blog. When all you do is read all day, you start judging people based on their writing.
I could talk about every single day, hour and minute of my travels. Everything is a memory; a good one regardless of whether I was winning or losing. But one memory deserves this entire post. That’s because I believe that it was as close to heaven as I’ll ever get in this life time.
The San Blas Islands
Having finished the most hectic, tense and rewarding semester of my 10 years of post-secondary education, I took a taxi at 2:00 am and headed to Costa Rica. Costa Rica also deserves a whole post but I will get to that later. 7 days in, I took a bus to Panama City. All I could think of was the San Blas Islands. I had sailed through them from Panama to Colombia last year. That sailing also deserved its own post, and it’s right below this post. Anyways, something about San Blas made me want to go back uncontrollably. This time, not to sail but to actually stay at one of the Islands for a few days.
So the very next morning at 4 am another jeep picked us up to take us to the departure point. I knew the drill, but this time I didn’t have food poisoning. Nor was I hung over. Nor did I want to sleep anymore. I knew what was about to happen and I just couldn’t wait.
After an absolutely entertaining 6 hour trip with two British and Catholic 19 year old girls who were very shy, and an absolutely obnoxious, load, annoying and funny-as-hell Israeli couple who almost made the above noted girls cry, we got to the departure point. It wasn’t raining. The Kuna people were friendly and had their boats awaiting us. We went down a river which lead to the Caribbean ocean. When I saw the first Island I melted. The sun was shining its gorgeous rays on the palm tries that were providing a shadow and shelter for the little hammocks and the lovely people in them.
I felt peace. I felt like time just stood still, my overwhelming brain wasn’t thinking and my senses had taken over. Time was no longer a variable and I placed the tip of my fingers in the warm, vibrant and silky water that caressed against them as the boat calmly passed through the islands to get to ours.
It was called Tony and Frank’s Island. It was maybe 50 meters in diameter, completely isolated and had silver-white sand that sparkled from meters away. People around it were in water just floating on the ocean or playing volley ball in it.
Everyone was smiling.
The Island was split between Tony and Frank. Frank’s side was basically little Israel but had better food than Tony’s. 3 American girls and I could not get a place there (again, even though we had already reserved), so we walked exactly 3 meters to get to Tony’s side. I approached his tent which he treated like his kingdom. He was a native, having sun kissed hair and eyes. He was sitting with three guys getting drunk (it was 10am).
I busted my half-ass broken flirting in Spanish and asked him to give us some good rooms and a price. He checked us out (specially the 3 American blonde girls) and smiled. All shacks were ocean front. All I wanted to do was jump in the ocean. I threw my stuff on the bed and jumped in with my clothes on. You would go 20 meters out of the Island and the water would only come up to your knees and you could see so many colorful fish everywhere. You would swim out another 20 meters with a snorkel and you could see huge lobsters, dolphins, cat-fish, eagle rays, sting rays.. you name it.
The sun was shining that day and I was in heaven. Before we knew it, it was sunset and dinner was about be served. We got called for food by a Kuna blowing into a big sea shell. There were no showers, not really any toilets, and a coconut fell from a tree and missed my head by 1 or 2 inches. The food sucked ass. But it didn’t matter.
That night the moon was full. The 50 people on the Island all got together and sat down to watch the moon. Some played guitar, some went skinny dipping, some just said hello to each other, some kissed under the moon light with no care in the world, some did Acid and screamed at the Israelis: “Free Palestine!”
The heat of the day and the no-electricity at night got us to bed around 11pm. I slept like a baby and woke up at the sound of the Kuna blowing in to the sea shell again. The people on the Island were heavenly. I met the sweetest guy from Chicago, a couple hilarious Israels, the Americans girls who thought this was another version of ’girls gone wild without any footage’, 2 lovely girls from Britain who did not know shit about politics (Alice and Rachael) and all they wanted to do was laugh, and Tony’s always-high-as-a-kite brother who taught me about all of the Indian Gods.
I decided to stay on the Island for 5 days. By day 3 I had ran out of my food and had turned into a savage crazy girl worshiping the sun. One day I decided to venture out in to the Sea Urchin territory and suddenly felt the biggest pain in my big toe and the current riding the wave precisely against me. It took all my power to swim to the Island only to hear from Tony that one of the guys has to pee on my foot and that it is the only solution. Having had the lovely experience of one of the Israeli guys pee on me, the pain just got worse. Tony told me that now I had to wait for an hour and it would get better. AN HOUR? Ok, so an hour passed and I was still dying from pain so Tony had another look and said ” oh my sorry, you should have gone to the hospital from the get-go..i’ll get you a boat” .
That night, Tony felt like partying and invited the whole Island to his side and gave everyone free booze. He played “girl I really need tell you this” by Bob Marley’s brother and a party broke out obviously. My bandaged toe did not stop me from jumping in to the ocean at midnight and watching the moon with all other mesmerized travelers.
We spent the next couple days doing absolutely nothing but to sit by the ocean and just observe the beauty. I never got bored, just starred endlessly… like nothing else ever existed. I wanted to read books but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t wait for the sunsets because that was yoga time and that pure, breezy and refreshing sunset air I breathed every time I did yoga, brought me to real life. I felt that breeze with my entire existence..I can still feel it me. It’s so hard to describe it with words. Words can’t explain those senses.
The last day on the Island was Tony’s birthday. I woke up at Sunrise and watched the sun lay its gold on the palm trees and have its rays touch our skins softly. That morning we rode the boat to another incredible island that had a sunk ship close to it with a fish wonderland surrounding it.
We drank a few beers but that was nothing compared to all the free drinks and decorations everywhere in preparation for Tony’s birthday. It was almost like the King’s birthday; everyone was sucking up to him.
I asked Tony if I could be the bartender of the night. Harold and I ruled the bar and danced to the music the entire night. I finally achieved one of my life-long dream of bartending for one night. What could be a venue?
The next morning we woke up to our last sea shell call and said our most painful goodbyes to Tony and the Island. The boat calmly rode away and I found myself forever in love. I firmly believe that if there was a heaven on earth, this would be it. And I say this having traveled to more than 25 countries.
Can you guess where I am going back to this year?
