After that fantastic crossing through the Panama Canal, the ship headed towards Carti Island, one of the islands of San Blas archipelago along the northern shore of Panama. These islands are popular stopover for cruise ships leaving or entering the Panama Canal. San Blas islands are inhabited by the fiercely independent native settlers, the Kuna Indians. Kuna Indians over the years guarded their cultural identity, shun tourism development and passionately maintained their customs and culture, language, legends, music and dance. Kuna Indians run the islands as an autonomous province of Panama.
At 0630H on March 11, 2010, the ship dropped anchor close to Carti Island (Carti Sugtupu) on a sunny morning and passengers arrived at the island’s very small pier through the ship’s tenders. Wind was blowing very lightly with warm air temperature of 29 degrees Celsius that went up to 34 degrees later at noon. Curious about this indigenous tribe of Panama, I decided to visit the island and see for myself this Indian village in a remote island. What I find very interesting in the island was the inhabitants themselves. Kuna Indians especially the elderly women wore nose rings and dressed in colorful distinctive traditional clothing. The younger generation of Kuna women still wore their traditional dresses but few seem to adapt the nose rings. Kuna Indians are famous for its art needle works called mola. Mola is an intricately stitched rainbow colored fabric embroidered with an assortment of woven designs such as jungle animals, birds, fish and geometric designs. Women selling mola outside their homes along its very narrow walkways were common sights especially when a cruise ship is visiting the island. The word “street” to refer to the island’s very narrow ways in between houses is an exaggeration so let me just call it walkways. Catching the inhabitants in their traditional attire into photos is in someway the most interesting and extremely remarkable souvenir of the island I considered sufficiently rewarding to justify the time I spent to the island. Just like all places in the world, money really matters and this remote Indian village in Panama is not an exception. I can’t just take photos or make these women say “cheese” in front of my camera without US$1. So every photo in this post costs me US$1. Without US$1, no photo and that’s the rule. Luckily, I have few one dollar bills in my wallet.
By 1700H, everyone were back onboard and the ship started to sail for Cartagena, Columbia. We were at the port of Cartagena at 0700H on the next day, March 12, 2010. I decided not to visit the city during that call but I captured nice photos of the cruise ship Celebrity Equinox, the most recent ship of Celebrity Cruises and the company’s largest ship. Celebrity Equinox arrived at the port of Cartagena 10 minutes ahead of us and made fast at the same wharf where we tied up.
Cartagena, Columbia is our last port of call in South America. After over a month of visiting beautiful cities and interesting sites around South America, the ship is now in the Caribbean Sea and currently heading for St. George, Grenada, the ship’s first port in the Caribbean Islands.
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed