There is always another way

As we were in Panama, we looked for a way to cross the border to reach Colombia and, at first, it seemed all the possibilities will cost us a damn sh*t load of money. We weren't ready to pay those price (350 $ by plane or 450/550 $ on a sailing boat and, frankly, as we looked up the Internet for some inspiration, "the other way" looked very tempting as it was: long, hard to perform and kind of safe. The other way was all about lanchas!

Over there, the lancha is as important as an horse in a very poor village on the land. Those boats are sculpted directly from the trunk of a big tree and the floating line is VERY low. The stability is so-so, but as you trust your driver (:-$), there is no worry. So, we would go for the hard way, but performing all the way down to the frontier in this kind of embarcation is, all together, expensive and wetty. We took then a first class shortcut: the plane. Flying inside of the country isn't so bad in comparaison of international flights and the cost stayed limited (80 $ per head). We would have go for Puerto Obaldia straight, but all flight were booked for (at least) the next month. We checked the closest airport on the Panamean side and finally landed in Molatupo, little carrabean island (so little in fact, the airport is litterally on another island).

From this point, except the spectacular lack of information for a 4 hours delay flight, all was shinny for us: the point of view of the San Blas (the Panamean coast we had to go through) was spectacular. We felt like being Yann Arthus Bertrand.

Yep, that was a small plane

I never said Yann Arthus Bertrand had it easy

Or if I said it, I didn't say it loud...

The airport was really small (only some logs and straws, really) and full of these people with strange habits: the Kunas. Women were wearing very traditional clothes (and shakiras all along their legs and arms), and Men, not so much. We could tell straight away those persons were poor as one of the passengers of our plane had a lancha without motor waiting for her (3 hours of paddling was ahead of them).

Could be 4 hours actually

Finally in the city, we could also tell they didn't lost the North as they were asking for 150$ total to reach Puerto Obaldia: No thank you, we have time, we can find better price...

Some talks at the pier got us into a boat covering half the way for only 6$ each (and the possibility to stay overnight). Followed a good 2h30 of wet water and cold wind to get to the village called Punta Carreto, one of the most conservative indian village of the reserve.

The Kuna colors and sign.

Warm welcome by the army

As we arrived on the beach, nothing could give away we were in the XXI century: no piers, fichermen all over the place, military presence and very old equipment (our motor stopped 4 or 5 times). Apart from the "sophisticated" weapons (a strange mixed of old russian ones and brand new americans) of the army and the old motorboat, you couldn't tell from which of the XV or the XVI century we were.

A real leap in the past.