San Blas Islands are part of the Guna Yala territory. The Guna Yala are an indigenous people who have autonomous governance over themselves and their land, including these islands. While it is part of Panama, it is also certainly separate.
Getting here required a 5:30am pick up in an SUV, a 2.5 hour drive (half of which was on the steepest and windiest road I’ve ever been on), and then a half-hour motorboat ride.
We are staying on Chichime, also called Wissudub. I paid extra for the room with a private bathroom, and I paid even more for a room with a floor. Most rooms have neither, and are basically just beds in the sand with basic walls and a roof. The entire facility has electricity only for a few hours each night. While none of that sounds amazing, the minute we got here and saw the island, we know it was worth it. If you asked a child to draw a picture of a deserted island, this is exactly what they would draw…white sand, palm trees, and maybe a rudimentary hut with a hammock.
We spent the day reading, swimming, snorkeling, and napping. It’s hard not to nap when it’s warm and breezy out and the sound of the water beckons. Luke and I walked the entire island perimeter in under half an hour.
The water is absolutely crystal clear. Within the first few minutes here, we saw a large starfish in the water close to shore.
Where the water goes from pale aqua to vibrant turquoise, the shoreline takes a sudden drop. And by drop, I mean from 2 feet to 20 feet within a 5 foot span – like an underwater cliff. It’s a bit unsettling if you try to walk out, but it created an amazing snorkeling opportunity. A massive school of small fish was hanging out right at the face of this underwater cliff, and we watched bigger fish pick off the small fish at the edge of the school. It’s mesmerizing to watch the school move as a single unit, despite being made up of millions of small individual fish.
Lots of people do this as a day trip, arriving around 10:30 and leaving at 3:00. It’s honestly too beautiful here for that to be sufficient. I think 2 nights will be plenty (there’s only so much super-chill beach time I can handle), but I’m glad we didn’t book for less time.
Vacation Days 