Panama, San Blas Islands, Nargana – The good, the bad and the ugly

I will warn you now, Nargana is not a TOURIST destination.

Cruisers come here to stock up and that is usually all they do here.

Saying that, when a festival is on, Nargana can be a fun place to visit.   There are also some fun things to do in the immediate area.  So lets see what my human’s got up to in Nargana.

First a bit about Nargana.  It is actually two islands joined by a bridge.  Nargana Yandup and Cerazon de Jesus Akunuatupa.  It is no longer a traditional style village and they have abandon Kuna rules.  Instead, it is a major trading post with Columbian boats and the population is a real blend.

It is here cruisers can purchase fresh fruit, vegetables and stables.  Along with petrol, diesel and propane.  My humans found the best selection of veggies and fresh baked bread in a tiny store owned by Leno, at the very back of Cerazon.  Prices on the islands are generally a bit higher than both the veggy boats and Porvenir area.

The humans also came to Nargana to see the festival activities on the island.  Unfortunately, now that they are down to one temperamental camera, they did not take any pictures of the evening out.  You will just have to imagine bands, dancing and the inauguration of the ‘Queen of the Festival’ .  The Queen did buy them a round a beers!

Unfortunately the Nargana area is not a place you want to go swimming.  The high population density means lots of flotsam in the waters.

But, if it is clean water you are after, the area has an abundant fresh water supply in the river Rio Diablo. (See chart).

The humans packed up me, the laundry and all the water bottles into the dingy and negotiated the shallow log strewn entrance to go on a jungle river adventure.

Suitably washed, cleaned and stocked up the ‘Spirit Of Argo’ and the gang are off on another adventure.  Before we go, here are a few more pictures.

Steve in for a last swim at Green Island before heading over to Nargana.

My new playmate.  Calm waters for sailing make it an easy pleasure to move from island to island.

Anchoring up off of Nargana.  The houses cover every inch of the island and extend over the sea.

We anchored right on top of the anchor symbol on the chart (little red dot).  We could not normally do this even if we tried.

Once ashore we went on the hunt for supplies.  Not always easy to do.

A bridge joins the two islands together.  The trading boats come in and dock between the islands.

It is usually ‘more economical’ if you can purchase goods directly from the trading boats.  This is where your Spanish lessons will really pay off.

What you can not find on the boats you may find else where on the islands.  Do not miss Leno’s tiny shop on the back corner of Curazon.

A couple of tries before the humans discovered the islands ‘beer reserve’ on the far side of the basket ball court.

After all that running around, it is not surprising the boys needed a ‘cold one’ to recover.  Lots of those available on the islands.

There is a tiny restaurant by one of the docks where you can ‘catch a breeze’ and cool off after shopping with a cold beer and a view.

Unfortunately the restaurant keeps a spider monkey on a lead in their yard.

Any where you go along the islands water front you are going to be confronted by the offensive amount of rubbish in the water.

Thankfully for both us and the locals there is an escape up the Rio Diablo.

If you do not mind negotiating the log jams at the entrance and a few along the way, it is a wonderful adventure and escape into the jungle.

Along the way up river you pass cleaned plots for agriculture.  Some contain only Coconuts, while others include plantain, bananas, limes, mangos and other Caribbean staples. 

The towns cemetery is here too. We heard there is a hike into the jungle from the cemetery that is nice. But we were in search of something much further up river.

The majority of the river bank is virgin jungle and we saw a wide assortment of bird life.  We knew we were near the ‘end’ of the river trip when we had to break out the paddles for the last bend.

My personal rowing team. You know you are in the ‘right spot’ when you come across all the locals who have travelled up river for exactly the same reason as you.

No rest for our guest!  The boys were put to work washing the sheets.  There has been a pipework made to run fresh water to the islands, but unfortunately it keeps getting damaged.  Yachts ignoring clear ‘no anchoring’ symbols on charts have split pipes, torrential rains have caused mud slides and leaks have contaminated the supply.  At the time of writing the locals had ‘kind of given up‘ on the idea of a piped in water supply and regularly travel up river to collect water.

There is a clear division of activity up here at the top of the river.  Water collection up stream, laundry a little further down stream and washing yourself a little further down steam.

But generally the locals seem to make the ‘trip up river’ a family occasion with the kids splashing about everywhere and jumping of the river banks cliffs.

Suitably washed, cleaned and stocked up with water we had a ‘few things’ to hang to dry when we got back.  Who said this boating life was all ‘fun and games’.

So to sum up Nargana.

GOOD clean fun heading up the river and visiting the festival.

NOT BAD for supplies, but be prepared to hunt around for them or barter with the supply boats.

UGLY amount of rubbish and forget about the idea of ‘customer service’.  But everyone did try and direct us in ‘approximately’ in the right direction.

Lets here what the Visitors View is on all this ‘malarkey’.

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VISITORS VIEW

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So the fiesta in the town proved to be interesting. First of all it seems like everyone has shown up – from day old babies in arms to the most elderly. Then everyone brings their own chairs and sits round the edge of a concrete basketball court and just talks away for hours with a nearby church blaring out religious, though up tempo, songs. In the corner of the basketball court are 2 make shift stages – flimsy constructions held together with twine and plastic sheeting. It all looks very provincial until your eyes fall on the speakers – the most huge array you can imagine. Honestly this stack would not have looked out of place at a Motorhead gig! Shortly after 2230 the Queen of the festival arrives in a carnival style costume accompanied by a ‘dancing devil’ who is dressed in a long snouted crocodile mask and a mariachi band who are playing some sort of marching cha cha style song. This goes on for about half an hour and then the band get on stage and play a 40 minute set where all the old couples get up and have a dance. They stop and the sound system starts up and it is deafening. Here you are on a small remote island where they have not even got running water and they have rigged up a sound system any decent London club would be proud to have! And we are off into a good hour of raga, soca and latin American dance music with the dancing started by what is best described as the Nagarna Womens Institute dancers. All ladies seemingly 60+ dressed in palm fringed bikinis who were determined to show that they still had the moves! It was certainly an interesting opening to the festivities and the huge crowd of locals greeted their efforts very enthusiastically. And the old folks of the island certainly outdid us – we left the party at a half sensible hour though the music could still be heard from those speakers on our boat a good half mile away word for word; and that music stopped at 0523 precisely by my watch.

You may also have noticed Cain is not a folically challenged as me – I put this down to his intensive hair care regime that you can see in full, resplendent action in the photo above. In his own recreation of the Timotei waterfall advert he actually used conditioner 5 miles up a river in the jungle of Panama. That is an endorsement of the effort that goes into preserving those flowing locks!

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