Nargana, San Blas, Panama

Saturday, April 18, 2015

009-26.627 N
078-35.200 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

Yesterday was a rather cloudy day, so we decided to head to Nargana in search of fresh fruits and veggies. Nargana is about 4 miles, as the crow flies, from Green Island. Nargana actually consists of 2 islands, Nargana and Corezon de Jesus, which are connected via a bridge and are by far the largest settlements in the area. It's interesting that the Kunas always seem to build on islands, despite these islands being right next to the mainland. As a result these islands are densely populated.

Nargana is unlike most Kuna settlements in that the people have given up on the traditional ways. The women no longer wear molas, there's a power plant which feeds a cell tower and TV sets, there are lots of shops, some restaurants and bars. Quite a few of the buildings are made of concrete and there's a bank, health center, library and several schools.

We dropped the anchor behind the islands and then tried to figure out where we were going. It's one thing for someone to show you, on a map, where you land the dinghy and find various shops and it's another thing to look at ramshackle buildings from the water and try to figure out where to go. We had been told to dock the dinghy at Paco's (who sells gasoline, diesel and various other stuff), but I was expecting some kind of signage. Wrong! Luckily there was another cruiser's dinghy docked there, otherwise I don't think that we would have recognized it.

We're getting low on gasoline for the dinghy, so I wanted to pick up 5 gallons. I'm not sure how I expected them to measure this out, but he has the gas stored in 55 gallon drums (and this is next to the school's wall). They proceeded to siphon 5 gallons into a plastic pail and then strain the fuel through a tee-shirt into my jury can! Then they took the remaining fuel, which I guess had sediment in it, and poured that onto the ground. Yeah...

From there we headed out to go shopping, but first we stopped at a local restaurant and had our first meal that Sue hasn't prepared in a month. We both got fried chicken, as that's pretty safe. All that I can say is I only take Sue to the finest establishements and that the Colonel's secret recipe is still safe!

From a map and talking to other cruisers, we kind of knew what we were looking for, so we just started wandering down the streets/paths. The word street is a bit of a stretch, as there were no vehicles of any kind that we saw. It's a relatively small island, so everyone walks. It's an interesting mix of concrete buildings and traditional wood/stick huts. What's interesting is that everyone seems to have a satellite dish and cell phones are everywhere.

We had been told that Eida's tienda (store) was located by the basketball court, so that made it easy to find, but unfortunately it had been a while since they had gotten a shipment of food in and the place was pretty bare. From there we headed across the bridge to Corezon de Jesus to find some other tiendas. I must say that parts of CdJ were much better cared for than they were in Nargana as shown in this photo of their main square.

Once again we were searching for a small tienda for which we had only been given verbal instructions (after crossing the bridge, walk straight until you can't go any further, turn left and look for a building that has bamboo which is painted green (but they change the color when they repaint it, so it might not be green)). We found it, but it certainly didn't look like a store nor did it have any signage. The good thing is that they had a relatively good selection of fruits and veggies, so chalk that one down as a success.

One of the things that I really disliked about the area was the amount of trash everywhere. It appears that everyone just throws their trash into the ocean or into the mangroves. It's disgusting! Sanitation is also a big issue. There's no sewer system, so bathrooms consist of small building positioned out over the water. One can only imagine the conditions inside of these buildings!

We then headed back to tienda in Nargana that Sue had spotted earlier, which had watermelons and cantaloupes. Ducking inside of the shop reminded of us what shopping used to be like when we first started cruising...Small, dark shops with lots of a very few products spread out across wooden shelves. What was quite humorous was that Sue was looking for some olive oil. Believe me, I don't think that olive oil has ever been on any shelf in Nargana!

Loaded with fruits and veggies, we headed back to Green Island, where a couple of hours later a panga loaded with virtually everything that we had bought, and more, pulled up along side of BlueJacket. The goods were more expensive (probably offset by the cost of moving the boat) and we wouldn't have had the experience of visiting Nargana. Over all, Nargana was an interesting place to visit, but I'm glad that we don't have to rely on it for provisioning.

Oh, I've placed a photo album of images from Nargana at https://Geoffschultz.org/photos/index/category/panama_san_blas_nargana

-- Geoff & Sue

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Log ID: 2259