San Blas Islands, Panama

The islands are close to the shore 50 miles along the coast from Panama. Inhabited by the Kuna’s they are a semi autonomous region that largely keep to their traditional lifestyle.

Top left - slash and burn agriculture on the mainland.

Top right - Tourist hotel, I couldn’t think of a lovelier place to visit and easily accessible by air through Panama.

The villages were very democratic , some having ‘congresos’ every day were issues of the moment were discussed by the whole village. Something like a Steiner ‘college of teachers’.

Top right - A Kuna village - some of the islands were just totally covered with houses. Their main industries are Coconuts (but the price has recently gone down from 30c to 10c a nut) and the women sew lots of molas for the tourist market.

Right - a high drop