Yes, there are two cell towers in all of Kuna Yala - both in the triangle area. This means that if you are anchored close enough to one and have a good line of sight, you can connect with a cell phone tethered to your computer and get internet. Typical speed rates are 100-3,000 bytes/sec. Yes, bytes, not kilobytes. This isn't too much faster than Pactor 3 on SSB, although it has the advantage of being able to use the internet and not just email. I can download GRIB files faster on the SSB than on the internet here. Back in the real old days of dial up, typical connection speeds were 54,000 bytes/sec. So you CAN get internet here (that's how I'm sending this), but it is really stone age speeds and connectivity.

It hasn't really changed the culture. The Kunas have cell phones, but no way to charge them, so the cruisers help there (we have two plugged in now). Most of the villages still have little to no electricity available. Nargana itself has all but abandoned Kuna Yala and has cell phones, a generating plant, etc. But I think it has been this way for many years now.

If you head East outside the triangle area, there are still no lights, no phones, no motor cars, and life there appears to be like it was 100 years ago. One example of an exception to this being the case in Isla Pinos, where there is a 3-story tower with "Digicel" crudely painted on it, built out of sticks and guarded by a pig. If you want to use your cell phone, you give food to the pig, climb the tower and you can get a 1-bar signal to the cell tower in Nargana or Porvenir (don't know which one). The "cost" of using this business is that the owner gets his pig fed for free (or higher, I guess, if you break your neck climbing up and down it). I would post a picture, but it ain't gonna happen with the connection I have.

This as compared to the triangle area, where life appears to have moved on and is only like it was 50 years ago...

Mark