Surprising place, Panama. A few minutes from the city with its shiny new 21st century skyscrapers the plane is flying over empty rainforest.

The only sign of life below is the Trans American Highway, which in various forms starts in Alaska and comes to a stop 110 miles from the border with Colombia before continuing to the tip of the continent.

It’s a cramped, knees-up-to-the-chin, 50-minute flight which ends on a grass strip right on the water’s edge. A short walk and a boat trip to the island of Uaguinega and the tourist finds he has taken a journey into the past.

This is Kuna Yala, an autonomous state of Indians who originally settled in the Darien area of Panama after fleeing Colombia in the 1600s and then left the disease of the jungle for the sea and the islands in the 18th century. Life has been carefully - and tenaciously - frozen in time. It’s as much of a contrast with Panama City as you could imagine.

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Kuna Yala is a strip of land and string of 365 islands that stretch 200 miles along the Caribbean coast. For the tourist the lure of the islands is irresistible, particularly as there are few places to stay, keeping it untouched, uncommercial and as soothing as you could hope with clear seas and palm-lined beaches and always in the distance the misty ridge of the mainland mountains like a barrier to the outside world.

Anyone expecting the bland luxury of a Four Seasons-style resort will be disappointed. The few lodges on the islands are made of the local materials, thatched in palm with walls of bamboo and shutters which are simply planks of wood.

When the winds gets up at night the cabin creaks and billows like a yacht under full sail. The electricity – in the form of a 40 watt bulb - is switched on at six and off at eleven, the facilities are simple with water warmed by solar power.

Food is invariably fish or lobster with tamales and plantain. And don’t expect anything as 20th century as a television. But that’s the appeal, even if Dolphin Lodge, which is one of the biggest resorts with 11 cabins, costs £194 a night per person. Tour operator Journey Latin America offer a two-night three-day package from Panama City including flights and transfers for £372 per person.

The Kuna have fought, literally, to keep things simple. In 1925 an armed group attacked the Panamanian police who had been involved in the violent suppression of Kuna cultural practices by the government and in 1930 they were granted their independence rather in the way Scotland has its own administration.

Ever since, the Kunu Yala – 72,000 of them - have been determined to preserve their traditional life. The islands are tightly packed with one-roomed houses of bamboo, smoke spiralling from an open fire. Small shops sell crisps, biscuits, washing powder and tins of meat. Simple cafes serve Coke to the few tourists, each island has a school and a square for basketball.

The men work on their fishing nets, the waters alive with boats struggling against the waves with outboard engines, paddles and scrawny sails. One of their biggest catches is lobsters, most of which end up on tables in Colombia and Panama City.

Each island has its own identity. Utupu a stomach–turning one and a half hours through a heavy swell demands a $4 dollar entry fee and is like a little bamboo Venice with bridges over lagoons and houses built around inlets.

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