Embera Village Trek

Thursday 1 October 2009 - Darien Jungle, Panama

Prince Albert II anchored 3 miles from the mouth of the Mogue River. A very rare Oil Bird was sitting on the anchor chain, no doubt mistaking the anchor locker for a cave. What a start of the day! We Zodiac'ed across the bay and then into the jungle for an additional 5 miles to the Embera Village. Some of us seemed to enjoy the long Zodiac ride. The Embera's live throughout Panama and into Colombia in their traditional ways, really traditional ways. This village is one of the most accessible, meaning that many of the passengers had to get out of the boats to pull the Zodiacs over sandbars since the tide was a couple of hours from cresting and the mud on the trail wasn't more than knee deep. We then walked about a mile along the mud track accompanied by the native children who were assigned to us. I'm sure they felt like the folks who entered the space ship by Devil's Tower.

The village was clean, well organized, had a government school, and a curious telecommunications facility, but life there is otherwise untouched by the modern world. Dress is, uh, appropriate for living in 95 degrees F/95% humidity all the time, and paint tattooing is the only garments except for brightly colored loin cloths purchased from the proceeds of village grown fruit and an occasional fish. Our ship's Captain even came along--driving one of the Zodiacs no less with his wife and looked appropriately out of place but seemed to enjoy himself.

This visit was something that can not be described. Enjoy the pictures. The trip back was faster with the river current with us but wetter with the sky opening up. I suppose that have a policy of "if you don't have children, you will be assigned a couple of ours" or perhaps they were just afraid we needed escorts to find out way out. At any rate, our dress was not nearly as appropriate as that of the locals. I looked all over for loin cloths, but found they had nothing in a 43 regular with pleats. We washed off the mud on our clothes, our butler took our shoes (so far not returned) to removed the mud further, and the beef tenderloin was super with the Chilean Merlot.