The Embera tribe is from the Darien jungle (on the border between Panama and Columbia), but two families several decades ago decided that they could make a better living , while maintaining their traditional lifestyles if they moved to this national park reserve.
A 60 min bumpy/windy van ride was followed by a 45min boat ride up the crystal clear waters of the Chagres to where we hiked to a waterfall.
I am not sure what Hugues is celebrating in this picture, but there were certainly many aspects of the day worth being excited about. However, Rohit and Jorge seem underwhelmed.
Typical of days where I skip my mid-morning snack, this lunch looked like the tastiest food I had ever seen. It was fried, fresh fish (heavy on the salt) and smushed and fried plantain disks (I am sure there is a more appetizing name for those...).
Now, I am not a huge political activist, but if there were a special interest group working to replace pigeons with friendly green parakeets that eat Doritos and will sit on your finger as long as you let it, I would be a proponent.
The largest of our team members gets a second temporary tatoo...they go on light and get much darker by the next day. (Unless you challenge the biggest guy on the team to an underwater swimming competition in the river with a pretty strong current and loose pretty decisively.)
My favorite part of the jungle trip (other than the super adrenaline rush of climbing up the waterfall against the flow of current struggling to find handholds that would prevent being thrown down the rocks under the pressure of the current) was definitely seeing the Shaman's garden of magical plants. I have a PhD so I have a strong understanding of magic and elves, but even these plants were quite impressive.There was one stem of a leaf that he gave each of us about 3mm to chew and felt like pop rocks and then turned our mouths numb for about 10min. We all wished we had gotten more...
Stay tuned for the 4th of July trip to the home of the Embera tribe. It is sure to be unbearably hot and humid and fraught with adventure.
1 comment:
A PhD in magic and elven lore? I think we went to the same school. Only my major was cultural anthropology of the merpeople and the star people.
Oh and by the way, I am Embera, born in Colombia and I would have loved to be there when this shaman told you about his magical plants and their properties.Did he have Ayahuasca?
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