A village on the Chagres River

On the Chagres River, Panama ~ January 7, 2006

A beautiful Embera' woman poses with her native crafts. This village of Embera' Indians near Panama City exists for and because of tourism. You arrive by canoe in life jackets, leaving the roads behind. Traditional people and their crafts, dress, language, design, architecture, and food await you. It's pleasant, friendly, and not overrun, because the number of visitors is regulated. You go with a guide, and it's about as close as many of us will get to stumbling onto an aboriginal people. Lunch was prepared in the native way; the fish were caught in the river that morning and smoked in a fire built on a second-story sleeping platform. It's not Albert Schweitzer, but neither is it Disneyland. I'd go back in a minute . . . with more money to spend on the hand-made art, most with animal motifs. One of the Indians took us and our guide, Ricardo, for a long paddle up the river. Here we swam, surrounded mostly by jungle, birds, and insects. Here there was nothing left of "civilization" except our canoe and Ricardo's designer polarizing goggles. Like us, he was a visitor.

. Ruby Tuesday