by Layla
We ventured out of Casco Viejo on our last night, having got a taste for Lebanese food, but the restaurant annoyed us by serving us microwaved pizza and claiming it to be a Lebanese pastry, so we didn't linger, and instead returned in a huff to Casco Viejo. We settled down with mohitos in Casablanca, and reflected on how this had been a really quite excellent holiday... before being eventually driven home by too many overexuberant buskers. The risks of sitting outside in Panama's nicest square...
We had decided to guard against that hanging-around-feeling-sorry-for-ourselves feeling that always characterises our return to normality by impetuously booking a tour for our last day in Panama. We packed up our stuff too quickly to think about the implications of it, dashed out for a last fruit and granola breakfast, and by 9am we were standing to attention at our front door. Mario turned up promptly, popped our luggage in the boot of his car, and proceeded to drive us to a fruit market where he bought us all kinds of fruit we'd never tried before. A fruit that was very long and thin that you cracked open on your knee to reveal little pods of white furry fruit... little green spheres containing pink gummy stuff... it was quite fun. And then we drove to Chagres National Park.
When we arrived, two men from a local Embera Indian village awaited us in vibrant loincloths, and directed us to a dugout canoe, complete with motor, in which they conveyed us down the Chagres River. We passed Embera villages, hills, massive vegetation, and hummingbirds, before alighting in a clearing for our hike to a waterfall. This was a fun 20 minute hike that involved following a river along muddy banks, and at times walking through the river which came up to our knees. This was more fun for me with my flipflops than poor Roz with her socks and hiking boots... but we got to the waterfal eventually, and jumped into the pool. We had an enjoyable 15 minutes cavorting in the currents and climbing on the waterfall, before shaking ourselves off and hiking back to the canoe.
Next up was a visit to an Embera village. The Embera are a native culture in Panama and mostly live as hunter gatherers in the rainforest in the east. When US people came to Panama to look after the canal, they asked three Embera families to come and teach them how to survive in the rainforest. After the job was done, the US people suggested that rather than returning home, they might want to make a new home in a nearby part of rainforest that had the advantage of being nearer to schools and hospitals. They thought this was a good plan, and duly moved in. Fifty years later, the government decided to designate the area a national park, since its river and lake not only provided Panama City's drinking water, but also helped work the Panama Canal during dry season, and was thus rather valuable. National Park rules meant people couldn't live there or hunt there any more. Which was of course the Embera Indians' whole way of life. They reached a compromise where they could live there, but would accept tourists and show them their way of life, thus earning money for buying groceries rather than hunting in the Park. This seemed a bit of a shame...
The Embera Indians were very welcoming, bedecked in colourful cloths (apparently for our benefit - when there were no tourists, they are naked), and playing various musical instruments. Everyone shook our hands, and then they performed various dances. I was alarmed/amused when Roz and I were made to join in! After a lunch of plantain fritters and the fruit from the fruit market, we heard about how they made crafts (which we duly purchased a small sample of) and walked around their village, with its thatched huts on stilts. My favourite image from the day was of two tiny girls wearing very clean, smart school uniforms, standing on the other side of the river in the middle of the jungle, waiting to be picked up and brought across to the village by canoe after school.
After that, it was off to the airport, and homeward. From my desk at work I have to wonder: was I really trekking through a river in the middle of the jungle on Monday?
We ventured out of Casco Viejo on our last night, having got a taste for Lebanese food, but the restaurant annoyed us by serving us microwaved pizza and claiming it to be a Lebanese pastry, so we didn't linger, and instead returned in a huff to Casco Viejo. We settled down with mohitos in Casablanca, and reflected on how this had been a really quite excellent holiday... before being eventually driven home by too many overexuberant buskers. The risks of sitting outside in Panama's nicest square...
We had decided to guard against that hanging-around-feeling-sorry-for-ourselves feeling that always characterises our return to normality by impetuously booking a tour for our last day in Panama. We packed up our stuff too quickly to think about the implications of it, dashed out for a last fruit and granola breakfast, and by 9am we were standing to attention at our front door. Mario turned up promptly, popped our luggage in the boot of his car, and proceeded to drive us to a fruit market where he bought us all kinds of fruit we'd never tried before. A fruit that was very long and thin that you cracked open on your knee to reveal little pods of white furry fruit... little green spheres containing pink gummy stuff... it was quite fun. And then we drove to Chagres National Park.
When we arrived, two men from a local Embera Indian village awaited us in vibrant loincloths, and directed us to a dugout canoe, complete with motor, in which they conveyed us down the Chagres River. We passed Embera villages, hills, massive vegetation, and hummingbirds, before alighting in a clearing for our hike to a waterfall. This was a fun 20 minute hike that involved following a river along muddy banks, and at times walking through the river which came up to our knees. This was more fun for me with my flipflops than poor Roz with her socks and hiking boots... but we got to the waterfal eventually, and jumped into the pool. We had an enjoyable 15 minutes cavorting in the currents and climbing on the waterfall, before shaking ourselves off and hiking back to the canoe.
Next up was a visit to an Embera village. The Embera are a native culture in Panama and mostly live as hunter gatherers in the rainforest in the east. When US people came to Panama to look after the canal, they asked three Embera families to come and teach them how to survive in the rainforest. After the job was done, the US people suggested that rather than returning home, they might want to make a new home in a nearby part of rainforest that had the advantage of being nearer to schools and hospitals. They thought this was a good plan, and duly moved in. Fifty years later, the government decided to designate the area a national park, since its river and lake not only provided Panama City's drinking water, but also helped work the Panama Canal during dry season, and was thus rather valuable. National Park rules meant people couldn't live there or hunt there any more. Which was of course the Embera Indians' whole way of life. They reached a compromise where they could live there, but would accept tourists and show them their way of life, thus earning money for buying groceries rather than hunting in the Park. This seemed a bit of a shame...
The Embera Indians were very welcoming, bedecked in colourful cloths (apparently for our benefit - when there were no tourists, they are naked), and playing various musical instruments. Everyone shook our hands, and then they performed various dances. I was alarmed/amused when Roz and I were made to join in! After a lunch of plantain fritters and the fruit from the fruit market, we heard about how they made crafts (which we duly purchased a small sample of) and walked around their village, with its thatched huts on stilts. My favourite image from the day was of two tiny girls wearing very clean, smart school uniforms, standing on the other side of the river in the middle of the jungle, waiting to be picked up and brought across to the village by canoe after school.
After that, it was off to the airport, and homeward. From my desk at work I have to wonder: was I really trekking through a river in the middle of the jungle on Monday?
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