Where do I start?

What a day! We chose the Holland America shore excursion ''Authentic Embera Indian Village 6 1/2 hours light snack provided''

It was about the most interesting and culturally embracing tour we have been on in our life, no exaggeration. We were anchored off of Panama since late afternoon, our tour was about the first off at 7.45 AM. We had a 10 minute ride to the dock and onto medium sized busses. Three busses full of us about 90 people. The drive took 90 minutes on steadily deteriorating roads until we stopped at a canoe launching site on the Chagres river.


We over-aged and over-weight white folks were issued a life jacket and loaded into 30 foot dugouts with a groovy Suzuki outboard motor. We were in the hands of very small non-English speaking Embera Indians. They life in a village 45 minutes upstream in a village of 23 families, about 120 people.






After a somewhat bracing and damp ride up river we were off-loaded and greeted by a primitive native musical group. For the next two hours, that seemed like all day, we were enthralled by what we were witnessing. This was not make-believe time, or a period costume thing, this is how and where these people live. It was absolutely fascinating!


The kids melted our hearts and the adults were as loveable, really. Such innocence and openness and loving made many of us feel humbled and honoured to witness it.

There was a family with two young children there, you should have seen the instant connection made by the native kids. Also, that man with the white beard was so good with the kids, it was magical.



We bought some goods from the man and wife team show, and I could not resist asking Fellette to pose with the native woman who was so underdressed compared to Fellette. The pineapple lady I will not comment on, except, a caption could be... "Mmmmm nice pineapples!"

I will not ramble on, I will merely overdose you on some of my photos and let you pretend you were there. It was a marvellous experience.

Eight days at sea next.