On Friday night, we anchored of the coast of the Darien province part of Panama. In the morning we jumped on the boats and headed for the village of La Chunga to visit a the Embera Indians. The trip there was indicative of the title Adventure Cruise.
We were loaded into the small boats and motored along the coast towards the mouth of the river that lead to the village. The tide was near its lowest point so the boats had to be very careful not to run a ground. As a side note, we learned that the tides on Pacific side of the Panama are much worse than the Atlantic side, could be up to 15 feet from high to low. The boats got into a place where we could not continue because the water was too shallow. We all got out of the boats and waited while they found a deeper channel. While they were doing that, we had to walk over the sand bar and into the side where the boats would pick us up. (Caroline) It was quite an adventure for sure. I never thought I would be standing in the deep Pacific Ocean on a sandbar!
When the guides first got out, they must have found nice sand because they told people it was okay to take off their shoes. Some people did and it was a mistake. In spots the bottom was littered with shells, and it was quite painful if you hit a shell just right. This is a picture of Jon after he made it to where we are all standing with feet mostly intact.
Never one to stand around, Chuck wandered off to see what the exposed sand bar had to offer. As it turned out, not much except very dark sand and lots of shells. But, this picture gives you a feeling for how strange it was to be standing in shallow water so far a way from shore.
The tide was apparently still going out so I (Chuck) decided to see how fast. I started putting sticks in the mud and watching to see if the water receded. Sure enough it did, and rapidly. In the picture you can see 3 sticks upright in the sand. The water is hard to see but is a bit to the right of the third stick. The total time for the tide to move that far was maybe 10 minutes, perhaps a bit less. I'm embarrassed I didn't time it and calculate a rate of tide drop. :) (Caroline) Oh, my! The inquisitive mind gets carried a way at times!)
This was a good time to give a huge thumbs up to our two guides, Octavio and Ian. They were very knowledgable, helpful, and on call the entire time we were awake it seemed. Octavio took the opportunity while we were standing in the water to tell us the story about how they found this Embera village and made their first visit.
The boats finally found a deep enough channel and we piled back on board and headed up the river. The boats stopped any time there was an interesting bird was spotted, we slowed down an took a look.
This is our other guide Iann. Both Octavio and Iann are native Panamanians and have families. The consensus of the passengers on board the ship is 10 out of 10 for both of them!
When we got to the end of our boat trip 45 minutes up river, the picture below was our welcoming committee.
The children do not look very friendly, but they actually were, They had probably been waiting for 45 minutes more than expected because of our adventure in the sea and as you will read in the next post, not a short stroll to their village.