A Real wink-wink Indian Village
By Allan Brown:
We have done excursions on several tours where they take you to a local family or native village to…ah…well see how locals live, or how they used to live. We still laugh about the native village in Ecuador we visited that involved taking a canoe down the river, hoofing it across the sand bar to cross another river and then hiking to the village. As we sat in the sweltering heat Marla happened to pick the one seat where a laser beam of sunlight poked through the roof and melted her face like a wax candle. It was an awesome sight to see and it distracted us from the obliviously bored“native family” dressed in grass skirts sitting in their own hell while a termite nest burned smoking away the mosquitos.
In Cambodia the natives seemed to genuinely have a little more fun with the tour group while wearing their Sunday best. It was more of a lark for them I suspect and I’m sure they had some laughs at our expense while driving home in their Toyotas. Back to their real homes.
So today we paid through the ass for another native village experience. These excursions all look so spiritually fulfilling on video clips of the tour. They’re not.
The people in the videos all seem so happy when the microphone is shoved in their face and offer “ the best trip ever! It changed my life and it was an unbelievable experience “ uh huh. Go on any, and I mean any, tour company web site and you will see equally gushing positive reviews from these shills.
Then work you way over to some independent YouTube channels reviewing the same trip. What a difference! What, is was boring, lame, contrived? But-but.
With this full knowledge of what to expect, of course we did it again! Yes like bees to honey or a moth to the flame, we took another native village excursion. Our reasoning was simple the interesting excursions were booked and Panama train excursion was mega expensive at over $200 each for us budget travelers. Some travel companions took the train excursion and said it was basically a 2 hour bus ride along the canal and then a 45 minute ride back on an old train. So the Browns win again!
Or did we?
Our day trip started out with a bus ride outside of Panama City showing some beautiful lush green countryside between rural housing, automotive recycling and repair businesses.
After an hour or so we parked near a river and boarded our motor powered dug out canoes.
The all male boat crews were dressed in native apparel, short short mini skirts and skimpy tops which reminded me of 1960’s go-go dancers but in a native kind of way.
Us doughy gringos wobbled aboard and sat on our bench seat. The canoes shoved off and headed downstream for about 10 minutes before arriving at Embera native village and gift shop.
First thing first as we lined up for the restrooms, stretched our legs and then gathered around while the village chief told us how they dyed each of the various colors they used to weave the baskets. There was a couple dozen colors and each had an explanation of what plant was used. Samples were passed around so we could all dutifully nod our heads. There was a band of drummers thumping on some rustic drums that got my interest and that was a pleasant distraction from the sales pitch.
We snacked on fried fish, watermelon and fried plantains after being skipped in the initial serving. Hey over here!
There was another big hut so they could entertain two tour groups at once and then of course the trinket stands where we bought a woven bowl with the design of a cat face on it. Maybe it’s a panther face, but it looks like a kitty to us a fierce jungle kitty! There was some native dancing, a lot of mini skirts and some singing to the drum beat.
After too much downtime the tour group sat down on benches in the Classic “ ok, time to go” posture while our guide turned his back to us and chatted with his pals for a while.
As in every group there was a couple not to be found when it was time to go so we left them and they got their own canoe ride back about ten minutes after we arrived back at the buses.
It was a wonderful unbelievable life changing experience.
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