Embera Village Overnight

Spending a few hours in an Embera Indigenous Community is fine, but staying for the afternoon and night, waking up in the heart of the jungle is a totally different experience.

The Chocoe Indigenous group is divided in two smaller groups: Wounaan and Embera. They originally came from the ancient Colombia over 300 years ago, and settled down mainlyin the Darien Jungle, basically the main difference is the language.

Their costumes are similar: both groups use blowguns for hunting, men wear loincloth, and women wear skirts (“parumas”) and bare breasts. Their housing system consists of high houses on stilts with roofs of palm leaf called “tambos”; they decorate their body using a fruit juice called “jagua” and have skills for carving wood and tagua and making baskets.

An early pick up and tranfer to the community of Nuevo Vigia to board a dug-out canoe. Continue in the Alajuela Lake, which is the second largest man-made lake of Panama. Upon arrival, explore the community, their traditions and culture, while our tour guide provides information on this ethnic group.

Admire the famous “Taguas”, which are small sculptures made from a seed that due to its solid texture has been given the name of vegetal ivory. The Embera are also unique wood carvers and they specially carve the precious Cocobolo tree wood. They are also fantastic basket weavers; sometimes they spend several days in just one piece. In short, their handcrafts are real art pieces and they are available for you to be purchased.

During your visit, the Embera will perform a welcome flute dance. After lunch and rest, return to the river and, if desired, you can swim and enjoy the cool waters of the river.

After a typical diner, let’s share more about traditions with the groups of women and men: around the fire camp (no electricity there) cultural chats. Night in the traditional huge hut just dedicated to you with personal mattress unless you feel like sleeping in a hammock like Indigenous do.

Waking up with the bird’s songs and the strange noises of unknown animals of the forest is something really unique. After breakfast, the Botanist will take you to the forest and show you some of the plants he uses to cure his patients. Maybe one more bath/swim in the river playing with kids and then it’ll time to go back to “civilization”…

Duration: 2 days and 1 night (you can do only 1 day> link)

Departure time: 8h00 (day 1)

Return time: approximately at noon (day 2)

It includes

Accommodation

3 meals

Roundtrip ground transportation

Not included

Water

Private guide

National Park entrance 5.00 $ per person

---

---

---

Booking Details:

---