DESTINATIONS CENTRAL AMERICA | ACTIVE & ADVENTURE
EXPEDITION HIGHLIGHTS
E The culture: Meeting the Emberá tribe in the Darién jungle and seeing how the Guna Yala live on Panama’s Caribbean coast. These places are not staged tourist traps; both encounters felt meaningful and authentic.
E The unexpected: One night, the crew dropped anchor off Isla del Rey on Panama’s Pearl Islands and set up a bar and canapes on a deserted beach for sunset cocktails. This was the embodiment of luxury.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Guna Yala Islands; Emberá village; Safari Voyager at Granito de Oro; capuchin monkey, Curú Wildlife Refuge; mangroves tour in Costa Rica PICTURES: UnCruise; David Beebe; Shutterstock
and lawless border between Panama and Colombia. Just after dawn, we piled into a fleet of wooden dugouts and chugged for an hour up the muddy Mogue River, our wake creating gentle ripples along the spindly roots of the mangroves. Distant drumming echoed over the water, a sign that we were nearing the village of the Emberá, one of Panama’s seven indigenous tribes. The Emberá live off the land, fishing and raising pigs and chickens. They make an income from selling exquisitely woven palm-fibre baskets and beaded jewellery. Buying this at source turned out to be a wise move; a medium-sized basket cost $60, but I saw one for $600 in a posh gallery later in the trip. We watched their tribal dances, chatted to them in bad Spanish and lined up for body painting; the Emberá adorn their skin with geometric designs in the black juice of the jagua fruit, which lasts for a few days.
PANAMA CANAL
Leaving the wilderness was a culture shock for me, with the skyscrapers of Panama City looming just beyond the entrance to the canal. We made the 40-mile transit from Pacific to Caribbean at night, kicking off with a barbecue on deck
as Safari Voyager slid under the Bridge of the Americas at sunset, squeezing into the Miraflores locks in the shadow of an enormous cargo ship. Sailing through the canal on a small ship
really gives you a sense of the scale of the project, and some passengers stayed up most of the night to watch.
GUNA YALA
Our voyage ended with two days in the dreamy Guna Yala archipelago, formerly known as the San Blas Islands. Here, the Guna tribe farm coconuts on 365 tiny sand islands and catch lobsters to sell to passing yachts. Like the Emberá, they’re famed for their
handicrafts; in this case, intricate mola, embroidered panels that the women wear on their blouses, and which sell for up to $50 each. I snorkelled for hours over vast underwater landscapes of walls, coral reefs and drop-offs, stingrays shimmying gracefully along the sandy ocean floor. Back on the beach, the only sound was the lapping of waves and the occasional thud of a falling coconut. Pura vida, indeed.
TW
E The history: The Panama Canal is fascinating, but there’s much more. On Panama’s Caribbean coast, we wandered round ramshackle village Portobelo, once a stop on the trade routes of gold, silver and pearls, and still guarded by a crumbling 17th-century fort. In 1596, Sir Francis Drake died here of dysentery and was buried at sea in a lead-lined coffin, which has never been found.
BOOK IT
The season runs from November to May, when it’s still hot and humid but less rainy. UnCruise Adventures’ next Pure Panama & Costa Rica 12-night expedition departs Panama City on April 8, 2020, and costs £7,435. The price includes flights, all meals and drinks, transfers, tours and activities. In the UK, agents can book through Travel 2 or specialist operator Windows on the Wild (
windowsonthewild.com). For direct trade enquiries, contact Seattle-based UnCruise Adventures on
sales@uncruise.com
travelweekly.co.uk 17 OCTOBER 2019 71
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