Day 6 - February 2, 2011

First, a lecture by naturalist Ivan Hoyos on "The Embera - Masters of the Darien".  We learned about their customs and practices, preparing for our visit to their village.  The Embera people live in the Darien of Panama and the Choco in Columbia.  These indigenous people wear little clothing and live simply. They create baskets woven from palm fiber and carvings of wood and palm nuts. They paint elaborate tattoos on themselves.

The Darien has been named a World Biosphere Reserve and a Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Due to the height of the waves near their village, we went instead to their gathering place, a structure where they meet and dance.  Each zodiac had an Embera man to guide and a French sailor as the pilot.  Amazing non-verbal communication got us to shore.






We experienced the most extravagant welcome by these people.  A welcome party of men played music, while the women led the way to the "hill" we needed to climb.  One woman took my arm to help me up the hill and then when I didn't need help, held my hand.  Bill had two "helpers". The kids were so cute and had fun waiting for us to gather.

(Photo by Bob Savage)

We were treated to a wonderful welcome speech by the chief (translated to Spanish and then to English). Then the men played instruments and the women and girls danced, some playing drums.

Interestingly, the border patrol was ever-present on the edges of the festivities.  They were protecting the Embera people.

In the afternoon, naturalist Roberto Medina shared a lecture on "The Canal Expansion".

This project is intended to accommodate the largest container ships through the canal as well as increased traffic.The program consists in the construction of two new sets of locks - one set on the Pacific and one set on the Atlantic side of the Canal. This means there will be one new channel in addition to the existing two.  Each lock will have three chambers and water saving basins. The program also includes widening and deepening of existing navigational channels in Gatun Lake and the deepening of Culebra Cut.  The plan is to finish the expansion in 2014. The new lock chambers will be 1,400 ft (426.72 m) long, by 180 ft (54.86 m) wide, and 60 ft (18.29 m) deep. They will use rolling gates instead of miter gates, which are used by the existing locks. The new locks will use tugboats to position the vessels instead of locomotives.