The Darien Gap

Wednesday January 14

Today we visited a village of the Embera people, an indigenous tribe of Amazonian descent. Most Embera live deep in the jungle along the rivers of the Darien Gap. This is the only Embera village near the coastline, founded to enable the children to have a government primary school. We took zodiacs to Playa Muerto (the beach of death)— so named because in stormy weather the landing is very difficult. Fortunately today was calm and beautiful! 

We enjoyed presentations from the village elders, the local band (named Hurricanes of the Pacific) and dancers. We also had a chance to view and purchase wonderful handcrafts— carvings, baskets, jewelry and other items. Afterwards our group split up to take walks of varying lengths. 

We opted for the “slowest group of the medium hike” so that we could take advantage of a great birding naturalist on the staff. We walked about 5 miles, much of it through the “farm fields” of the village. The villagers clear the understory of the forest but leave the large trees intact. They grown “robusto” coffee, bananas and their other crops in the shade of the trees. We crossed the Playa Muerto River several times (sometimes up to our knees). We saw Panamanian Night Monkeys and Geoffrey’s Tamarins, the two smallest monkeys in Panama. We also saw or heard over 30 species of birds, including two that were new to us. 

The “Darien Gap” is famous in human migration stories. It is literally a “gap in the Pan American highway system” of about 60 miles. The road was never finished because the Darien is an ethnographic and natural treasure. As a result, it is impassable in a car; to get around the gap you must ship your car between Panama and Colombia while you fly or take a ship to meet up with it. The Darien has had (for centuries) a reputation for being dangerous from every aspect— jungle, snakes, outlaws, diseases— but it covers the land connection from South America to Central America, which explains its importance in migration sagas.

Pictured: Panamanian Night Monkeys, Golden-headed Manakin, jumping Geoffrey’s tamarin, Blue-throated Goldentail (hummingbird), Embera man in traditional dress