How to visit the Emberá of Panamá

This article is about how to visit the Emberá along the Río Chagres. There is a large number of Emberá in the Darien gap near Colombia who are somewhat more traditional but also much more difficult to get to due to the inaccessibility of the region but if you have the time and resources it would make for an interesting experience.

So, along the Río Chagres are a decent amount of wood and thatch villages that house the Emberá, an indigenous tribe in Panamá, originally from Colombia that number around 1% of the country’s population.

Please whenever visiting any indigenous group like this, make sure it is a lived in community and not a practical human zoo that is exclusively set up for tourists. This promotes the continued survival of authentic ways of life especially for the Emberá. In this case there are some villages set up closer to Colon in the north for cruise passengers to visit but no one actually lives there and instead are a show of theater for tourists.

The Emberá along the Chagres live in their respective villages and are accessible for visitors for multi night stays or just day trips. The further up the river, the less tourists and more tradition.

There are a few villages who welcome travelers but some of the most famous are Parará Purú, Tusipono and Emberá Drua which is the one I visited. Usually tours run to these places for 150+ USD but it is cheaper if you arrange with a fixer from the communities themselves who is usually an someone outside the village who have a WhatsApp on their website. However in my experience it is best to continually remind them when you are arriving as mine forgot.

When you are organizing when you want to visit you have the option of a day trip to multi day trips where you stay with the Emberá overnight and go on hikes with the people there.

Once you have organized on what day you are going you can get a taxi to the docks in the Chagres National Park labeled “Puerto Corotú” on Google Maps which is about an hour away depending where you are in the city.

Since I had a much less organized experience, I can only say what I’ve heard should happen at the dock: either the community organizes someone to pick you up from the dock or if there was a communication error, someone out of the kindness of their soul will ferry you using a dugout canoe retrofitted with a motor upstream to whichever community you have organized to visit which can take about an hour or longer depending on the village.

From there sit back and enjoy the not-so relaxing but rather adventurous and beautiful ride. Whenever your visit is done, the way for getting back is the same.

Once at the dock if you have organized transportation it should be waiting but I was lucky and the locals were returning from work and school elsewhere in Panamá getting dropped off at the docks by taxis so I was able to get a taxi to Caimitillo nearby and then another back to the city.

Please when you visit though realize that no one speaks a word of English. Local Emberá languages are used and Spanish is the second language so if you want an English guide you have to arrange that beforehand. Also the Emberá view having guests as a special occasion so please do coordinate before hand with someone before visiting. They like to get prepared for their welcoming dancing ritual beforehand.

Pricing

I was able to organize a taxi to and from the docks for 20$ one way and 20$ total back from Panamá city but expect to pay more if you prearrange transportation back. Emberá Drua charges 85$ for the day trip because of food and the effort the community goes to in welcoming you with dancing, tattoos and music.

I threw in a decent sized tip to the community and paid my boat guide 50$ because of the hardships of the COVID pandemic knocking out one of the most important sources of revenue for the Emberá, tourism.

The boat guide was pretty surprised by the gesture but the fact was he offered to use his entire day to transport me upriver just out of kindness so I felt obliged to do something.