Boat Ride Through the Jungle
In contrast to my trek into the jungle in
Raratonga, in Panama I rode up the Sambu River through the Darien jungle in a
cayuca (kai-u-coo), a local dug-out canoe.
My small ship anchored two miles off the
mouth of the Sambo river. Cruise ships with deep drafts are unable to reach
this point because of the shallow water in the bay to reach the river, as a
result most tourists miss this adventure. Plus the stopping point is Chunga,
meaning black palm, is a small native
village and cannot handle large crowds.
It was an early wakeup call and breakfast
before loading the cayucas. The Pacific side of the Panama Canal has a 22-foot
tide, so to transit the river one must go up river on the incoming tide and out
on the ebbing tide. At high tide there
is a 22-feet of water in the river compared to low tide’s six inches!
The Darien jungle is the boundary line
between Columbia and Panama. Much of the
jungle is neither hospitable nor navigable. Choco is the name of a Columbian
province as well as the name of a local Panamanian Indian tribe.
It took over an hour and a half to
leisurely navigate the 10-12 miles up the Sambu river through the Darien jungle.
In the cool morning it was a most pleasant ride with birds serenading nearly all
the way. Plentiful lush greenery grew on both sides of the 200-yard wide river.
A few logs floated in the murky water.
I heard toucans and parrots in the trees,
but they were too high in the canopy to
be seen. But I did see pelicans, ibis, egrets, kingfishers, and herons. It was
amazing that bugs were not a problem, nor
flies or mosquitoes either!
The ride down the river a few hours later
was a very hot one. Such visits are absolutely determined by the tides. It was
a pleasant morning and an extremely interesting
visit which will follow when I talk about people.
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