Man thongs... and other fashion no-no's

Em and Hannah stopped by for an extended weekend in February and braved the wiles of Panama with me.

Em's great - she's visited me in Venezuela and Chile and has a good idea of what to expect. Hannah, well, thank God she's a good sport, cuz we didn't take it easy on her at all.

In fact, baptism by fire tends to be the best way to acclimate someone to the eccentricities of this extremely diverse country - her baptism came in the form of a 7am visit to Man-Thong Alley. I guess the official name is the Embera Indian Community, but that doesn't really do it justice.

It's an interesting village made up of a handful of indigenous Embera Indians, who have been living on a tiny peninsula on one of the canal's lakes about an hour outside of town. Our tour guide, an Austrian named Christian set up an early morning visit whose first stop on the way to the village was the city's national forest. We pulled right off the road and caught a family of 4 howler monkeys making a fuss at us from their tree tops. Thankfully, Christian speaks monkey and was able to howl them down.



We made it to the lake and was greeted by King Man-Thong and a buddy of his. It was quite a shocker, but these guys were dressed in their traditional Indian garb that had been worn for centuries. It was truly amazing to witness their culture so alive and vibrant.





They took us by boat to their village, where the whole town came out to greet the gringos with some traditional music played on turtle-shell drums and flutes made from tree branches.






They all made us feel really welcome - even the little kids came out all dressed up in the native gear.







Supposedly, they had been living there since the 1950s, when an American who knew the chief suggested they move to this area as somewhat of a touristy experiment. They're livlihood since then has been based on bringing in pasty tourists to experience their culture first-hand.




They danced and sang for us and then they brought us in for some good 'ol Embera square dancing.






I think this one was called "The Beating of the Drum," or something...



Throughout the village, you'd stumble across subtle hints of modernizing, like this basketball net posted to a tree.






..and then you'd turn around and find more man-thongs--- they were everywhere!!!