Tribal Villages - Part 1

Truly the journey is the destination. . .our journey started at 4:30 a.m. on July 9 - we got dropped off at the central bus station and we were off by 5:30 a.m. Thankfully there were some comfortable seats on the school bus (named Brigitte) that we took for the next 8 hours or so. Most of us tried to get in a few extras zzz's, lulled to sleep by the Latin music piped through the entire bus. We literally arrived at the end of the road - the roads stop at a certain point before Columbia in an attempt to curb the drug trafficking. The further we went into the Darien province, the most frequently we were stopped and had to show our passports. At the 3rd stop, we were detained for a 1/2 hour because they did not want to let a group of 7 foreign white girls (and Tulio, our leader) into the area. There are issues of Columbian gurillas (not the monkey variety), so they were simply concerned for our safety. But they did let us through and so on we ventured. We took a boat (aka - large canoe with a motor) for another hour before arriving at our first village at 4:30 p.m. - 12 hours of travel and we had finally arrived at our destination!