By Shirley Linde, SmallShipCruises.com

We were 16 days on the cruise and 10 of them were on jungle rivers or exploring wildlife in some way. The wake-up calls on exploration days sometimes came at 5:30 a.m., with passengers having a quick breakfast of fruit, melon and pastries, then boarding zodiacs and heading for the shores or tributaries of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers. Many days there were two scheduled zodiac trips, one in the morning and one in late afternoon, to check out wildlife or to visit local villages.

This is not a casino/cabaret/dancing-till-dawn kind of  cruise. It’s an ecotourism-style voyage on the Clipper Adventurer, the expedition ship of Clipper Cruise Line that was a former Russian research and passenger ship. Renovated and refurbished, carrying naturalists and culturists as guides and lecturers, the ship now takes 122 passengers (max) on adventure cruises into off-the-beaten-path places where big ships don’t go.  Read about the rest of the adventure here.

By Irene Edwards & Kelly Galaski

Our venture into indigenous culture began when our guide picked us up from our hotel in Panama City and it took about 30 minutes to get to the dock on the Chagres river in order to take a boat to the Embera village.

Men dressed in loincloths waited in canoes to take people across the river to the village.  The boat ride takes about 20 minutes – depending if you are in a motorized canoe called a “piragua,” or more traditional one. 

The women were waiting in the village, where there were people playing drums and other instruments. The area has several small villages, with about six families each.  There are small artisan shops to buy the colorful fabrics and jewelry made by the women. Their food comes from the surrounding river and forests and their own farms, such as fresh fish, plantains, and yucca (yummy!).  
Their houses are small thatched-roof open huts. The men were in charge of the music while the women performed a traditional dance.  The delicious lunch was fried tilapia and “Patacones” which are fried flattened plantains, all served on banana leaves.  Tourism here is managed by a community association that works with tour operators to bring visitors to the community to boost their income. Sometimes travelers stay with villagers for a night or two to really get the experience.   
The website for the community association, Embera Drua describes the history of how they began inviting people to their community, how they first received assistance from the Panama Tourism Board, the World Bank and local NGOs with training and to be connected with tour operators. Most of the adult members of the village are part of the association/NGO and they have elected a board of directors to work with the tour operators. They speak of the benefits tourism brings so that they can send their children to secondary school, pay for healthcare, and purchase cooking equipment and supplies. 

It has become pretty popular with lots of buses around at the docks. Some people argue that this type of tourism is exploitative, and others argue that it supports the communities. Depending on how the association manages the income and how the village residents feel, both sides could have some truth. We would like to pose the question to our readers.  Do you think that communities such as the Embera Drua are benefiting from having visitors to their villages and homes?

By Kelly Galaski

Have you ever experienced a vacation that stayed not only in your memories, but in your heart?  Have you had the chance to interact with people, to get to know locals and feel a part of their family - an authentic cultural experience?  I had this opportunity last year in Costa Rica and my life is forever changed. I have more than friends there now, I have a home, with a family that cares for me like their own.

When I first arrived in Costa Rica in January 2008 I found myself in a kitchen surrounded by rapidly-speaking Spanish family members and felt pretty lost and a little scared. But from day 1 I was treated like a special guest. And each day I was able to communicate more, and meet more people - neighbors and friends that made me feel welcome in these small communities of Santa Elena and Quizarra, in the Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor.

The Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor is named for the famous ornithologist, Alexander Skutch (a bird biologist) that lived in the area on a private farm-turned-nature-preserve for 60 years studying the diverse bird and wildlife of the area.  The “corridor” is the area between two nature preserves, the Los Cusingos Bird Sanctuary - where Skutch lived, and the Las Nubes Forest Preserve - a cloud forest donated to York University for conservation and research. There are several small farming communities all connected by coffee and sugar cane farms, small community centers, soccer fields, churches and schools.  The people here love to host volunteers, students and birdwatchers, and anyone interested in preserving their beautiful environment and learning about their culture.

I was fortunate to stay with two families, the Hidalgo-Blanco family and the Valverde-Godinez family, as well as spend lots of time with Luis Angel Rojas at La Escondida “the hidden farm.” All in all I had 4 sisters, 3 brothers, 2 nieces, 2 nephews and two sets of parents/friends!  They filled me up with yummy breakfasts of eggs and “gallo pinto” - Costa Rica’s native dish of rice & beans, Lizano sauce, cilantro, celery & red pepper all mixed together. I had lots of lunches of garlic fish fillets (my favorite), pastas, fried plantains and “frescos” - fresh blended juices. There was also no shortage of fresh avocados from the tree outside and other fruits and vegetables from the farm. And I certainly can’t forget the “cafecitos” (pronounced cafe-sitos), which means literally little coffees, which are afternoon coffee breaks that I had almost every day around 3 o’clock chatting with my “mom” and friends.

Walking along there were always offers of rides from neighbors, and invitations to community meetings, festivals, and dances. The communities are small and friendly, everyone knowing each other, so it is one of the safest parts of the country.

Till this day I keep in touch with the friends I made there, who helped me learn Spanish, and made me feel like a part of their world in rural Costa Rica.  Since being back I have wanted to help more people experience this special place, as well as give back to these wonderful people. So I helped create an itinerary that brings people to the area for a couple of days, to stay in a small cabin on a private sustainable coffee farm,  “La Escondida,” where toucans and monkeys come to play in the mornings and evenings, among tons of other colorful bird species.  Travelers can meet the “mom” I lived with, Sidey, and have a traditional food cooking lesson learning how to make tortillas or another dish. They can go with a local guide through the Los Cusingos Bird Sanctuary and spot white-faced capuchin monkeys as well as see Alexander Skutch’s home and ancient mysterious petroglyphs. They can also visit another good friend Pablo, on his farm “Santuario Filaverde” where he gives a tour of his primary forest that he is trying to protect from encroaching pineapple plantations. See the full description of the trip, Costa Rica Cultural Experience, here which can be modified to suit individual tastes.

Another opportunity for those that are looking to volunteer for a longer period of time, for the summer between years of school or just for an international experience, a “Teaching English and Environmental Conservation” voluntour was set up with uVolunteer.org. Students or other volunteers can stay with a family and help out the schools and community groups who are trying to learn English by providing lessons as well as work with a tree nursery group on conservation activities - all while learning Spanish and experiencing the real heart of Costa Rica.

For further information on visiting the area, contact us at GreenSpot.travel, we would be happy to help you contribute to this special community.

Ever wondered what exactly ecotourism is? How it gets developed? Many countries use ecotourism as a tool to conserve protected areas as well as provide supplemental income to people that often live in rural communities nearby protected areas.  One of the best ways to learn about a process is to follow someone’s journey through it.

The founder of The International Ecotourism Society, and principal of EplerWood International, Megan Epler Wood, is going through that very process right now. She is in Bangladesh, working with local people on an ecotourism strategy for the Teknaf Peninsula on the Bay of Bengal. You can follow her blog, A Day in the Life of an Ecotourism Consultant, which started in January. She is now on her second trip, exploring among other fascinating parts of the country the famous Sundarbuns, where the world’s largest population of Bengal tigers resides.

Already since I’ve been back I’ve seen news about Colombia, negative news regarding conflicts in parts of the country. Unfortunately this is the image Colombia has had for a long time and continues to have. Of course there are problems in the country. But I would like people to know that you can go there and have an amazing trip and meet wonderful people, never knowing or being exposed to any of these things that are reported on by the media.

After travelling from the capital city of Bogotá, to the beautiful islands of San Andrés and Providencia with their unique Caribbean culture, to the fascinating colonial city of Cartagena and to Tayrona National Park, my interests were piqued - and I couldn’t have imagined what more the country had to offer.

Our trade show in Bogotá gave me the chance to meet the many tour operators who have picked the best places in the country to visit. There is the desert of Guajira, the archaological sites of San Augustín, the Amazon region, the Pacific coast where there are ecolodges and whale watching and surfing, the colonial and modern cities, the coffee regions where some of the world’s best coffee comes from, and I could go on. I hope I have the opportunity to go back one day and explore some more.

I wanted to thank Proexport, the Colombian government for inviting us on the trip, the hotels we stayed at, the amazing restaurants we ate at (still can’t get that yummy food out of my head!), and the fun dive instructors we had. And a special thanks to Lorena Zapata for being our group’s leader, making sure we got everywhere we had to get to on time as much as possible and for being flexible with all of us, who each had different interests and independent personalities!  Lorena invited me into her home and became a great friend. She and her family, who moved to Bogota from Ecuador 10 years ago and fell in love with the country, charged me with becoming an Ambassador to Colombia! So I am attempting to fulfill my promise, with pleasure.

Here are a few more random pics of our “Chiva” driver in Bogota, Punta Faro, Cartagena, and sunset at Taganga.