being striped by natives, painted purple, and covered in beads.

so i cant really even begin to tell you about the rest of my day with the naso right now because so much has happened since my last blog!!!... you will just have to hear all of that when you ask me about my trip. I also must preface this blog with two a. there is a line of people waiting for the internets b. this story is much better in person, acompanied by photos. But before I get to the good stuff, let me say that before we went to the darien gap we went to panama city... and surprise of all surprisas... it was a citudad... verdad. There are billboards, flat screen tv´s, iced coffee, stores i cant afford ( yes I found the latin american version of anthropologie... it is via vae ) , it is crazy... things are open 24 horas. So anyways after nightclubbing, eating octopus with purple olive sauce, and shopping... we headed to the infamous darien gap... well I mean as lose as you can get without being kidnaped or paying a guide 500 dollars. I mean we couldnt travel through all of central america and then go to panama and not see the end of the pan american highway.... so we traveled to yavitza its a good thing we did not listen to lonly planet who called yavitza unremarkable. When we got there there were tons of interesting friendly people. Of course i dropped off my backpack and picked up my camera. I had seen a woman with a neon colored wrap skirt, When we got to yavitza there were tons of people wearing them, I had a hunch that they were indigenous... so like any good photographer when i saw a woman with a skirt ... i followed her... to her house. at which point i asked her to come in and ended having a 20 min talk with her about the embera... yeah thats right the tribe i though was inpossible to find in the darien without paying an arm and a leg for a guide was right under my nose! i ended up buying a wrap skirt from her and then ... shock of all shocks they offered to paint us with jagua fruit! Megan and I were so excited! they told us to return at six, so after exsploring and getting a bit closer to the gap, and discovering a whole embera comunity, we returned at six, and got painted. it was amazing. They told us not to shower for one night. So we eagarly followed instructions, and much to our surprise we woke up in the morning covered in purple splotches.... what they did not tell us was that the jagua gets darker over night and soaks in more... but when it is still tacky it transfers and then stains.... it was absolutly hilarious everywhere our arms rested while we slept was covered in dark purple splotches.... luckily both of us dont rest our face on our arms.... after that hilarious mornings we put our purple splotchy bodies on a bus for a few hours and checked in to our hostel in torti and hoped a 5 min bus the next morning to ipeti embera... which was amazing. we wandered around inviting ourselves into peoples houses.... which were crazy... and a but scary, they were on stilts, and the floor was made of palm tree fibers, i kind of felt like i was going to fall through everyones houses, oh and you clibed up a log to get in them, on of the first few houses we invited ourselves into was marias... she and her boyfriend were sitting in a hammock making baskets. After a interesting lengthy conversation she showed us all of her crafts, then pictures of their traditional dance that they do in the wrap skirts topless, covered in beaded necklaces and jagua paint, the she showed us the beads, then she offered us the opertunity to try them on.... on her porch... I of course said yes and maria and her mother exuberantly and as modestly as possible striped me down on their porch and dressed me in traditional embera dress.... while megan took photos... and then megan followed suit... the pictures really say it all ask me to see them when i get back in a few days. Then maria after we were dressed showed us more necklaces and then gave us earings she had made, we tried to pay but she insisted they were a gift, we both bought some baskets, and then she asked for my phone number, i dont know that she will ever use it but I was touched none the less. After more exsploring we stumbled upon the cultural house, and some women insisted on feeding us for free, then after that delightful lunch we exsplored more meeting amazing people and taking photos... i kind of want to live with this group and always wear just beads and a wrap skirt and purple dye, and make amazing photo essays. The next day we went to ipeti kuna... the kuna dont speak english or spanish, they speak kuna, and understand spanish but refuse to speak it, which is cool, i used the lonley planet guide and spoke kuna... and they gave us the cold shoulder as lonley planet warned.... lets hope they are a bit nicer on san blas... the islands that they own and inhabit... because that is where we are headed next.... and then the adventure finally comes to a close... three days in san blas two in panama city and then back to the states.... however i must say as sad as i am to leave i am sooooooo excited for philly!!!