Parque Amistad straddles the Costa Rican/Panamanian border and features rainforested highlands with 2-mile high peaks.   The climate is perfect year-round.  Cleaner water and air can not be found on Earth.

Amazingly, you can boat all the way from Panama´s Bocas del Toro up the Rio Changuinola and connect to the Rio Teribe to reach the rainforest by water.  This is the home of the Naso Kingdom, the last kingdom in Latin America.  The Naso bring sustainable agriculture to new heights. Each family farms what it needs and there are also communal farms. Here a raft carries extra produce for sale to Caribbean communities down river.

A journey into a Naso home brings shared stories, songs, dances, and food. Pure happiness and pride is evident in the absence of machines. The rainforest provides the Naso everything needed to sustain a good life. The Naso political system is a model with much to offer to the world. This is an excellent destination for children to compare and contrast the simple life with the technological life. Mine were inspired, not to give up their computers, but to view their importance in a different context.

Updates:

• 2010 – We explore some of the Naso’s neighbors near La Amistad in the post Talamanca Indigenous
• 2011 – After five years in and out of La Amistad, we’re collaborating with the Organization for the Development of Sustainable Eco-tourism for the Naso (ODESEN).  Visit Big River Foundation for details on an exciting new Watershed Ecology Program.

Tags: Bocas del Toro, eco, Eco-Lodge, ecology, forest, kayaking, Kingdom, model, Naso, Parque Amistad, rafting, rain, Rainforest, Rio Teribe, sustainability, tourism, watershed
Categories: Panama

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 6:46 am and is filed under Panama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.