national navy has organized everything for us to travel to Bahía Málaga, from there a Coast Guard boat will take us to Juanchaco, where Atanasia Gamboa, leader of the community and the Ebony Women’s Association, awaits.

The experience of the Ship starts from the moment we arrive at the dock, we enter and there is a small delay on the way but the sun still does not rise and we are already traveling to our destination. We have hope to take advantage of all the time we can with the locals, to contact the indigenous community and to know much more about our host.

Once we went to sea, the team took the opportunity to take shots, everything looks different when the land moves away. The trip is a bit slower than it would be by boat, but it’s worth it, it’s quiet and comfortable. As we woke up so early it is a more than appropriate space to rest.

We arrived at Bahía Málaga at 8 in the morning, then it happened… What was a small problem at the entrance to the ship has now become a delay for our itinerary. In the authorization process, something went wrong and we cannot leave the waiting area of the National Navy base.

Restless, after exploring our possibilities, we called our contact in Juanchaco to inform him that it will not be possible for us to arrive soon. Hours pass … We don’t know what to do… We want to get there but the afternoon is approaching and we can’t get out of Bahía Málaga, we’re frustrated and think we’ll have to return without having achieved our goal …. The managers and our contacts who have been communicating trying to solve everything, finally reach an agreement, we can continue our journey.

Doña Atanasia receives us, she has had infinite patience waiting for us, we thank her, unfortunately we will have to make a much shorter visit than we anticipated and we will not be able to go with her to Ladrilleros as we initially planned.

She kindly greets us and we begin to talk, we tell her what we want to do, about our APPELLATION OF ORIGIN project and the desire that moves us to make the Pacific Culture visible. She listens carefully and as soon as we finish talking she looks at us and decides to take us to the beach.

Everything is fine – says Atanasia – here we have many processes and it is necessary to make them known, and your project sounds very nice… At this point we had gone through various stages, from the joy of knowing that she would cooperate with us to the doubt that something was up and she promptly let us know what it was.

As we walk along the beach, Atanasia Gamboa clarifies to us that they no longer believe in the beautiful things that some outsider people promise them, because they have cooperated with several and the results have not been the best. She remembers with sadness the recycling project the community was involved with, the instructions on how to do it are all over the place, just like the plastic trash. According to what she tells us, after her community collected all the material in bundles, they came to collect it and without further notice, they tore the packages to get what they were interested in, leaving all the «useless» material scattered next to the stage where the artists play at parties. Who would take care of this or what can the community do?

Talking with Cuarzo Kiro was interesting, he told us about his people, his family, his son, his daughter-in-law, some history and the presence of the Wounaan With a characteristic style of speaking these two languages, he gently tells us that they have been there for a long time, we ask him to speak to us in their language and he did. They have been here since Colombia was not Colombia and that the president himself knows that they are there before there were presidents.

At 4 in the afternoon the boat arrives again for us, we carry many stories from Juanchaco in the camera and in our minds, 3 characters: Atanasia Gamboa, Rosalbina Valencia and Cuarzo Kiro, stories that we share with you (see Logbooks Chapter 2). They are stories of family, effort and dedication. We are leaving now, with the responsibility of earning their trust.

Do you want to know more about the experiences lived on the second day of the Buenaventura Expedition? Here you will be able to hear in the protagonists voices how we got to Juanchaco.

Ombligando Pacífico! (Naveling Pacific)

Fourth Podcast of La Mochila Desgualanga’