I thought - all those guys that read Maxim Magazine for the advice - wouldn’t this be their dream? But the forwardness gives me the courage to ask the questions I didn’t read about in the ethnologues. “Which island,” I tell Mary to translate, “has the hottest women?” The men all have different opinions, and I ask, “Do they ever get the hots for tourists?”
Yes, of course they say. It’s just that it’s not likely that the tourists will like us.
Romerio lifts the rum bottle and takes a seat next to me, pouring the two of us a double shot. Tomorrow, he says, everyone will be away at the runway or fishing. It’s just you and me, he says. I say, let’s go far. Lets go up the river and into the jungle. Show me your corn, show me your crops. The cemetery and your hunting outposts.
Next morning, Romerio and I motor along the ocean, and then slowly upriver, our bow brimming past the sail cayucos and the paddling cayucos. Our boat sticks occasionally on a rock, and we have to get out and push the heavy log-hull free.
We approach the part of the river where the water is no longer brackish. Kuna are washing their clothes, scrubbing them against their cayuco. Others are fishing or filling their boats with today’s crop of bananas and corn. This is where you cut the motor and tie the cayuco to a tree.
We wade upriver. We cross through the jungle, where the mud is so thick that it suctions my sandals in a way that makes them dig into my skin. We trudge on until we meet up with the river again. Here, the water is fast running, and fresh enough to drink.
We cross into the jungle again. Now I can finally spot their agriculture - corn is intercropped in the jungle; in small spaces. Enough for one family. Pineapple heads grow here and there. There are trails interconnecting every family plot of land, and tributaries connecting more and more.
We continue up for the mountains. The sandals have cut bleeding wounds into my skin now, so I remove them and walk barefoot through the mud. An old man, an old woman and a young boy are all carrying plantain bunches on their backs.
So this is how they do it. Although the Kuna live on tiny islands with small properties, they own land on the mainland. They have bounteous harvests.
