23rd Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Travel
River Community

Deep in Panama’s Chagres National Park, an Emberá community sits along the oxbow bends of the river that sustains it. A lone canoe departs the village, tracing the same route Indigenous families have used for generations. Seen from above, the settlement appears almost swallowed by rainforest, its scale a reminder of how closely life here is intertwined with the land.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 02.2025
Date Uploaded: 12.2025
Photo Location: Panama
Copyright: © Alex Visbal