Nuquí

Emberá communities live along the rivers that run into the Gulf of Tribugá, and most people on the coast are Afro-Colombian, descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the Chocó under Spanish rule; slavery in Colombia was abolished in 1851. Nuquí itself is young. Early in the 20th century a trader from Baudó, Juanico Castro, came with Indigenous workers in search of tagua, raicilla and rubber to sell in Panama, and the first settler families came from Buenaventura.

The village began as a dependency of El Valle, to the north. When the husband of a woman from Nuquí was named mayor of El Valle, he agreed to take the post only if the municipal seat moved to his wife's home town; the move was made in 1915, and Nuquí was formally created as a municipality by a national decree in 1917.

In recent decades the gulf has become a focus of debate over development. Plans for a deep-water port at the village of Tribugá, with a railway to Quibdó, would give inland Colombia a shorter route to the Pacific; scientists and residents have raised concerns over the port, and the gulf has been declared a 'Hope Spot' for ocean conservation.

Most people in the municipality are Afro-Colombian, and the rest belong largely to Emberá communities living along the Valle, Nuquí, Jurubidá and Panguí rivers. Both groups are strongly oriented towards conservation of the environment.

Tourism here is meant to be community-based: local people run boats, guide canoe trips through the mangroves and up the rivers, cook in the lodges and lead visitors to the hot springs, and community divers have taken part in removing abandoned fishing nets and monitoring the reefs. Visitors are guests in working villages, not in a resort.

The town is also known beyond the coast through music: members of ChocQuib Town, the hip hop and urban music group from Chocó, have their roots here, and their song 'Nuquí (Te Quiero Para Mí)' was filmed in and around the town and its beaches. Viche, the cane spirit made along the Pacific coast, is the base of many local drinks and remedies.

The municipality has about 8,100 inhabitants, of whom about 3,100 live in the town of Nuquí itself, and the rest in villages such as Arusí, Coquí, Joví, Jurubidá, Panguí, Termales and Tribugá. The town has the area's airport, hospital, secondary school and shops.

Most families live from small-scale fishing, from farming plantain, rice, cacao, maize, coconut, borojó, cassava and other crops, from small-scale livestock raising, and from ecotourism and community-based tourism. Chocó has some of the highest poverty rates in Colombia and one of the lowest standards of living of any department.

On the coast, life follows the tides and the boats, which link the villages with the town. During the whale season, from June to November, the lodges fill and much of the local economy turns to visitors, while the debate over the planned port at Tribugá, and what it would mean for fishing and tourism, concerns many families.

Nuquí's food is that of the Chocó coast: fish and shellfish from the gulf, plantain, rice and coconut. Encocado is fish or seafood cooked in coconut sauce, and tapao is fish stewed with green plantain. Ark clams are an important food for the coastal communities, and fish is often simply fried and served with plantain and rice.

The forest and the farms supply fruit. Chontaduro, the fruit of the peach palm, is boiled and eaten with salt; borojó, a fruit grown in the villages, is made into juices, jams and sweets; and coconut appears in rice, sweets and drinks. Palms such as chontaduro remain an important source of food for the communities around the gulf. Viche, the local cane spirit, is drunk on its own or mixed with fruit juices.

Most visitors eat in their lodge, where meals are usually included and built around the day's catch. In the town, a few small restaurants serve the same coastal cooking.