By dugout canoe I travelled with two friends through the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador, deep into the Amazon basin. Our 10 day river journey took us from Puyo on the Rio Bobonaza, as far as Kapawi close to the Peruvian border, and from here we flew back by light aircraft.
Mostly we camped by the river, stopping at any riverside villages we passed, with several days spent in the rainforest community of Sarayaku. Originally published as individual articles, these are some of my tales from the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.
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Loading the dug-out canoe
Our guide Luiz had hired the biggest dug-out canoe on the upper river, for our journey down to Sarayaku. But we still couldn’t quite believe that all our rucksacks, food, tents, not to mention 5 of our party, plus 4 boatmen could fit in.
Oh yes, then there was the lady with her toddler who hitched a lift with us at the last minute.
As it had been raining heavily for the previous couple of days, the river was high and fast-flowing, and we were all feeling a little nervous.
When we mentioned life jackets, our guide Luiz, who had clearly not expected the water to be so high, got a local to cut down some logs of balsa wood for us to cling on to if we capsized. Then he suggested we take off our Wellington boots when in the canoe, as if we capsized, they might drag us under.
If we went overboard, he advised, we should not fight the current, but just let it take us to the riverbank. We never quite knew when Luiz was joking and when he was serious!
Luckily, we didn’t have to make use of his useful tips and made it safely, in record time down to Sarayaku.
You can listen to my podcast interview with our guide Luiz, with advice on travelling in the Ecuadorian Amazon region.
Catfish and Anaconda on the Rio Bobonaza
Accompanying us on the river trip was Ingaro, one of our guides from the rainforest community of Sarayaku. We had stopped on a sandbank to camp for the night, when a local fisherman approached to show us the two enormous catfish he had caught on that stretch of the river.
The man told us the story of how he had been fishing from that very sandbank, when he had been attacked by an Anaconda. These large boas live on the water’s edge and coil themselves round their prey and crush them to death. Luckily, his wife heard the barking of his dogs and came to rescue him by shooting the snake in the head.
The Anaconda are the creatures most feared by the local people who live by these Amazon tributaries. Later we were pointed out a muddy bank below a military post, where a soldier had been taken by one. Even so they are very rare and our guide Ingaro admitted that he had only seen one a few times in his lifetime.
As we girls walked round the curve of the sandbank to find a more private place to wash, the boatmen frantically called us back. We must stay beside the camp to wash, they advised us, and suddenly we knew the reason why.
A pet monkey in Amazon rainforest in Ecuador
What do you keep as a pet if you live in the rainforest? Not a pet snake, that’s for sure. We saw this little girl and her pet monkey in the village of Pacayaku, on our river journey down the Rio Bobonaza in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Normally these little creatures are adopted as pets when their mother has been killed in a hunt and brought back to the village as food.
Although it seems unthinkable to us to kill a species with features so close to our own, as a meat eater I can’t deny the villagers one of the few local sources of meat in their diet. You can see how irresistible these little monkeys are as pets.
A Wika tattoo
While staying in the village of Sarayacu, the children had fun painting a snake tattoo painted on my arm. The black dye is made by roasting a local fruit in the embers of the fire and grinding up the pulp to make a black ink called Wika, which is painted on with a palm stalk.
In days gone by this was used as war-paint to scare the enemy. But now children and grown-ups use it for decorating their faces & bodies, a bit like henna. These children painted a snake curving up my arm which lasted for a couple of weeks.
I was sad when my Wika snake tattoo faded away – it represented my happy memories of my time in the village of Sarayacu.
Defenders of the Rainforest
While in Sarayaku we met a young film-maker named Heriberto, the brother of our two local guides, Ingaro and Gerado who made the week-long river journey with us from Puyo down to Kapawi near the Peruvian border.
In his traditionally built family home made of wood and palm thatch, Heriberto set up his laptop (powered by solar panels) and gave us an impromptu viewing of his film Soy Defensor de la Selva (I am the defender of the rainforest).
He had been sponsored to make his film by Accion Creativa, an organisation which supports social change through the use of film and other creative media.
We were inspired to see the passion with which these ‘defenders of the rainforest’ from Sarayaku were determined to resist incursions by the oil companies, who had been granted exploration rights by the Ecuadorian government.
The community at Sarayaku strongly oppose this exploration which would destroy the rainforest and when oil workers moved into their territory, Heriberto was there to film their resistance.
The version of Heriberto’s film above is 3 minutes long, but if you’d like to see the full 15 minute film, the links are also below. It was a lesson for me in how the use of media is crucial in allowing remote communities to have a voice and take their message to the wider world.
Soy Defensor de la Selva (I am the defender of the rainforest) Part 1
Soy Defensor de la Selva (I am the defender of the rainforest) Part 2
Soy Defensor de la Selva (I am the defender of the rainforest) Part 3
Read Next
Visiting Baños in Ecuador – for warm baths and waterfalls
More about Ecuador
Ecuador and the Amazon Rainforest – Podcast
See all my Ecuador photos on Flickr
This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com
