Following Isabela Godin
Isabela Godin was also the first known woman to travel the length of the river and her story was retold along the river as each landmark of her tragic story was reached.
This was an arduous, colourful and sometimes dangerous expedition. We travelled through deep jungle and principally Kichwa, Achuar, Candozi and |
Quechuan Indian land, these tribes have historically never got on. We travelled by wooden dug-out and aluminium canoes, small motor boats and once on the Maranon and Amazon River itself, public ferry boats. The local people we met were friendly, vibrant and diverse and we considered ourselves privileged to have spent time with them.
|
We left from Quito in the Andes and on to the Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon, full of birds, wildlife, flora and fauna but sometimes a moonscape of destruction was encountered, as the dark side of modern decimation and contamination of the Amazon Basin was witnessed.
The Amazon is the greatest river in the world and one of the longest and our team travelled its entire 4,200 miles length; starting at the Chambo as a |
stream, near Banos in Ecuador to Brazil, where the Amazon River can stretch to nearly 7 miles wide. Jacki and team member David succeeded in completing the journey without the assistance of fast boats or cabins.
The team were interested in documenting changes on the Amazon River since the early explorers, principally La Condamine, Jean Godin and later Isabela Godin, all from the 18th century. |
Many thanks to our wonderful sponsors
Team members
Jacki Hill-Murphy:
Jacki has spent the past few years exploring and filming some of the most inhospitable and remote places on earth; she enjoys sharing these experiences in speaking engagements, making films and her writing.
In 2007 Jacki left her job as an English and Drama teacher and set off down the Bobonaza in the Amazon Basin in a dug-out canoe. This became the first adventure in her project to recreate the journeys of the early women explorers; spurred on by the fusion of amazing, unsung women from history and her love of travel. So far Jacki has recreated journeys in Ecuador, Cameroon, Ladakh and Siberia. Jacki has been dreaming of this journey down the entire length of the Amazon for some years, she will be documenting the changes she sees in the region since the first explorers travelled along the route through photography and writing. |
Art Huseonica:
Ever since Art was ten years old, he has loved learning about survival, peoples of the world, their culture and geography. He has tested his ever-increasing survival skills. He has traveled to or lived in Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, the lower 48 USA, South America (Ecuador 2x), Greenland, Caribbean, and Iceland. Plus, sailed with the US Navy the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
Art’s most recent adventure was also his most difficult one. As part of a team of seven people, he enrolled in Bear Grylls’ survival academy in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. One of Art’s goals on this expedition is to satisfy his desire to document the sanitation habits of Indians and other locals in villages and small towns. He is also interested in learning more about how communication between villages and towns has changed with the proliferation of cell phone |
technology and the Internet. Lastly, fitting his nature, he is looking for another challenge that will satisfy his constant need to learn more about countries, cultures, and peoples.
David Parker:
David is an experienced and passionate Explorer, Marine Biologist and lover of all things Wild. His particular interest lies in driving positive changes in the way we look after and utilise our natural environment without compromising the needs of society, especially those who depend upon nature the most.
He holds an honours degree in Marine Biology and an MSc in Environmental Management & Conservation and Practical qualifications including a Day Skipper Sailing Licence, Powerboat license, Advanced Open Water SCUBA Diving and the four fishing tickets required to work on commercial fishing vessels including firefighting and first aid at sea. His current employment involves creating positive change in the marine environment globally as the head of sustainability for a seafood company in the UK. Previously David has worked in the environmental NGO sector working on marine |
conservation issues forWWF and The Marine Conservation Society. He has also worked as a biologist for the Welsh Government and the South Wales Inshore Fisheries Management Committee, as Crab & Lobster fishermen in the Bristol Channel and enjoyed a sabbatical on a small island off Tanzania protecting coral reefs and helping to develop a sustainable fishery for the locals.
David has often dreamed about experiencing and exploring the natural flora and fauna of what is one of the last bastions of pristine wilderness on our planet, the Amazon. When he heard about the opportunity to realise this aspiration combined with a real opportunity to help to drive positive change here for people and planet he jumped at the chance. The fact that this expedition involves following in the historical footsteps of the little known yet intrepid and brave female explorer Isabella Godin with five like-minded courageous individuals really adds the icing on the cake for him!
David has often dreamed about experiencing and exploring the natural flora and fauna of what is one of the last bastions of pristine wilderness on our planet, the Amazon. When he heard about the opportunity to realise this aspiration combined with a real opportunity to help to drive positive change here for people and planet he jumped at the chance. The fact that this expedition involves following in the historical footsteps of the little known yet intrepid and brave female explorer Isabella Godin with five like-minded courageous individuals really adds the icing on the cake for him!
Mauro Fernandes Barbosa:
Brazilian native from the surroundings of the crowded São Paulo, southeast region of the country, Mauro is a recently graduated mechanical engineer who found himself not fit for the enclosed space fixed time work. Realising that he witnessed less of his own country than other continents and in need to find a new path to follow, he decided to leave the roads and think remote. That’s when he heard about the opportunity to join Jacki`s team.
Although outdoor activities such as trekking and diving are among his spare time activities, this expedition raises a new level of challenge to him. Mauro is very excited to learn new skills from experienced explorers such as Jacki and the other team mates, while fulfilling his role of bringing a native insight about the Amazon matters. |
Rebecca Webb:
Rebecca grew up in rural Australia and has a passion for the wild, the outdoors and adventure and has travelled extensively. After living in a rainforest in the Northern Territory in 2006 she decided to travel solo overland from Australia to the UK without catching a plane. In 2008 she spent 6 months in Central American exploring the jungle and satisfying her fetish for volcanoes. In 2011 she climbed Kilimanjaro and in 2013 Rebecca joined Jacki in her expedition across far Eastern Europe following the footsteps of early female explorer, Kate Marsden.
She is also training to become a recreational pilot. Both her grandmother and grandparents were pilots, flying their own Beachcraft Bonanza around the world in the 1970s and since a young age Rebecca has been keen to do the same and is in the process of learning to pilot gliders. Rebecca holds a bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Biomedical Science and Masters in Philosophy of Science. She has been practicing as a Child Protection Lawyer for the past 10 years. Through her travels, particularly throughout South |
Eastern Asia and China she became increasingly passionate about the environment and saddened by deforestation and unsustainable development in the pursuit of economic growth. Early next year she will be heading to Nepal to engage in charity work to rebuild damaged housing and improve clean water supplies following the 2015 earthquake.
Whilst throughout the journey down the Amazon she is interested researching the impact that government enforced oil drilling and logging is having on the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and their environment. She will also document the journey through her sketch book.
Whilst throughout the journey down the Amazon she is interested researching the impact that government enforced oil drilling and logging is having on the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and their environment. She will also document the journey through her sketch book.
Joining the second leg of the expedition:
Laura Withers:
Laura works hard to balance her career as a surgeon with her desire to travel the world. Upon finishing her surgical training she began working with Doctors Without Borders and has served in projects in Papua New Guinea, Haiti, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic. She was drawn to work in the context of violence and disaster out of a deep respect for the resilience of the human spirit. She also enjoys teaching medical and surgical skills to those that will use them long after she has gone. Laura has made time to travel for her own enjoyment to many diverse and fascinating places. She especially enjoys traveling slowly and taking time to get to know people and their culture.
|
Laura is excited about this adventure in a region of the world that is new to her. The combination of historical perspective, environmental awareness and modern culture in an area that is changing so quickly makes this a particularly fascinating journey.
Laura is looking forward to studying the health issues facing the local people. From mosquito borne illnesses that are grabbing to headlines to daily nutrition changes as processed foods and environmental changes alter the diet the Amazon is a bellwether for the health of the planet as a whole.
Laura is looking forward to studying the health issues facing the local people. From mosquito borne illnesses that are grabbing to headlines to daily nutrition changes as processed foods and environmental changes alter the diet the Amazon is a bellwether for the health of the planet as a whole.
Bruce Couillard:
After retiring from a career as an air traffic control manager for the Federal Aviation Administration Bruce has had time to embrace life as a musician and traveller. He is a multi-instrumentalist who focuses primarily on flute and saxophone, an instrument he took up at age 13. When he began composing in his late teens he was drawn to exploring the music of other cultures and traditions. Most recently he was fortunate to spend three months in Bhutan, where he taught at the Himalayan School of Music. Bruce is also an instrument rated commercial, single/multi-engine and seaplane pilot and an avid dancer (swing and Latin).
Bruce is inspired by adventure and challenge. He is looking forward to putting his past study in Environmental Sciences to use while documenting the wildlife along the river. He is also excited to experience the sights and sounds of the Amazon. He is looking forward to exploring the region’s modern, popular music and to tracking down traditional music as well. |
Travelling the Length of the Amazon Expedition
- The Children of the River
by Jacki Hill-Murphy
- The Children of the River
by Jacki Hill-Murphy
You notice the children first: round faced, doe-eyed with healthy glowing brown skin, looking up from a simple task that they work at fervently – a task that must be completed efficiently because life in the village is a group effort and even they play their part. Their hands are in muddy river water soaping clothes, carrying a younger sibling in a cotton sling on their backs or peeling cassava in a plastic bowl, or they are sitting barefoot in the hot sun flicking at the sand flies. These are the children of the Amazon River, beautiful, lively and totally adept at living in a harsh environment. As our slim-line canoe bobbed its way towards the wet black sand of the bank of a small village the children would always be watching us – wary and distant at first.
|
Silently looking down at the ‘gringos’ descending upon their world, closed and secretive to outsiders. Who were we and what did we want? Their faces questioned. Often they ran away, leaving small puffs of dust from their naked feet and we would see a head pop over the parapet of a glassless window or from behind the wooden stilts their house was built on. One, two and then more, laughing and spying on us as we approached; we smiled and waved and if we were invited to sit down with their village elders to share a beer they would slowly creep closer – before laughing and running away.
|
Deep in the dark and impenetrable forest surrounding the Bobonaza and the Pastaza we would see children alone, little ones, maybe four or five years old, sitting in a broken dug-out canoe or splashing about in the river in a group. These are the ones that would stare at my fair hair or the red beard of my team mate; we would have been an extraordinary sight to them. They never waved or smiled, we could see no wisp of smoke curling up through the forest canopy to indicate a thatched hut nearby.
I shuddered at the dangers they were in with no adult close by keeping an eye on them, the river was chock full of piranha, anacondas glide through the water and pick up a meal at the water’s edge, there were cayman and syrupy mud that sucked you in, it was health and safety gone bonkers…. I cannot judge them though, these are the people of the jungle and the children look happy and healthy – so I looked for clues as to how these little ones adapted and survived to this hostile environment. I didn’t have to look far; one night we camped late at a friendly tribal village, we had been in the canoe all day and the respite was badly needed. “These are good people,” our guide reassured us, but he had seen the warning signs too late that the village had an ominous feel and was partly abandoned. Palm roofs were caving in and rustic gates swung open neglected; there were no chickens pecking at the dirt. The village had been populated by a hostile tribe, the Achuar, who had chased out the friendly Quechua whose home it was since our guide had last visited. We reluctantly set up our tents in a tin-roofed school house, the concrete floor was thick with dust and the tiny school desks and chairs were heaped drunkenly at one end. |
Then the rain began to fall, in Biblical proportions, hammering onto the hard roof like the fast beat of a jungle drum and making the four badly fitting doors swing and bang while the lightening flashes cast dark shadows around our tents, leaving us disconcerted and worried. I flashed my torch into the darkness and found a teacher’s cursive writing on a curling sugar-paper poster stuck to the wall; some past and forgotten lessons, a crude timetable and the alphabet. ‘Personal-Social’ read another one in Spanish – learn the dangers of the river – alligator, electric eel, boa and anaconda; do your chores; keep yourself clean; take care of each other and each point was illustrated with a little line drawing.
As we made our slow journey along the river I thought about that lesson on the wall and how the children stayed safe, teaching had an effect and they grew up with the knowledge – the knowledge that seemed so alien to us. And they liked to learn; how often had we seen them immaculately turned out in their grey and white uniforms in the larger towns. Our boatmen steered us safely into the Maranon and from then on we had we had better opportunities to meet and interact with them when we stopped in the larger communities. Whenever we had the chance we talked to them, taught them, fished with them, played and laughed with these beautiful children, the children of the river. I hope we made an impression on them too – that the gringos came, and were friendly and we shared cultures, for a short while. This entry was posted in Expeditions on November 7, 2016 by Alison Girdlestone. |
Expedition to Travel the Length of the Amazon River
by Jacki Hill-Murphy, Instigator and bashful leader.
September 5th 2016
by Jacki Hill-Murphy, Instigator and bashful leader.
September 5th 2016
One month to go and I feel like I am on a countdown.
Each morning I wake up and check my list for the day – and add to it with my night-time jungle wanderings. The e mails that need responding to are relentless; a bit like the river I will be descending along. The appeal of this 4,200 miles of dark, muddy water is its mystery, we are brave enough to enter this unknown world, but a very large proportion of the population wouldn’t want to go near it. It’s like asking them to become a fictional creation like Poirot – why would you want to investigate a murder? Or to sit in a field awaiting an alien to make a crop circle – why bother, it’s the unknown, it is unknown and it brings with it danger or a lot of sitting around waiting for something to happen. Sitting down. I hope the team have thought about this; they will be sitting down at water level, when in the dug-out, with knees bent , for many days. There will be a little, roughly hewn, hard bench in which to park our back-sides and then the dug-out will slide slowly away from the bank and we will watch the jungle flow, like a moving picture beside us. No cover, no window to look through, we will be on the equivalent of a motorbike on the M4, smelling the air, feeling the breeze and the full force of nature when the rain pelts us or a storm crashes crazily through the forest. |
A green world will flow past us, an enormous mansion that crumbles with primeval finality into the river, then slowly floats downstream beneath the surface before gathering on a bend, a skeletal graveyard of rotting wood and protruding limbs . The Indian spotter is there, at the prow, watching the boat cut through the water, his experienced eye trained to spot the trunks that can upturn us in a split second and his pole will ease us away from the monsters that lie in the murky water below us.
I don’t feel danger. Perhaps I should as I wait for a branch to move and became something that could bite or attack us. I hope I will remain calm; I’ve been there before, I am prepared, but who can tell what will be there this time. For now the river is in my head, as I tick tasks off a list. I am about as immersed in 21st century technology as it’s possible to be and it will all start again tomorrow morning when I awake and add to that growing list! This entry was posted in Speeches on September 6, 2016 by Alison Girdlestone. Many thanks to Craghoppers for their support. |
Crinolines in the Jungle
By Jacki Hill-Murphy
By Jacki Hill-Murphy
Once again I tried to put myself in Isabela’s embroidered slippers, and imagine her mixture of abject discomfort and apprehensiveness at every unfamiliar sound or movement of the alien forest, from the sudden fall of a tree to the cry of the bellbird and the bark of the howler monkey. Pinch yourself Jacki, in the sealed safety of your dry cab; at least you have the assurance of arrival at the end of the ride! I noticed my team mates had gone a bit quiet and guessed that Mary in particular was pondering the recklessness of the expedition leader in transferring us all to the Bobonaza, in a dugout canoe of all things, in weather like this.
My own excitement though, increased, as we reached Canelos. The rain had reduced to a drizzle and a thick white mist hung over the forested hillsides. Women and children stared out at the quartet of pale-skinned women from their unglazed windows of bright pink-painted shacks with silver corrugated roofs; we were an unusual sight, this was not a tourist route by any means and more children, chickens, dogs and old men came out and stood at the side of the track under pole barn roofs and verandahs and watched our yellow taxis drive by. I was aware of the Bobonaza running close by and glimpses through the trees had shown a wild, brown river getting wider and faster and then we crossed a short stretch of metal bridge, turned and at the bottom of an |
incline the road simply disappeared into the river’s chocolate eddies, and there, ahead of us, moored parallel to the bank, was our 40’ dug out canoe – I shivered with excitement.
Jean Godin himself takes up their story in an eloquent letter to Monsieur De la Condamine, Member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and leader of the expedition that had taken him to South America, describing Don Pedro’s progress and Isabela’s party’s arrival: ‘….. she reached Canelos, the spot at which they were to embark, situated on the little river Bobonaza, which empties itself into the Pastaza, and then into the Amazon. M. de Grandmaison, had gone on ahead by a month, found the small town of Canelos, and immediately set off on his journey, preparing everything necessary for his daughter’s journey up the river at each stage of her way. As he knew that she was going to be accompanied by her brothers, her black servant and three female maids, he proceeded on to the Portuguese missions. In the interval, however, between his journey and the arrival of my wife, the small pox, a European disease, more fatal to the Americans in this part than the plague, had caused the village of Canelos to be utterly abandoned. They had seen those first attacked by this illness die, and so ran away and scattered in the woods, to remote huts. |
When she set off, my wife was escorted by thirty-one American natives to carry herself and baggage. You know, Sir, that this road, the same taken by Monsieur de Maldonado, is hard going even for mules; those who are capable, go on foot, but others are carried.’ The Americans who escorted Madame Godin, were paid in advance according to the unfortunate custom in this country, a tradition based on mistrust. They had scarcely reached Canelos before they turned and fled, either from dread of the air being infected, or in case they had to man the canoes, a matter obnoxious in extreme to individuals who had perhaps never seen a canoe in their lives except at a distance. These excuses are not superfluous, for you well know how often we are abandoned by them on our mountains, on no pretense whatever. What under such a terrible turn of events was to be done ? Even if my wife had been able to return she didn’t want to, she really wanted to reach the waiting ship, because she wanted to join me, her husband from whom she had been parted for twenty years. This was the powerful incentive to make her, in the peculiar circumstances in which she was placed, brave even greater obstacles.’
It was almost with guilt that I stood there staring at my beautiful dug-out canoe, complete with the best guarantee of progress – its outboard motor. The knowledge that Mary and Julia and I were the first females since 1769 to follow in Isabella’s pioneering tracks makes me bold to record our own 21st century reactions. Everything was in place; the rain had stopped, the sun had come out and it suddenly seemed that we had it so easy. Within minutes, boxes of fruit and vegetables securely stowed in waterproof bags and large sealed plastic containers of bread, biscuits and juice were being |
handed along a human chain to two smiling Indians who stood, bare legged, in the swirling shallows of the Bobonaza, neatly fitting the mountain of baggage into the small hold of the canoe. Next went our kit, the sleeping mats, tents, camera bags and bottles and bottles of water and cans of fuel. More heads joined the gaggle of onlookers and an Indian woman with a crying baby sat in the grass observing all this going on intently, disregarding the child’s ever increasing demands and louder screams. These two, it transpired, were to be our extra passengers. We really had – I thought – hired the jungle bus, the crucial means of communication between the remote villages on the river.
While I marvelled at the competence of the preparations, my two companions further up the bank were aware only of the bullet speed of the river: a fallen branch passed in a split second. “It’s pretty, pretty wild, isn’t it – and this canoe doesn’t look big enough for seven or eight people.” exclaimed Julia. “They are cutting us some balsa wood from that tree up there for us to hold for buoyancy…” I replied, concealing my anxiety that they might be wanting to back out. Mary cut in: “I am apprehensive about going on that river, it looks really fast flowing, I’m a bit worried to be honest, the water level is right up.” The fingers of both my hands were tightly crossed inside my trouser pockets. I said nothing; but the adventurer in me was screaming “Let’s just go!” I was so desperate to get on that river. Somehow, the message got through: like good sports they clambered into the canoe, perched themselves on the primitive thwarts and followed me in hoinking off their wellies, just in case we capsized. |
As we pushed off, I made a head-count: there were at least a dozen adults aboard. Even so, the canoe rode the fast flowing river water well, and with the outboard’s help we were assured that we would be at our first stop, Sarayaku, within hours. Even the baby seemed pacified by the motion of the boat and lay fast asleep on her mother’s shoulder.
Our smooth departure was in sharp contrast to that of Isabela’s party. Jean Godin, in his letter to La Condamine explained how the smallpox reached Canelos first. The moment that her mountain Indian bearers realised that contagion had struck, they melted away the way they had come. The party searched the burnt ruins of the abandoned village, finding just two forest Indians who had escaped infection: as for the boats, they were gone, whether used for escape or set on fire with the rest of the village to drive out the evil spirits. Questioned, the men they found said they had the skills to make and man a largish canoe; it would take two weeks, and the journey down river to Andoas roughly twelve days. The men were paid in advance, rousing the three French strangers to furious objection. They urged Isabela to turn back, but she overruled them; however the reduction of three boats to one, and a sizable crew to just two, meant that any excessive weight, and all her family treasures, had to be abandoned at Canelos – the price of allowing these feckless Frenchmen to travel with them. Not only had the trio proved thoroughly disruptive, but it became increasingly apparent that they shared not a scrap of medical knowledge between them. Counting adults and children, thirteen embarked that first day. The Indians made good progress at the paddles, and that night they found a dry sand bank to pull up on, and made a good fire for their passengers. This was probably the one survival skill in which the Indians surpassed Isabela’s party, and it proved to be the only one: not one of the thirteen knew how to swim. The best they could do when danger threatened was to pray to God, or gods, to save them, and they were going to need all their praying-muscles from day three onwards. Our own first day on the fast-flowing and swollen Bobonaza went smoothly, too; we arrived at Sarayaku late in the afternoon and we were made immediately welcome. The inhabitants of Sarayaku’s ancient ancestral territory lying in Ecuador’s remote Amazon tropical rainforest are Kichwan and number around 1,200. But this is no ordinary indigenous region: Sarayaku is where the people rose up accusing the Argentine oil company CGC of ethnocide after the industry ruined their means of subsistence, caused widespread ecological and spiritual damage and undermined the social balance of the community. |
In the early 2000s the oil company occupied part of the Sarayaku lands with the encouragement of the Ecuadorian state government in order to prospect for oil using seismic surveying methods; there had been no prior consultation with the Sarayaku people. Realising its mistake, the government sent federal soldiers to Sarayaku, in order to stop indigenous resistance and closed the Bobonaza River as a traffic artery.
The Sarayaku people responded with well-orchestrated protests at a national and international level and forced CGC to withdraw from the project; but in the face of the state authorities’ failure to apologise, provide compensation or pastoral redress, or make commitments about preventing similar abuses, the people of Sarayaku proclaimed their region a self-governed territory called ‘Tayjasaruta’ or ‘Autonomous Territory of the Original Kichwa Nation of Sarayaku’. The state economy of Ecuador is dependent on constant income from crude oil export to pay off the national debt, and so, after exhausting all domestic legal avenues for redress and a guarantee of non-repetition, Sarayaku decided to take their case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In July 2012 the judges ruled in favour of the Sarayaku people. In 2012, the film titled ‘Children of the Jaguar’, co-produced by Amnesty International and the Kichwa de Sarayaku Indigenous community,and documenting the legal struggle, was released at film festivals. ‘Children of the Jaguar’ was awarded “Best Documentary” by the All Roads Film Project of the National Geographic Society. The story was of absorbing interest to me: years before, when my son was still a baby and I could only dream of visiting the Amazon and accepting the hospitality of an indigenous community, alarms were raised about the exploitation of the Kayapo territory of Amazonian Brazil for logging. Incensed, I faxed off my design for a tee shirt to the Rainforest Foundation, and the fact that that shirt seemed to be everywhere for one whole hot summer in the nineties helped in a small way to throw a protective cordon round some 27,000 square kilometres of Kayapo rainforest and set up an alarm system to warn indigenous groups of the approach of illegal loggers. My curiosity continued to grow; and now here I was, helping to unload a canoe in the advancing darkness, against a backdrop of alien sounds and indigenous Kichwa faces. In the morning, with my feet still in the sleeping bag, I pulled back the flap of the tent, and peeped out into a living enactment of all the documentaries I’d ever watched on the Amazon basin since childhood. |
Our covered camp stood among between a collection of skilfully thatched buildings comprising a primary school and the compound of Jose Gualinga, the village chief. His sons Heraldo and Alberto and the striking Ingaro were among our boatmen and guides, Ingaro; an incredibly handsome man, was already sitting at a picnic bench waiting for us as we emerged on that first morning to help us prepare our western breakfast, as he would on subsequent days.
Our covered camp stood among between a collection of skilfully thatched buildings comprising a primary school and the compound of Jose Gualinga, the village chief. His sons Heraldo and Alberto and the striking Ingaro were among our boatmen and guides, Ingaro; an incredibly handsome man, was already sitting at a picnic bench waiting for us as we emerged on that first morning to help us prepare our western breakfast, as he would on subsequent days. As the early mist was burnt off to reveal the blue sky of another scorching day, we talked with him and his brothers, and Luis, and the other men and women who wandered over. The scene repeated itself in the evening when he played his guitar and sang soulful, Kichwa songs by candlelight. Ennchanting children with jet black hair cut into little bobs played around us and sat on our knees, chickens scratched around under our table and instant translations flew about in our three languages (Eva had two of them) while we absorbed the spirited banter about Sarayaku’s new ecotourist economy and the community’s ongoing troubles with the Quito government. The village spreads out over opposing banks of the river; joined by a high rope and wood suspension bridge which we were coaxed over by Ingaro on the first afternoon to attend a La Minga, the community farming event. It swayed precariously under us, as we picked our way over the missing planks. There were dogs flopped everywhere; when I asked Ingaro why there should be so many dogs lolling exhausted in the heat, he replied that they were to ward off evil spirits and create good energy. Beyond open-walled classrooms where adults were being taught Spanish, we crossed plank bridges to a slope where the land was being cleared for manioc planting; the young women taking part had suspended their babies from branches in large squares of calico, their faces carefully protected from the insects, just as if newly delivered to the village by storks. Such cooperative work among family and friends is rewarded by a feast; we were invited, and I watched as the landholder’s wife dished out a steady stream of chicha beer, which, I was intrigued to learn, is made from manioc, masticated by the women and spat out to aid fermentation; the night’s fare was boiled manioc and river fish which she had stayed up all night to smoke over a wood fire. |
took my seat on a low bench next to a tiny girl with a baby monkey clutched to her tee shirt, and surveyed the living arrangements of this rainforest house: the two floors were open to the breezes; there was no evidence of mosquito nets, or privacy. I looked across at Julia, and she thought and replied – for all three of us – “If you live here you live at the pace of nature, at home I run around all day, in and out of my car and clutching my phone, but here life is so calm.”
Ingaro would take over from his father as village shaman one day; his knowledge of the fruits of the forest and their properties and nutritional values was immense. With Isabela’s starvation in the forest in mind, I made notes of all he said and did. He cut us some bitter fruits for us to taste, then chopped out the heart of a palm which he said she would have been able to find easily. It was sweet and satisfying even in a Western mouth and indeed I remember having eaten some in a salad in Quito. The next morning we shook insects of alien dimensions from our wet clothes drying on the line while Ingaro coaxed a tarantula from the bowl of the little white-washed privy that stood proud in the midst of some homely huts – a matter of moments before Julia felt the call to use it. In the late afternoon it was time for Julia, Mary, Eva and I to cool down in the washing pond; we headed off armed with shampoo, soap and towels – hoping that Ingaro wouldn’t follow us and that there wouldn’t be a repeat of yesterday’s discovery of a baby cayman in its clear water. This had been eaten by the locals. We splashed about under the trees, laughing as our precious soap slipped to freedom out of our hands and alarming one another with the tales of vampire bats from the forest, stalking on their hind legs up a person’s thighs to choose a tasty bite. It got more girly as we turned to the secret of Ingaro’s thick, glossy-black pony tail, and the particular grass he had shown us that morning in the forest, from which he made a special infusion to anoint it with, he had called it Gillette grass because it was razor sharp. We all admitted – his hair was in great condition. It was too hot to get out of the cool, refreshing water; only when long shadows began falling across it did we finally grab our towels and step out onto the grass. As we did so, two figures walked towards us, Ingaro and his brother Alberto. We dried off while the two Indians slipped into the pond. I’d like to say it was their amiable and unselfconscious physiques with strong arms and legs that reflected the genes of hunter gatherer that my eyes were drawn to, but something else had caught my gaze, the bottle of Head and Shoulders shampoo Ingaro was trying to hide behind his back! This entry was posted in Expeditions, Isabela Godin on December 12, 2014 by Alison Girdlestone. |