Monkeys, mosquitoes and machetes

I think I took every possible mode of transportation this weekend to reach my final destination: the village of an indigenous tribe deep in the Amazonian jungle. One taxi, one city bus, one 5-hour bus, one camioneta (complete with cramming six of us and the luggage of 13 people in the bed for a two hour ride on bumpy jungle roads), and finally one canoe brought us to a small Huaorani village on the banks of a river right in the middle of the jungle.

The Huaorani have a pretty violent history, and if you’ve seen the movie End of the Spear or heard of Jim Elliot then you are probably familiar with it. Today, however, as long as you have a contact and permission, you can usually enter their territory relatively safely. The professor of the class I went with knows the grandson of one of the tribe’s leaders (the grandson was actually a student of his at USFQ—the first Huaorani to graduate from the university) so he escorted us to the village and stayed with us the whole weekend to ensure our safety.

Monkey sighting! This one was kind of a pet of the village and even when it wasn't tied up it wouldn't wander very far.

The village was very small—only about 15 people, and had just been started about two months ago. The Huaorani are hunters/gatherers so they move around a lot in search of food and rarely settle in one place for more than 5 or 10 years. While there, we ate their food (lots of bananas, yucca and fresh caught fish), literally bushwhacked through the jungle to see some monkeys and birds, swam in their river, slept on wood boards, learned how to use a blow gun and most importantly talked with them.

Learning how to use a blow gun--which some of the men still use to hunt monkeys and birds.

Most of them spoke at least a little Spanish, but were pretty shy so we talked mostly with Fernando, our contact and semi-guide. Since he grew up Huaorani yet studied at USFQ and has even traveled to the states he had a really interesting perspective on the state of his tribe. Apparently there are only about 2,000 Huaorani left, yet they occupy a huge territory in eastern Ecuador. One of the biggest threats to their way of life now is oil companies. It’s so interesting to be down here and hear that oil exploitation, not deforestation, is one of the biggest threats to the Amazon right now. In the states I feel like all we ever talk about is how bad it is that we are cutting down the rainforest, when in reality the oil companies pose just as much, if not more, of a threat than the lumber companies.

Just as we were about to go to sleep on Saturday, Fernando also casually mentioned that some people in his tribe had seen FARC camps in the jungle pretty close to where we were sleeping. He said we probably weren’t really in any danger, but it was another worry to add to the list including snakes, malaria, yellow fever, rabid monkeys and spears. How about that for a little bedtime story?

Despite the danger, the experience was one in a million and completely worth the risk. Never again will I have such an opportunity, and I’m really glad I took it.