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My time in the amazon was easily the most extraordinary time of my life. nothing that i have ever done can compare to that time in adventure, uniqueness, and pure incredibleness . . . i imagine that this is what travel was like 100 years ago. there were many times that i felt like a national geographic explorer truly discovering the ways of the ecuadorian amazon.

La Amazonía: The Village of Wachimak

Andy Wunder
2007-04-19 22:35:13

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My time in the amazon was easily the most extraordinary time of my life. nothing that i have ever done can compare to that time in adventure, uniqueness, and pure incredibleness . . . i imagine that this is what travel was like 100 years ago. there were many times that i felt like a national geographic explorer truly discovering the ways of the ecuadorian amazon.

It all began in my spanish school in cuenca, ecuador. i over heard a student showing his teacher some pictures of his time spent in the amazon living with an indian tribe and teaching english. i asked him about it, got excited, and made plans to do it myself. all he could provide me with was an email address and the name of one of the village members that had left the jungle and was living in the provincial capital. i was to contact him and go from there. well, contact proved to be more difficult than expected ... he spoke no english and my spanish was questionable in person, much less over the telephone. i hopped on a bus and headed down from the andes to the amazon. when i arrived it was
dark and i sat waiting for somebody to come and get me . . . eventually two people showed up and took me to a hostal and told me that tomorrow the guy i contacted would show up and coordinate my trip for me to live amongst his village in the amazon.

the next day while talking with this guy, i found out many intriguing things that sent my excitement level through the roof. i wasnt even out of the city and this adventure was proving to be more than i expected, more than i thought was possible out of travel these days.
i was going to be only the 15th white person ever to see the village. most place i go, i am lucky if i'm the 150th white person there that morning. in addition, this wasn't a village on the edge of modern society, it was deep within the amazon. the village had no electricity or running water and nobody spoke english . . . spanish was their second language. the village was ...