Travel to the Amazon with the Yawanawa Indigenous People.

Why was I there? The forests in this area are at risk of deforestation. So I helped map the forests using GPS tagging of the forests along the Rio Gregorio river, to give a record of the forests before the logging happens. Also to take images of my Dads work in the Yawanawa community. My dad works for the Estee Lauder Companies that own Aveda the company that has worked with the Yawanawa for the last 18 years.

The Yawanawa are an indigenous people that have lived in this area for thousands of years. They live traditionally, yet use modern technology to help them survive and stop deforestation from loggers and cattle ranchers. This journey would have been easier if our bags were not lost, which meant we had only one set of clothes and no first aid kits or water purification systems. Our visit was so important that we went in to the community without our equipment. This travel was four hours in an open truck, crossing rivers on barges on the new Amazon road, called the Trans Oceanic road and then 8 hours in a canoe to get to the village. Importantly not long ago my dad helped get the Yawanawa wells so he knew the drinking water should be okay and it was, no-one got ill from the food and the water, although my dad crunched my toe while running into the river (I will always wear shoes), my dad also cut his foot while in the river, but we survived.

I learnt so much in the village from a people who needed so little to be content compared with our lives. Yet there work is so important for the world as they live to protect the forest for all of us.

It was so good to meet my friends in the village, Chief Tashka and Laura and Deborah who have all stayed in our house. It was an honour to meet Tata the elder who I had heard so much about.

Sometimes it got a little boring and very hot for me. In one meeting that went on a long time, I was nearly going to sleep, when I heard a scream and looked up to see a tarantula on the women chiefs hammock about to jump on her. You can guess I woke up, to take photos, after the chief got off the hammock.

One of the many ceremonies I participated in was the Yucca drinking ceremony, a root that had been made into a drink that was very sour and white and smelt very strange, a lady made me drink the juice out of a gallon jar. If I could not finish the jar, it was then poured over me. This was difficult as I had only one change of clothes and made my clothes smell even worse.

We went fishing with Raoul the village young man, who also steered the canoes (expert) I had such fun learning how to search for catfish. It was really the wrong season, so we did not catch large ones, which can grow to several hundred pounds.

Where we slept was not easy, with hammocks and no lights, you learnt that you must sleep with a flashlight and your boots under the mosquito net so that spiders do not get in your shoes. The entry to the thatched huts was also not easy as the bridge there was a “balance beam” across a deep mud pit.

Travel back up the river was faster, due to being with the current and that it rained the night before. Yet it was still a very long way, not 8 hours but 7 hours. We then had to wait for the truck and the journey was a crazy ride in the dark. I took one sunset picture that was so good. It was so good to be back in a town – Cruzeiro Du Sol, and went for a pizza at midnight, then back to the hotel.

The next day my dad caught up with work. We played pool at a roadside café, in the evening we went to a great restaurant where we had steak from a spit and went back to the hotel. The next morning we started the long journey home.


Bullet points of journey

• 10 stops on plane

• 8 hours on the back of a truck on the Amazon road

• Went under dozens of logs in canoe – watch your head

• Ran over many logs

• Broke several propellers on the way to the community

• Dragged canoe over many logs

• Eat oxen

• Eat crocodile

• Luckily did not have to eat monkey or armadillo

• Face painted once – did not wash off easily

• Hammocks for 3 nights

• Rats, bats, monkeys many in our hut.

• Temperature 80-90 in day and cold at night – only one small slightly smelly blanket

• Change of clothes one – being smelly together – Delta lost our bags

• At night kept boots under malaria net – to keep out bugs

• Tarantula gate crashed a meeting – crawling over chiefs shoulder – screams shouts and photos

• Presents; footballs, pumps, whistle for the chief, swimming goggles, tobacco, toolbox, fishing line and hooks – arrived late due to luggage being lost.

• Climbing trees, none, too dangerous with snakes and spiders.

• Toilet – Ummmmmmm?

• Shower – none – bathed in river, being careful of snakes, piranhas and stingrays

• Singing – every night often til 4.00am, beautiful

• Ceremonies: Uni, and Yawanawa tobacco (Dad only) Yucca drinking, monkey ceremony, sacred boar, whacking your partner with a stick, so many and so important to the people.

• Special people, everyone, from Tata the Elder to the small children of the community and our team members, Evan, John, Perry, Quentin, David, Daniel, Filipe, Pappy

• Stories – so many

• Fishing – thank you Raoul – and for the “chicken fight” in the river.

• Dental hygiene – fantastic due to our local dentist (Dr. Ken Fordham) training a Yawanawa lady called Deborah on dental hygiene and supplying toothbrushes for everyone. Thanks Ken.

• Learning and listening – so important from the Yawanawa people who protect the forests for everyone.


Thanks to all the special people I met and traveled safely with.


Thomas Hircock