El Coca and Rio Napo, Ecuador
8am flight from Quito to El Coca - frontier town ; launching off point into the Amazon Rainforest. Flight is delayed several times - 1.5 hours in the end. We finally lift off from Quito. I'm seated next to the window. In the opposite window seat, a Texas Oil executive is droning on in his southern drawl about the particulars of his company's oil rig operations in the Ecuadorian jungle to his local colleague. Doesn't seem to speak a word of Spanish, and yaks on incessantly into his cell phone to someone at the home office until the second the plane lifts off. I draw my conclusions about how he callously comes to plunder the precious rainforest for his own profit and greed. I want to ask him how he can bear to make his living in this way, but I know that I live within the system of over consumption that drives this type of exploitation down here and puts his tribe on this airplane with me this morning.
25 minutes over the mountains, and we quickly descend into the wet, cloudy green of El Coca and the rainforest. It is pouring as soon as we step out of the small open air room that serves as the airport. A short ride takes us to the boat landing on the wide Rio Napo - a river that flows on into Peru and eventually flows into the Amazon. We will be taking a 45 minute ride down river to the Yarina Lodge on a small offshoot river of the Napo.
Shoes off, and we are sized for our rubber boots - a necessity for this muddy patch of earth and water. As our boat drops two indigenous passengers at their village landing on the main river, we head off from the Rio Napo and into the depths of the jungle. The motor shuts off, and suddenly the jungle comes to life! We are left with the chorus of sounds of birds, insects, frogs, monkeys, and the paddling of muddy water beneath the green cover of palms outstretched over the river. This is it! This is the Amazon I have always dreamed of seeing!
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