Kapawi: Amazing Amazon

Kapawi: Amazing Amazon

As a traveler you want to experience something that will that will feed your soul, a memory you will cherish as a gold nugget. This profound feeling can only be a result of a sensory immersion in a new, unknown world. You see, hear, smell, feel, taste different things and if you’re lucky you will experience the sixth sense of traveling, an overwhelming perception of belonging in a place far from home.

Me and my wife got in touch with our sixth sense when traveling to Kapawi Ecolodge in Ecuador in December-January (http://www.kapawi.com). Kapawi is situated in the Oriente, the eastern part of Ecuador totally covered by the Amazon rainforest. This hotel, which is close to the border of Peru, is unique because it's entirely run by the Achuar community. This is not a small feat, as the Achuar had as recently as the sixties a nomadic lifestyle with regular violent conflict. Now they run a world class Amazon experience.

(1) FEEL

End of the world feeling: Kapawi is is in the middle of nowhere, fin del mundo. Never have we been further away from roads, cities and basic infrastructure. You can only get at Kapwai by small airplane with a flight time of 50 minutes. It’s approximately 250 km away from the nearest town: Shell (yes, this town is named after the Oil Company). On the plane you feel the overwhelming vastness of the Amazon basin. Every direction you look, you only can see trees and rivers. Although deforestation is a major threat to the Amazon rainforest, here a big healthy chunk of primary rainforest is left to be explored.

You fly along the Rio Pastaza, a large tributary to the Marañón River in the northwestern Amazon Basin, until you reach the bush airfield of the lively Kapawi village.

You get a warm welcome by the local children.

The Kapawi ecolodge is not in the village. It’s located on the bank of the Capahuari river, a tributary of the Rio Pastaza, a 20 minute boat trip away. From the air the Rio Pastaza didn’t look that big, but on the ground, it was huge. It was the biggest river I’ve ever seen in my life. A 500 m wide river I’ve never heard of. The boat ride was a nice: a warm tropical breeze included.

Comfortable: We arrived at a jetty on the Capahuari river and needed to follow a wooden pier passing primary rainforest.

We arrived at an open space in the jungle filled with philodendrons. It was a great place to watch a wide variety of animals, like birds, swinging monkeys, etc. Overlooking those philodendrons are the huts and facilities.

Pier in the central area

In the central area you have a covered terrace where you can overlook this marsh filled with philodendrons.

The huts
The huts are very comfortable with a hammock, beds with mosquito nets, toilet and shower. The shower had cold water, but you can ask for hot water. Hotel personnel will give you a bag filled with water heated by the sun. the soap is biodegradable. It’s all very ecological.

The roof structure is very impressive. It’s a traditional Achuar roof using bamboo and palm leaves. The rest of the hut is made from a specific palm tree. This tree is very important to the Achuar, literally meaning: “the people of the aguaje palm”

Here is our guide Diego explaining the importance of the palm tree. The Achuar people use it for construction, making blowpipes, and even food.

Safe: A typical reaction you get when you tell you’re going to the rainforest is one of fear. Creepy crawlies, caimans, piranhas, snakes, mosquitos, malaria, dengue, unknown parasites, heat, humidity, etc. It’s too much for people to bear. The reality is that you need indeed to prepare such a trip. It’s advisable to visit your physician for vaccinations (against yellow fever), malaria pills and to bring insect repellent and sunscreen to the rainforest.

If you follow the instructions of your guide nothing will happen to you. Our Guide, Diego, was superb and took really care of the guests. During our trip, which was at the start of rain season, I only had 10 mosquito bites. There were no mosquitos or creepy crawlies in our room.

We could safely swim in the capahuari river where caimans, piranha and river dolphins reside. The water level could change overnight. With high water level came a strong current.

The climate was ideal. As it was the start of wet season, the short but intense rain showers, made it never too hot, while the trees always give a lot of shade.

(2) SEE
We could easily use an extra set of eyes. There’s so much to see.

Landscape: Kapawi is situated in lowland rainforest, this means a huge amount of trees and water. A lot of the activities involved taking a boat or kayak. The highlight is the huge and wide Rio Pastaza.

On New Year’s Day 2018 we went by boat 4 hours upstream. Unspoiled nature all the way. It was a very nice way to start 2018 and a good way to get rid of a small hangover. We only came across a few boats. In one boat the woman was doing the dishes: a very original commute.

There were as well a lot of smaller rivers with a more intimate feel.

We went fishing for piranhas in a magical place under a huge tree. Unfortunately, we didn’t catch a piranha.

Contrasting to the wide river views, the jungle was sometimes a bit claustrophobic, but just as intense. Only 3% of the light reaches the soil in a typical rainforest.

In the forest were some very big trees; Ceibas. One of those trees was the Arutam tree, a prehistoric looking monster tree. The Arutam tree is very important to the Achuar, because it holds the spirit of the forest. Before an Achuar couple can marry, they must perform a ritual in front of the Arutam to show they have a good character and are ready to marry.

Very typical in the rainforest are the trees with buttress roots. The Achuar use those buttress roots to communicate. The knocks on these buttress roots can be heard as far as 1 km away. This way the Achuar hunters can regroup after hunting.

Animals: In the rainforest there are a lot of animals, but because of the trees, foilage and camouflage you don’t see a lot of big animals. Diego showed a picture on his mobile of a Jaguar swimming across the river only a couple of hundred meters away from the lodge.

Despite this, you still can see a lot of animals. We saw capibaras, caimans, different species of monkey, butterflies, colorful insects and a lot of Amazon river dolphins. The night walks and boat trips are very productive as a lot of animals only come out at night. We even saw a capybara the size of a pig.

Hoatzin aka the Stinky Turkey

Yellow Rumped Casique (They live in hanging nest at the Kapawi lodge). There’s an interesting mutualistic symbiosis going on. The casiques feed wasps and those wasps help the birds to protects their nests against the tucans who want to steal their eggs.

Roseate spoonbill

Amazon kingfisher

Resident Black Vultures

A row of greater anis

Cobalt Winged Parakeet at the Claylick on the Pastaza river

Smokey Jungle Frogs

Snake

Colorful Frog

Amazon lizard

Caiman with a butterfly in the Pitzacocha Lagoon

Butterfly

Butterfly on sandle

Night monkey

Squirrel monkey

Amazon river dolphin

(3) HEAR
One of the big traets of Kapawi are the sounds of the rainforest. When the night falls, frogs and insects, like the cicadas start their symphony. They make a lot of noise, but interestingly those sounds help you fall in a deep sleep. It’s no coincidence that a lot of relaxing music tracks contain those sounds.

At Kapawi you normally get up at 6 am. This is the loudest moment of the natural day. It works like a natural alarm clock. During daytime you can hear the the birds and of course the howler monkeys. These monkeys are famous for their loud howls, which can travel three miles through dense rainforest. Another loud animal is the chacalaca-bird.

(4) SMELL
The air, the water, raindrops falling on your face: everything in the rainforest is pure. You find flowers in the rainforest with a good or bad smell.

Some plants are smelly, but can be used for carnaval

A lot of nuts and fruits are growing in the rainforest as well:

There are a lot of mushrooms and fungi in the rainforest to help decompose the organic material, so the nutrients can be recycled by new plants. They are critical to life in the rainforests. Fungi invade wood and soil and break them down into nutrients so that they can be reused by other plants and animals. Many mushrooms will only live on certain plant species.

An empty Termites nest can be used as a natural insect repellent

(5) TASTE
Taste of the rainforest: There are a lot of things to taste in Kapawi. The Achuar have an intimate knowledge of the jungle and its plants. As our guide Diego regularly says: “The rainforest provides food, shelter and medicine for the Achuar”.

There are plants in the Amazon rainforest used as an infusion with a garlic taste to help overcome stomach ache and flue.

Shake-shake plants are used in a shaman ceremony to remove bad spirits. They are as well used as darts for the blowpipe. At the point of the dart the Achuar put the venom of poison dart frogs to kill monkeys or birds.

Diego let us taste a plant containing kenine, tasting like a gin-tonic. This plant is used against malaria

We had the privilege to taste lemon ants. This is another example of mutualistic symbiosis. The ants (myrmelachista schumanni) and tree (duroia hirsuta) work together to survive and thrive in the competitive forest. The trees gain the advantage of room to grow—the ants are the only known insect species to produce their own herbicide, a toxin that poisons other plants in the area, allowing their home tree to get the sunlight it needs. The ants bite into the leaves of any other plant species that tries to take root in the area, injecting formic acid which slowly kills it. The lemon ants – as a reward - can live in those trees. Because of this herbicide there’s an empty space in the rainforest with only the host plant. As this is an anomaly in the dense rainforest this is called the Devil’s Garden.

Taste of Kapawi: The food in Kapawi ecolodge is nice. It’s mostly an international cuisine. On a few occasions we ate a local, typical Achuar dish: Catfish with yucca and platano served on banana leaves. This is delicious. Food is served by the always great Cristobal and his helpers who will help you at the bar as well.

Taste of Achuar: The most popular drink is Chicha made of yuca or cassava. This alcoholic drink is served in a bowl and passed to everyone in the community. It has a sour taste like a special kind of yoghurt. It’s an alcoholic drink and the fermentation process starts in the mouth of the cooking Achuar woman. The combination of starch and spit enzymes convert the starch to a simple sugar. This simple sugar is than converted by bacteria (of which there is plenty, thanks to being in lots of mouths) or wild yeast into alcohol. After already one day of fermentation it becomes an alcoholic drink. A few days extra it becomes strong alcoholic drink.

We had the opportunity to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the Achuar tribe. It was an extremely rewarding experience. All day long bowls of chicha were presented by the Achuar women. There was sometimes a queue of 4 women with a bowl to serve chicha. You’re not compelled to drink chicha, you could refuse the drink.

As me and my wife were the only foreigners at the celebration we could see from first hand how warm and helpful the Achuar people are. We played soccer together, we had drinks together, we even danced together. Every time they offer you a smile and a great conversation. I’m deeply impressed by the spirit of the Achuar.

To give you an example of their good nature. The manager of the Kapawi Ecolodge, Octavio, had an accident. The Achuar community collected money to cover his medical expenses. He gave a speech to thank the community and he was clearly overwhelmed by their support.

This tribe is very real and have successfully added a modern touch to their traditional lifestyle. They have schools, sound installations and even internet, but they maintain a strong social and family structure. The children have as well strong motor skills as was clear from the little contest. They had to climb a tree without ropes as fast as possible. Boy were they fast.

The Achuar are mostly bilingual: They speak Spanish and Achuar fluently. Our great guide Diego can even speak 3 languages. He learned English by himself. He found motivation after an ayahuasca ceremony guided by a shaman. This way he got in touch with the spirit of his ancestors. They encouraged him to learn English because he will have friends from all over the world and he will be ablte to offer a great future to his children.

The New Year’s celebration was fueled by excellent speeches. The Achuar love to give speeches. The community leaders Pascual and Patricio even invited me to give a speech. I used this to express my gratitude to this community.

(6) SIXTH SENSE

As you can guess, we got in touch with our sixth sense. Wwe will cherish Kapawi as a gold nugget. The memory of the Amazon rainforest never fails to put a smile on my face when I commute to work or have a coffee break.

I’ve been to several rainforests in Costa Rica and Malaysia. Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica is fabulous because of the Pacific Ocean and the wildlife viewings. Endau Rompin in Malaysia is unique because of the lush tropical waterfalls. But Kapawi is the purest wilderness experience.

Kayaking with dolphins, Spotting animals during night walks, watching sunsets over the Pastaza river, interacting with the Achuar people are unique experiences each on their own, but combined this is powerful stuff.

It was with sadness we had to leave this magical place. Luckily local airport security was kind enough to say us goodbye.

We were ready for take off.

A special thanks to our fellow travelers, to Cristobal, our bartender, to Julio, our boatman, to Mariano, our cook, to Franklin, our manager, and very special thanks to Diego, our guide.

Do you want to go to a place in het middle of nowhere? Where nature is intact? and Where people interact in an animistic way with nature? Please consider Kapawi ecolodge (http://www.kapawi.com).

Do you want to see more picture check my flickr-account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/35243930@N08/albums/72157692937720971