“Dad, I’m all ruin-ed out,” said Susie, indicating that she wanted to do something other than visit archaeological ruins or sites.
That’s when we started discussing the possibility of including the Amazon basin in our jam-packed schedule.
“We’ll have to sacrifice a site down in Peru,” I said, looking at the itinerary we had agreed on previously.
We both wanted to see the Amazon basin, and Susie found the least expensive, and fewest days, way to do it: we would travel across the Andes from Quito to Tena.
In the morning, we set out by taxi to the bus station, where we boarded a bus amidst cries from workers at the station, “Tena, Tena.” The roughly five hour bus ride took us through the eastern Andes and over the pass of Guamani (also known as La Virgen, or Ave Maria Pass at 4200 meters, 13,779 feet). At the pass I noticed a small shrine to the Virgin (or Pachamama, as the indigenous people think of her). Several cars stopped to pay homage to the Virgin. Later, I would encounter the concept of bringing a stone to a peak or mountain pass as an apacheta (offering) to the Earth Mother for safe passage on the journey. Directly south of the pass was the towering snow-capped volcano Antisana (5,705 meters, 18, 717 feet). This was part of the back of a long spiny “dragon” (Andes mountains), which was the spinal column of the Earth Mother (Pachamama).
As we descended from the heights of the Andes mountains, we saw an infinite expanse of a green landscape before us. This was Amazonia, the jungle of the Amazon rainforest, whose innumberable streams, brooks, creeks, and rivers formed a vast network of branches of a planetary tree of life known as the Amazon Basin. Amazonia was the lungs of our Earth Mother (Pachamama), the breath of life that continuously recycled carbon dioxide into oxygen.
The bus slowly followed the serpentine road (Hwy 28) alongside a winding creek down the eastern foothills of the Andes. A feeling that we were entering an exotic world of the Oriente, the region of eastern Ecuador, brought visions of indigenous people living an Edenic life along the river, a life far away from the constraints of civilization. I had read stories of natives fleeing from the invading Inca, and later Spanish, armies – away from the servitude to kings to the freedom of a simple, self-sufficient life. The natives chose the spacious rainforest existence in Amazonia rather than existence in crowded cities.
When we finally reached our destination – after traveling 186 kilometers (116 miles) – we were welcomed by a sudden rain shower that descended on our heads at the bus station in Tena. It was only a kilometer to the hostel Los Yutzos that Susie and I agreed would be a comfortable and scenic place to spend the next two nights. However, since it was raining, I paid for a taxi to drive us to the hostel on the banks of the river Pano.
By the time we settled into our room with a balcony overlooking the Pano River, which flowed into the Tena River several hundred meters downstream, the rain shower stopped. The sun came out. The birds in the trees along the river started chirping their songs again, and the refreshing scent of flowers filled the air. Across the river from the Los Yutzos, which was named for the wild bush with little leaves and pink flowers that grew on the shores of the local rivers, was an island park named Amazonico, where the indigenous flora and fauna were on display. I looked upstream and downstream with my binoculars, but the trees were too dense to spot any animals.
Down in the lobby of Los Yutzos, I looked at a poster advertising the attractions in and around Tena. The poster mentioned several alternatives of tourist sites, like waterfalls, beaches, caverns, and spas; here you could observe a diversity of birds, insects, flora, etc.:
Que hacer en Tena? Visite nuestros atractivos . . . Tena, le ofrece varias alternativas de visita a sitios turisticos donde podra experimentar mediante caminatas cortas a bosques, cascadas, playas, cavernas y balnearios, aqui se observara, diversidad de aves, insectos, flora, etc. A continuacion le contamas como llegar . .
There was also a map of the city of Tena for me to look at. And then there was a small advertisement on the bulletin board about a guide named Gabriel. That ad caught my attention, and I asked the desk clerk about the guide.
“Gabriel is one of our best guides in Tena,” stated the male desk clerk. “He does a variety of tours, made to your liking.”
“What do you think, Susie?” I asked. “Should we call him?”
“Sure,” slowly answered Susie, who usually liked to know if there were any other options.
“Gabriel will be coming right away,” said the desk clerk after he had made the call for us.
Within fifteen minutes, Gabriel arrived at the lobby, where we were waiting for him. Gabriel was not like the short guides that we had become accustomed to. He was tall, and well-built. He looked more like a warrior than a guide.
“¿Qué puedo hacer yo para usted? (What can I do for you?)” asked Gabriel in Spanish as he approached us. He had a wide friendly smile on his face, and he extended his hand in greeting.
Susie was glad to see that he was an indigenous guide, and she immediately took a liking to him. She told him that we wanted to see as much of the Amazon basin as we could in one day.
“I have several options that I can show you,” remarked Gabriel, showing his ability at being a good salesman. “The best, of course, is if you stay in the selva (rainforest) for two days and spend a night at my place in the selva.”
“We only have one day on our schedule here,” apologized Susie.
“That’s all right,” said Gabriel, showing his good nature. “I can accommodate you in any way you wish. What would you like to see and do?”
“We would like to see animals in the jungle, and walk through some of the jungle,” I replied after Susie translated what Gabriel asked. “And take a ride on the river.”
“Would you like to do some tubing?” asked Gabriel.
“Are there any piranhas in the river?” asked Susie.
“No, it’s perfectly safe,” Gabriel reassured Susie and me.
“That sounds like fun,” I said, looking at Susie for her commitment to the idea of tubing down the river.
“OK, here’s what I can do for you,” said Gabriel, laying out a plan on the coffee table in front of us. “We will drive down to a place where we’ll board a boat that will take us down the Napo River. We will visit a local indigenous museum, where we’ll have lunch. Then we’ll go tubing down the river. Afterwards, we’ll visit Amazoonico, an animal rescue center, where you’ll see lots of animals. Lastly, we’ll take a hike in the jungle. How does that sound to you?”
Susie and I liked Gabriel’s plan. It looked like it would provide us with a comprehensive experience of the Amazon rainforest condensed into one day. We would get a taste of life in Amazonia and see as many of the highlights of the rainforest as he could show us.
The next item of discussion was the cost of the one day scenic and adventurous tour. We quickly settled on a price. We would come to Gabriel’s office in the morning. It was only several blocks away, and he showed us on a map how to walk there.
We arrived at Gabriel’s office at the appointed hour in the morning. Near his office was a large wall advertising his tourist business: Welcome to Las Grutas (caverns or grottos) de Gabriel.
There were also a lot of words explaining what his tourist agency was all about. A beautiful mural of a mountain with a waterfall cascading into a river adorned the wall, along with a macaw, a blue morpho butterfly, and a boa constrictor wrapped around a tree; several kayakers on the river, several indigenous huts, and several rubber inner tubes for floating down the river completed the attractive scenery. Susie helped me with the Spanish words, while the English words were self-explanatory:
Trabajando por mi pais impulsando el turismo de Napo (Working for my country promoting the tourism of Napo)
“Protejamos la naturaleza” (We protect nature)
Gabriel’s Grottos. A family run tourist agency with native kichwa guides. Come and see wild animals, waterfalls, caves, lakes, medicine, native food and Kichwa culture in the primitive rainforest . . .
Llanganates National Park . . .
A web page directed the tourist to the internet for more information:
Las Grutas de Gabriel
Gabriel was waiting for us. He invited us to enter his office. He had a surprise waiting for us. First he gave Susie a white t-shirt with a yellow-green frog, and the words Yaku Namby (Ruta del Agua, Water Route) on it. The white t-shirt was a way of advertising the tourist agency that he was affiliated with. Then Gabriel put a crown of blue and red macaw feathers on her head, making her look like a native princess. Then he took a small boa constrictor out of a box for her to hold. The biggest surprise of Gabriel’s dramatic interaction with Susie came when he pulled an enormous boa constrictor out of a large chest.
When Gabriel stood by Susie and held the boa constrictor over his head, the tail of the snake reached the floor, and the head curled downwards to his chest. The snake must have been at least 7-8 feet in length. It had a colorful skin of cream oval shapes with brown interstices, and the tail end had reddish brown patterns. It was a beautiful creature. And Gabriel looked like the legendary Quetzalcoatl (“the Feathered Serpent”) with that snake in his right hand and the crown of feathers on his head.
Gabriel insisted that Susie hold the snake. He wanted her to know that it was safe and harmless. It was quite a picture – Susie holding the giant boa constrictor that wrapped his body around her neck.
However, when Gabriel pulled the boa constrictor’s head toward Susie’s lips and tried to have her kiss it, that’s when Susie became squeamish and pulled away from the snake.
I felt the same way when Gabriel said it was my turn to handle the snake. I thought the idea of kissing a snake to be repulsive, and I couldn’t bring myself to make that kind of contact with the creature. I did allow the snake to embrace my neck in a hug that made me feel as if he could have choked me to death if he was out in the wild. It was at the moment when he wrapped himself around my neck that I felt the immense power in its muscular body. The image of me with the snake and the crown of feathers made me think of the syncretic image that was popular in the Andean world: the image of the snake (lower world), puma (middle world), and condor (upper world). The snake-puma-condor totem animals were fused into a triune oneness that explained the levels of existence for the Andean people. And somehow I felt that Gabriel intuitively sensed that natural cohesion when he decorated us with the snake and crown of feathers and initiated us into the mysteries of Pachamama – the serpent power (kundalini) ascending from the base of the spine to the crown of the head.
After the dramatic encounter with the boa constrictor, we wondered what else Gabriel had in store for us. He definitely was making it an exciting adventure for us right from the start.
While Gabriel was getting things ready for our trip to the river, and while we were waiting for the driver to arrive, I decided to take a short stroll up the street. That’s when I discovered a mural depicting an Amazonian village with naked natives living peacefully in an idyllic setting: a woman sitting on a stool seemed to be making the sacred chichi drink; an Amazon-type warrior woman held a spear to protect the inhabitants; a young girl and boy played in the selva with the birds and the monkeys; a man held a spear and seemed to be ready to go on a hunt, while another man was getting into a canoe to probably go spear fishing; a group of villagers behind a tree seemed to be doing a ceremonial dance, while another group of natives were working in a garden at the foot of a volcano; a moon image was rising in the sky, while a sun image was setting in front of a rainbow in the sky. It was a painting that was worth studying for its intricate detail of indigenous life in an idealized harmonious setting.
When the driver arrived, we had another surprise. Gabriel’s in-laws were visiting him and his family, and they were going to join us on the trip. We were introduced to Alfredo, the brother-in-law, and Maria, his mother. They were from Spain. That was quite a coincidence for me, because the next trip I was planning was a trip with my wife to Spain. I would seize the first opportunity I had and ask our new acquaintances about places to visit in Spain.
Meanwhile, Gabriel had everything ready for our trip, and we crowded into the vehicle. Soon we were crossing the Tena River, which joined the Misahualli River downstream and then flowed together into the Napo River, a major tributary of the great Amazon River.
Gabriel was the kind of guide that went with the flow; in other words, he improvised as he went along. It happened that he knew some people who lived on the road we were traveling on to Rio Napo. He also knew that they had a large tree with ripe oranges. It was a perfect opportunity to treat all of us to freshly squeezed orange juice. I had never seen such a technique before, and I watched as Gabriel took his knife and carved a circular rind halfway down the orange, and then cut a hole in the top to squeeze the juice out of. He showed us how to squeeze the juice out of the orange until there was hardly anything left but the soft pulp. He quickly carved an orange for each of us. He had the young man in the tree throw down at least two more oranges for each of us to take in the car, where he would continue carving oranges for us as we happily continued squeezing the tasty juice out of the oranges, and traveling down the paved jungle road.
A short time later we arrived at a section of the river where a large motorized canoe would take us a short distance down to where the river Tena flowed into the Napo River. We watched a ferry taking cars across to a village on the other side of the river.
This time we waited a short while for the boatman to arrive. We continued watching the ferry as it first maneuvered upstream, and then cruised downstream to the landing on the other side. Back and forth it went.
This was a good opportunity to strike up a conversation with Alfredo. I saw that Alfredo’s mother was enjoying talking with Susie in Spanish. Lucky for me, Alfredo knew how to speak English better than I knew how to speak Spanish.
“What are the best places for me and my wife to visit in Spain next year?” I asked.
“Well, if you’re planning to come to Spain,” replied Alfredo, “you’ll first have to stop by and see us in Barcelona. That’s where we live.”
“How about the capital Madrid?” I asked. “My wife and I want to spend a couple of days there.”
“Everybody starts there, in that big city,” answered Alfredo. “But if you want to see the variety and richness of Spain and the Spanish people, you should visit Barcelona. It’s on the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. Of course, there are other beautiful cities to visit, like Cordoba, Seville, and Granada.”
I was going to ask about Santiago de Compostela, a prime pilgrimage place that I wanted to visit, but the boatman had arrived and was starting to load the rubber tubes into the boat.
I asked Alfred to take a picture of Susie and me with a view of the river in the background. He took one picture of us with the river and the village across the river, and another picture of us with the river flowing downstream with the foothills of the Andes in the background.
When we boarded the large motorized canoe with a small canopy as a rain cover, I noticed that the canoe was named Yacuruna. I was already familiar with the last part of the word “runa,” which meant person, especially a person of indigenous descent. But I was not sure what the “Yacu” part meant. Susie told Gabriel that I was curious to know what the word meant.
“Yacu is water and runa is person,” explained Gabriel. “So Yacuruna is a water person – like me.”
Gabriel smiled at us in a way that seemed to say that there was more to the Yacuruna word than he was willing to share at the moment. Later I learned that the Yacuruna was a legendary creature of the rivers and lakes of Amazonia, just like Bigfoot was a legendary creature of the Northwest in the United States. There was more to the Yacuruna legend that I would become aware of as our journey on the river with Gabriel progressed.
For the time being, I tried to put the Yacuruna mystery behind me and watch the flow of the murky waters of the river as it hurried toward a confluence with the Napo River. It was starting to seep in that we were actually canoeing on the waters that eventually would unite with the waters of the second longest (some say the longest) river in the world – the Amazon River.
Gabriel looked at me and gave me an enigmatic smile. Then he asked for my camera. I handed it to him, thinking that he was going to take a special picture for me. Instead, he turned the camera lens towards himself and took a close-up of his shiny sun-tanned face. It was as if he was revealing himself to me as “the face of the Selva (rainforest)” and the indigenous man of the local Kechwa (Quechua) people. He understood that every time I looked at that particular picture, I would see the heart and soul of Amazonia itself.
We were now flowing on the Napo River. The canoe seemed to move a little faster as the current swept us downstream towards our first stop. We landed on a sandy shore below the high bank of the river, where a sign indicated that we had arrived at Museo Sacha Samay (“Power of the Jungle”). Gabriel whisked Susie up the trail to the thatch-covered sign so I could take a picture of them together. With Susie around, Gabriel felt invigorated and flirtatious.
The trail to the museum was like walking through Gabriel’s neighborhood. In fact, the entire region with its jungle and rivers seemed to be familiar to him. This was where he learned all the survival skills and knowledge about the plants and animals. This was the outdoor school that provided him with the dexterity and proficiency he was about to display for us. He pointed out an achiote tree with bright red spiny fruits.
“I’ll show you the fruit of the achiote and the seeds inside in a while,” said Gabriel as he led us further on the trail to the central area where the museum was located.
He stopped at a low hanging tree with brownish ovoid-shaped fruit.
“This is the cacao tree, also called Theobroma or food of the gods,” said Gabriel, squatting down and taking a hold of the small understory tree that grew in the shade of the forest canopy. “This is the sacred fruit of the indigenous tribes, from the Maya in Mesoamerica to the Quechua people in South America. The seeds or beans inside are used to make chocolate.”
Gabriel took a ripe cacao pod from the tree and cut it open with his knife. Inside was a white pulp covering the beans. I recalled a story from Maya mythology, where Quetzalcoatl (“the feathered serpent”) gave cacao to the Maya after humans were created from the maize plant. Now Gabriel was handing us the pulp covered seed to savor and look at. The white pulp tasted kind of sweet. I kept the light brownish seed as a souvenir of the rainforest.
Just then a blue morpho butterfly flew over my head.
“A blue morpho butterfly!” I exclaimed with delight. I had seen my first blue morpho in Costa Rica years ago. I started following the flight of the butterfly, hoping it would land so I could take a picture of it. Gabriel handed the cacao pod to Maria, and he followed me in pursuit of the butterfly. Finally, the butterfly landed on a leaf. Gabriel came up to me and asked for the camera. He was going to get a picture of the blue morpho for me. I watched as he stealthily crept up to the butterfly, with one eye on the butterfly and the other eye on the viewing monitor of the digital camera. When he was within three feet of the butterfly, he took several pictures of the blue morpho. It seemed to not even notice Gabriel’s presence. When I took a closer look at the blue morpho, I noticed that it was not completely blue. The vivid, iridescent blue coloring was limited to a wide stripe on each wing, and the rest of the butterfly was edged with black. Later, I found out that I was looking at a butterfly known as Richard's Morpho (Morpho richardius).
Gabriel must have been in a good-humored mood when we returned to the museum area, for he reached for some bracts on a heliconia pendula plant and decorated our noses with them. It looked like we had bird’s beaks for noses. We had a good laugh as the “lobster-claw” bracts clung to our noses. Even Gabriel joined in the fun by putting a heliconia bract on his nose.
The fun was just beginning. Our transformation into birds was a sign that Gabriel meant to initiate us into the life of the jungle. Now he took the next step and picked the red spiny Achiote fruit from a nearby tree. He split it open and began to make a red paste from the pulp of the seed pods inside the fruit. Then he began to adorn Susie’s face with three red lines on her forehead, round circles on her cheeks, a few marks on her nose, and red on her lips.
“The indigenous people call the achiote plant the lipstick tree,” said Gabriel after he finished coloring Susie’s lips. The annatto coloring made Susie look like a native princess of the jungle. The red earrings she wore matched the color of the achiote fruit.
Little by little, the jungle man Gabriel was drawing us into his world. When he started painting my face, I looked at Gabriel’s face and saw the same sacred intensity that I had seen in a priest’s face in India when he placed a red tika mark on my forehead to symbolize the opening of the third eye for seeing spiritual reality. The three long lines Gabriel painted on my forehead looked like Neptune’s (or Shiva’s) trident, symbolizing control over the three levels of heaven, earth, and the underworld. Two long lines on each cheek made the person invulnerable to attack from visible and invisible enemies. Marks on the nose gave the wearer the capacity to sense malevolent spirits in the jungle. I had been transformed into a warrior of the jungle, ready to venture out into an unknown world full of living creatures – visible and invisible.
Before Gabriel took us into the museum, he stopped beside a tall tree with vines growing up the tree.
“This is the gauco or bejuco climbing plant,” said Gabriel, taking a hold of the vine with heart-shaped leaves. “It makes a strong medicinal tea, and it has healing powers.”
When we entered the museum, we saw a lot of contraptions that looked like animal traps, and other indigenous stuff, along the sides of the walls. This is where Gabriel would demonstrate his expertise as a hunter.
“Here you will see lots of animal traps and hunting techniques,” began Gabriel. “This tall palm-leaf structure is called a Chapana. It is a hiding place for the hunter. The real ones in the rainforest are made from fresh green palm leaves that blend in with the green plants. It’s a perfect camouflage for the hunter who waits for the prey to arrive.”
A sign to the right of the hiding contraption had information in Spanish and in English:
"(Chapana – Camouflage-style trap) This trap is constructed with the leaves of a palm tree called Yarina. It is woven by hand in the form of a small house. The hunter camouflages himself so that the animal cannot spot him. With this trap one can hunt all types of land animals."
“This trap is called Cunga Tuglla,” said Gabriel, showing us the first trap.
The sign above the trap gave us the following information: “In this trap you can capture animals and birds through a kind of hanging contraption. It is used to catch rabbits and birds, as well as other animals.”
Gabriel demonstrated how the loop in the hole, where the bait was placed, would catch the bird or animal.
The next trap was quite a deceptive snare, as Gabriel demonstrated. The animal would be lured inside the cage by some bait, and a trap door would close its path of escape.
The sign said: “Cular Ticta (Trap in the form of a cage). This trap is constructed with the bark of a chonta tree. It is one of the most secure traps to ensnare many animals like the guatusa (agouti) and birds like the partridge.”
The next trap looked like it had been constructed of intertwined palm leaves. Gabriel showed with his finger how an animal would spring the trap, causing a large piece of wood to crush its body or disabling it. It was funny how Gabriel pulled his finger back quickly before it was crushed – or at least that’s how he made it appear to be.
By the time we came to another hanging trap with a loop that would hurl the caught victim into the air – helplessly thrashing about and trying to escape – I began to realize that I as a vegetarian wouldn’t fare well in the jungle. Being a friend of animals in the jungle was not a recipe for survival.
“This next trap is built for larger animals,” said Gabriel, showing us a tall wooden structure with a heavy board above the entrance. “The animal tugs on the meat inside, and that pulls this lever, and the wood board slams down shut. The animal is trapped inside until the hunter comes for it.”
“These long fishing traps are placed in small streams,” said Gabriel, picking up a long cylindrical tube made of twine and bamboo sticks. “The fish swim through and get trapped in an enclosed area.”
The next fishing contraption was very elaborate and built like a wooden canal to direct fish to swim into an enclosed pool, from which they would not be able to escape.
The last hunting exhibit was a model canoe and a model wooden raft with intricate details that included rawhide ties.
The next few exhibits provided the viewer with miniature wooden native people, birds, and various musical instruments that would be used at social gatherings and weddings. There was an interesting carved ocelot, several examples of indigenous pottery, and local clothing.
When Gabriel came to the Yachak or Doctor’s Office, his tone of voice changed and his demeanor became very serious. He pointed to the sign and read it in Spanish:
Consultorio del Yachak. El yachak es una persona que tiene la capacidad de poder sobre natural de comunicarse con los espiritus Buenos de la selva, rios, y las cosas importantes que utiliza el yachak, son el ayahuasca, trago, tabasco Silvestre, guayusa, zurrupanga, etc.
(The Yachak doctor’s office. The yachak (shaman) is the person who has the supernatural capacity to communicate with the good spirits of the jungle, river, and the Yachak uses important things, all natural from the jungle, like ayahuasca, trago (brandy), tabasco (liquor), tobacco Silvestre, guayusa, zurrupanga, etc.)
I noticed that Gabriel’s eyes were closed when he finished reading the sign, as if he was entering a semi-trance. He held a small round clay cup, which he had filled with the sacred ayahuasca, drink of the gods. I had the impression that Gabriel was performing a ceremonial ritual in preparation of a shamanic encounter with the participant – me. I was going to be the participant and Gabriel was going to be the Shaman. I did not hesitate when he turned to me and offered the drink from the plant known as “the vine of the spirit.” He had me sit down on a stool, probably so I wouldn’t feel disoriented. I took a sip. It tasted rather bitter. I had the same impression after I had my first alcoholic drink when I was young. I took several more sips. Gabriel poured another half-a-cup from a jug that had the brownish brew fermenting on the bottom. I noticed Alfredo and Maria looking on; they were rather surprised that Gabriel had actually convinced someone to partake of the shamanic sacrament.
The second cup revealed to me what I was actually drinking. Yes, I knew that it was a hallucinogenic liquid, and I was familiar with that aspect – having experienced the cultural revolution and the hippie era in San Francisco. What surprised me was that it produced the same effect as the “opening of the third eye” that advanced yoga techniques taught. I had to work years for the “light of the spirit” to shine through the eye of the soul in the pineal gland. Ayahuasca provided the same experience in a short period of time. However, what I had earned through my advanced studies in kriya yoga was permanent. The Ayahuasca experience was temporary. I reasoned that if it opened the spiritual eye of the participant to the potential of the divine soul within the individual, then it was a sacred drink “worth its weight in gold.”
My experience with the Shaman Gabriel was concluded by a thirty second ritual cleansing with Chaliponga leaves. The Shamanic ritual of cleansing consisted of moving the bundle of dry Chaliponga leaves over the body of the relaxed participant, brushing lightly the back, front, sides and legs, then moving the leaves around the head; afterwards, repeating the process a second time with a culminating waving of the leaves over the crown of the head and brushing the head, shoulders, front and back one last time for good measure. The climactic act was when the Shaman lifted the body of the participant off of the stool, and the initiate joyfully cried out in a victorious voice, “LIBRE.” (“Free,” signifying free from bad energy, fear, or the bad air – or spirit – that surrounded a person’s body, mind, and soul.)
As I watched Gabriel perform the same cleansing ritual on Susie – she declined the ayahuasca – I realized that the Shaman Gabriel was performing a cleansing of the astral body, the energy body that surrounded the human body. It definitely was an uplifting experience.
Before we left the museum – and the Shaman’s office – I glanced at the sacred place where the ritual cleansing and ayahuasca experience had taken place. The small wooden stool – it actually was a round log cut into the shape of a natural stool – was right beside the hearth of the indigenous home. Three stones, representing the family (mother, father, and children), made up the center of the home where the food was cooked.
When I stepped outside into the light of the noon day sun, I felt as if I had been regenerated – by the ayahuasca and the cleansing ritual. I definitely felt the heightened awareness that the ayahuasca provided.
“Let’s see if you can hunt for some birds for lunch,” said Gabriel good-naturedly. He brought out a blow gun and led us to a grassy area where a rectangular target with a bird in the center was going to be our target practice. Gabriel demonstrated first how to load the long blowpipe with a dart, and then propel the thin pointed dart towards the target with the bird in the center. Susie tried holding the blow gun and blowing forcefully towards the target. Then I took a turn at sending a burst of breath through the blow tube, sending the projectile through the air just below the bird on the target. Both Susie and I hit the white board several times, but we missed the bird.
“I guess we don’t have lunch,” joked Gabriel, who also missed the bird when he demonstrated the use of the blow gun. It was not easy to be a hunter.
Afterwards, Gabriel laid out large banana leaves on a table, and we ate lunch.
After lunch, Gabriel had us change into our swimwear, and we set out again on the river. This was where Gabriel was completely in his element as he stood at the bow of the boat and signaled to the boatman that he was ready to initiate us into the wonderful sport of tubing. As Gabriel stood there at the bow in his skimpy swimwear, I saw him as the “Lord of the River.” He looked larger than life at that moment, a giant muscular figure who could wrestle any creature of the watery depths.
I felt safe following Gabriel into the water. I trusted him when he said there was nothing to fear in the water – not even the thought of piranhas. And so we ventured out on the river with our floating tubes. Tubing made me feel like a kid again, playfully enjoying a fun ride down the river. There was one place where the rapids seemed to be pretty rough, and that’s when Gabriel had us form a binding circle of three. We held each others’ tubes together and kept from separating into treacherous waters. When Gabriel coaxed us into the water, we got into the water and swam around, holding on to our tubes at the same time. We were one with the river, just like Gabriel.
Eventually – like all good things – the tubing experience had to end. We got back into the motorized canoe and headed for AmaZOOnico, the animal rescue center. Gabriel had us change our shoes. We would need to wear rubber boots on the muddy trails. He also told us to wear clothes that would cover our bodies because of the possibility of mosquitoes.
A young German lady, who was a volunteer at the animal rescue and rehabilitation center, greeted us at their central building. She was fluent in English and Spanish, so we had a bilingual guide taking us through the protected rainforest preserve.
“We ask that you don’t talk to or touch the animals,” said the German lady sternly. “We try to allow the animals to live as wild and free as possible, without human contact.”
A wooly monkey sauntered past us and then stopped to scratch his chest with his right foot. His long prehensile tail curled around the left hand that was balancing his body as he sat on the stony ground. His dark reddish-brown coat color and black face with attentive eyes gave me the impression that he was a primate whose garment resembled the habit of the Franciscan monks. His other-worldly stare seemed to indicate a solitary life absorbed in the contemplative practice of understanding his existence in the monastic rainforest preserve.
“He keeps to himself,” said the German lady as we stopped to observe the wooly monkey. “He roams freely, as do most of our monkeys. Like those squirrel monkeys up the path on the stone platform.”
She directed us to follow her – and to leave the wooly monkey alone. The omnivorous squirrel monkeys were busy eating bananas and other fruit on their raised platform. Their comical faces, with black mouths and white masks around their eyes, provided us with lots of entertainment. We wanted to interact and talk with them, but we were again cautioned that the center did not want the animals to get used to humans.
“We want the animals to hang out with their own kind,” said the volunteer guide. “Most of the animals that are rehabilitated here were brought here because they were sick or injured, and people who had them as pets got bored of them. Some were confiscated from the illegal trade business. No matter where they come from or how we get them, our job is to give the animals a chance to live a decent life here, or to reintroduce them to the unprotected areas of their own habitat outside our preserve.”
As we walked up the trail to the caged area of the preserve, I noticed Gabriel looking for wildlife roaming freely in the wooded rainforest that surrounded the enclosures. I got the hint that he was trying to teach me how to be observant and to be aware of the movements of life in the “selva viva” (living jungle).
The cages of birds included protected white-throated toucans, scarlet macaw, and other jungle birds. I had not seen a live white-throated toucan before, and I looked in amazement at the huge bill, which was at least a foot long. The black plumage with the narrow red ring around its expansive white throat area made an impressive sight. The toucan turned sideways and looked at us with an eye encircled with a bare blue skin. Gabriel was standing next to me, and I noticed him communicating telepathically with the bird. That was another secret he was conveying to me – if you can’t talk to the birds and animals, at least you can use the language of the mind, which is shared by all living creatures.
The scarlet macaw was a colorful bird that I was familiar with during my Maya pilgrimage in Copan, Honduras. There a guide told me that the sacred primary colors of yellow, red, and blue on the sacred bird of the Maya people represented the rising and setting sun, and the blue sky.
The next caged creature was a long boa constrictor, who arched his body at least three feet upwards as we approached. It was almost as if he was recognizing the presence of the boa master, Gabriel, who wore the boa as an adornment around his neck. Its skin was different than the boa that Gabriel had. It was mostly greenish-gray with small orange and black spots. I thought of the Peter, Paul and Mary song which I sang with my students in an elementary school one day when we had a boa constrictor visit our classroom:
I'm being swallowed by a boa constrictor (three times)
And I don't like it very much!
Oh no, oh no, he swallowed my toe,
he swallowed my toe
Oh gee, oh gee, he's up to my knee,
he's up to my knee
Oh fiddle, oh fiddle, he's reached my middle,
he's reached my middle
Oh heck, oh heck, he's up to my neck,
he's up to my neck
Oh dread, oh dread, he swallowed my.... schlirppp!
Gabriel turned to me and whispered in my ear, “Anaconda.”
So this was the water creature of South American folklore, the mythical shape-shifter like the Yacuruna. Both of them seemed to have the capacity to enchant unwary victims and carry them off to their enchanted underwater realms.
A capybara cage was next on our tour of protected animals in AmaZOOnica. This was the largest rodent in the world. To me, it looked like a giant guinea pig, its nearest cousin. I watched as the barrel-shaped capybara used his round muzzle to separate the banana fruit from the peel. I noticed the web feet, which seemed to speak of an evolutionary past as a duck. Or maybe they had web feet because they were semi-aquatic mammals, which seemed to be more likely. The guide told us that the capybara was the preferred prey of the anaconda.
A furry tapir resided in the next cage. He looked like a pig, but his snout was different. The tapir’s snout was flexible enough to move about and grab foliage.
Gabriel tapped me on the shoulder and pointed into the underbrush. A reclusive turtle was moving slowly along the ground, trying to keep from being spotted. I was wondering why the turtle was at the reserve instead of in the river. Perhaps it was a land-dwelling turtle. I had always been fascinated by turtle shell patterns and designs. Someone had told me that you could tell the age of a turtle (or tortoise) by counting the rings inside the hexagon (or scute) designs on its upper part (or carapace). I saw a larger tortoise in the underbrush, and I was able to capture an image of its carapace for later study.
The guide headed up the trail while Gabriel and I had fun with the primeval turtles, whose ancestors dated back to about 215 million years ago. Not only were they ancient, but they also were symbols of longevity in many cultures, some of them living past a 100 years of age.
When we caught up with the lady guide, she was standing in front of a cage with a screeching capuchin monkey, who was extremely excited to see her – and probably us, also. When I came closer to see the aggressive monkey with his mouth wide open, I could see that the poor fellow was excited to the point that he had an uncontrollable urge to display his tiny erect penis.
I would have to say that the highlight at the animal rescue center – for me – was seeing an ocelot. The ocelot was so well camouflaged, sitting like a sphinx on the ground with dried leaves, twigs and stones around her, that I didn’t even see the beautiful wild cat at first. Gabriel had to point her out to me.
“Look, Susie,” I said. “The ocelot has marks on its face like the ones Gabriel made on our faces.”
Gabriel smiled when Susie translated what I had said. It was as if he was glad I realized that the art of the Shaman imitated nature. Besides the lines on the forehead, and lines on each side of the face, the ocelot had a beautiful cream color for a coat marked with black spots and rosettes that had brown spots inside black circles. What a beautiful creature to look at.
“I hope you all had an enjoyable tour of AmaZOOnico,” said the young German lady at the end of the tour. “Usually, you don’t get to see these animals when you’re out in the wild jungle. As you saw, a lot of these animals wouldn’t have a chance of surviving on their own in the wild. Some of them have lost their natural instincts of survival. Here we have created the best natural surroundings for the animals, and we provide them with food. We hope you now understand how fragile this ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest is, and we hope you share with your friends how important it is to treat the animals with respect.”
We were now free to explore the jungle with Gabriel. There was a trail directly from the center to the protected and unprotected areas of the selva. The boatman joined us on this last leg of our journey with Gabriel.
The selva was the place where the imagination seems to play tricks on the primitive mind – including mine. I recalled solitary hikes in a forest or wilderness where I imagined a bear or mountain cat around every tree and every bend in the trail. The jungle was no exception. However, here we had Gabriel, who now was not only our guide, but our protector as well.
We trudged up several steep, rocky areas on the trail. It was good we were wearing knee high rubber boots. The trail was very muddy and slippery in places.
When we arrived at Gabriel’s tree, we stopped to watch him perform his gymnastic skills of climbing the liana (vines) that were rooted in the ground and anchored in the tree tops. The moss-covered buttress roots of the giant tree extended several meters from the main trunk, supporting it on all sides from toppling over from its massive weight. Gabriel grabbed the lianas with both of his hands and started climbing. Boy, was he strong! I did not think he had that much upper body strength, as he easily climbed at least 30-40 feet above our heads. The last time I had done anything like that was in a high school gym class, where we used our hands, feet, and all the muscle we could muster to climb to a similar height. Then Gabriel grabbed a nearby woody vine and swung away from the tree – just like Tarzan. Gabriel was “Lord of the Jungle.”
As I looked at the forest canopy and saw the sunlight streaming through the leaves – and through the lianas that formed bridges connecting the trees into one interconnected community – I realized what kind of tree it was. It was the Tree of Life, the world tree that formed the axis of our world, from the roots of the inner (terrestrial) world to the branches and leaves of the celestial world. I had seen this tree before at Tikal in Guatemala, where I learned that the Mayans worshipped it as the “Holy Tree of Life.” I also learned that for the Maya, the tree connected the underworld (known to them as Xibalba) to the terrestrial world via the trunk, ultimately to the celestial (spirit) realm by way of the canopy. The Maya name of the tree was “Ya’ascche.”
Now that I was in South America, I realized that this same tree was embodied in the concept of Pachamama (Earth Mother), who connected the three levels or worlds (lower, middle, upper).
Gabriel found a liana in a nearby clearing that was loosened from its anchor in the soil. He invited me to swing on it – like Tarzan. He demonstrated first how easy it was. It was amazing how Gabriel seemed to know our inner thoughts and desires. I had just been thinking, as I watched Gabriel swing, how much I used to love swinging on ropes tied to strong branches in trees. But that was in my teenage years. Would I still be able to swing like that? I grabbed two thin vines that Gabriel offered me, and I let out a Tarzan yell as I leaped into the air with my feet off of the ground. I swung back and forth like a young lad, again. What a rejuvenating experience!
When we reached the summit of the trail, there was a “mira vista” (panoramic view) of the selva, the river, and the foothills of the Andes. What a beautiful sight! This would have been a fantastic place to have a picnic, I thought to myself.
Going down the loop trail back to the center was even more slippery than going up. We had to watch our footing at each step of the way. There was one place where Gabriel pointed out a hiding place, like the Chapana (camouflage) that we had seen in the museum.
At another spot, where there seemed to be a wide open space with hardly any undergrowth, the boatman showed us something that was his specialty – lemon ants. He broke a twig off the tree and split it open to reveal a multitude of tiny brown ants. He took one in his mouth and said that they had an unforgettable taste. Sure enough, when he coaxed Susie and me to try one – Susie was always brave enough to try exotic food at least once – the ants had a tangy, citric acid flavor to them, something similar to the taste of a lemon. The boatman explained that the ants and the tree (duroia hirsuta) had a symbiotic relationship, helping each other survive and live in the competitive forest. He also told us about the local folklore of the “devil’s garden,” where the tree species of the duroia hirsute dominated a section of the forest, and the locals thought it was because an evil forest spirit (“Chuyathaqi”) lived in the trees. Needless to say, it was the formic acid that the ants injected into competitive plants that allowed the duroia hirsute tree to dominate the vicinity of a forest.
Further down the trail, Gabriel had a little fun with Susie by making her a dress out of jungle leaves. And then he crowned her head with a jungle hat. Susie was now the “Princess of the Jungle.”
Back at the center, we took a bathroom break and got ready for our journey back to Tena. An aggressive coati rummaged through Maria’s bag while she was in the building. The coati was after the cacao pod that was in her bag. The owner came and chased the coati away. We laughed at the comical incident. To the owner, the coati was a nuisance. For us, it was entertainment.
Gabriel had a surprise for Susie and me just before we got back into the canoe. He handed us a large flat fungus (or mushroom) on which he had written a special message to us: “Ecuador Welcome to Susy and Pablo from Gabriel guide.” That was so sweet of him! I knew I wouldn’t be able to preserve the semi-solid form of the mushroom for long, so I took a picture of it instead.
I had asked Gabriel at the start of our trip if we would see any indigenous people living along the river. He said that there was a good possibility that we would see them. Sure enough, as we were heading back up the river in the motorized canoe, I spotted an indigenous family in a regular wood-carved canoe along the shore of the river. And further up the river there was a native shack, where I spotted a woman peeking at us from behind a wooden post that supported the shack and protected it from flooding. That was as close as we got to the natives.
We were sad to part with the friends we had made on our trip through Amazonia. We told our friends from Spain, Alfredo and Maria, that we would keep in touch. Alfredo promised to send me some of his pictures. It was a promise that was kept when I returned to the States.
Gabriel said his good-byes to us at the Los Yutzos hostel, where we walked together through the tranquil garden of fruit trees, orchids, heliconia, and bromeliads on our way to the lobby desk. Gabriel did something extraordinary when he walked up to the desk clerk and thanked him for recommending his services to us. He gave the desk clerk a tip. I was impressed with that gesture of appreciation. And I was sure the desk clerk would recommend Gabriel again to the next tourist.
The image of Gabriel will forever be etched in my mind. I had watched him transform himself into the “Lord of the River,” and I had watched him transform himself into the “Lord of the Jungle.” He was like the Yacuruna, the mythological being, the shape-shifter who could appear as a handsome man to a young lady, a Shaman to an old man, and a handler of the anaconda to the tourists. To all, he was the absolute guide who took his clients to a magical realm of the mysterious Amazonian rainforest.
As I walked through the Los Yutzos garden back to the room, I thought I saw an image of Gabriel carved into a volcanic vase. He seemed to be appearing everywhere – to my mind’s eye.
Gabriel's Web Page: Las Grutas de Gabriel
Gabriel performs a cleansing ritual