Boldly Go Solo

Who knew how hard it could be to hit a banana hanging from a tree with a blowgun's dart? From 20 feet away.

Take my word, it's tough.

I can only imagine the challenge of using that blowgun, loaded with darts coated with curare, to target a monkey swinging from branch to branch. Or a tapir or a toucan, for that matter.

This is how some Quechua Indians in Ecuador still hunt for food.

I thought about this indigenous culture I'd visited after receiving a press release about new "insider trips" promoted by Backroads. The company says they offer a deeper look into a destination.

I don't know what that means on a luxury trip with stays at top hotels. I even had my doubts in deepest Ecuador about how "insider" a tour group could get.

If guests of Sacha Lodge in the Amazon rain forest constantly were visiting an "authentic" home of native Quechua Indians wouldn't that family be jaded and changed, and in some way, be performing?

Surely it would be a manufactured experience. We'd sit down to dinner with a family, as visitors before us had done, and hear some tired talk about how they lived.

Far from it. A small group of us took a boat up the Napo River.
As we pulled to shore, two barefoot boys came running to meet us, smiling and waving. These visits must have seemed like a natural part of their childhood. 

But touristy? Not close. The
"bathroom" was the woods out back. A toothless grandmother wandered off at one point for the call of nature at its most basic.

Unlike the children, this elderly woman hadn't gotten used to these strangers spilling into her home. She would not look
at us during our visit. "She's afraid," our guide told us. "You don't look like
they do."

That made me feel like an invader. It's a
tough line to draw, wanting to experience places untouched by
commercialism, without ruining them by being there. But it
was too late. There we were.

We tried to keep a respectful distance from her, while learning
about the culture of a people I'd hardly heard of before my visit to Ecuador. Other younger family members were not apprehensive and went about their business while a guide explained some things.

He told us about chicha, a rich drink made from yucca. The yucca is smashed
with a hand grinder – in the past the Quechuas used their mouths –
and put in a container until fermented.

A typical meal is fish, banana and chicha. Meal times are not set. The family eats when hungry. They know it's late in the day when they hear a certain
kind of cricket chirping. "They have no expectations from one day to
the next," our guide explained.

The
younger family members use guns to shoot prey, while the elders
prefer their blowguns. The grandmother smokes meat over a fire, rather than using the portable gas stove on the back porch, although other family members must use it. Otherwise, why would it be there?

The next family over is about six miles away, and the children walk two to three hours to get to school. They don't return home every day. The walk is too long.

Shamans are a part of the culture in the rain forest and in other areas of Ecuador. The local Quechua believe in
gods relevant to the forest. Spirits are a part of the celebration
of the harvest and the equinox.

I
sit here now, in vague disbelief that I ever shared time with this family in a rain forest in South America, so far away in so many ways. And so glad I was there on my own. Having a friend along could have diminished the experience. It would have felt more like a point-and-stare-and-nudge kind of thing.

I appreciated being there on my own, observing, without having to converse with anyone about it. Without someone elbowing me with a "can-you-believe-this" look. Without the experience coming up in conversation later, in urban America, during say, a shopping trip to Macy's.

I don't know if that makes sense to others. But I like having the experience to myself, to turn over in my mind when I choose. 

Photos: John Shively

1. Matriarch, native home on the Napo River.

2. Quechua family home.