The Amazon Blog

My years in the Marine Corp gave me the solace of structure and comradeship and were a walk in the park compared with the childhood I had experienced. As an adult, I couldn’t find ease...

Sumpa helped me open to a new dimension of light, and colour and it was SO beautiful. I felt like I was actually in a heavenly realm of such beauty and illumination. But light is...

Ya’Acov makes some strange noises when he gives healings. We become aware of other noises, little snufflings and stifled chucklings. And then we realise that one end of the ceremonial house has become a gallery,...

I learnt to use a machete for the first time. I tried to try peeling the yuca (manioc) to bring back to make Chicha (their sacred drink) and daily staple. OMG! It was an adventure....

As I concertina through the languages, the unknown dramatic curves of Achuar and its new acoustic shapes tumble me around in a wide sea of incomprehension. Spanish, half understood, gives me some ground, and then...

Some years ago we had a deep meeting with Agustin Tentets in Sharamentsa. He spoke on camera of the powerful will and total determination of his people to protect the forest for the sake of...

In Sharamentsa we get out of the plane into dazzling sun, the earth under our feet damp and hot. The huge river Pastaza, a sinuous powerful gleaming presence right there. We are in a completely...

I love what Phil Stutz says (in the film Stutz) about seeing each next thing we do, however apparently grand or mundane, as the next pearl on a string of pearls. He suggests that we give equal...

We were invited to a cultural sharing. Wonderfully unexpectedly, each dance or song they shared with us seemed designed to reduce everyone to hysterical laughter. At one point our whole group were asked to become...

Manari greets us. He talks quietly, gently, slowly and when he speaks I find myself listening in a new way. It's as if he is transmitting on another wavelength which I've unconsciously longed for but...

As the tiny plane takes off from the airstrip and soars over the forest, leaving behind the last roads and pipeline, tears spring from my eyes, and there is, simultaneously, a feeling of entering the...

We walked into the airport and looked at each other with some alarm. We both had the same feeling that the floor was moving and we’d both come to the same conclusion that there was...