Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9308020343
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By STEVE SILK THE HARTFORD COURANT
DATELINE: IMUYA CAMP, ECUADOR LENGTH: Long
Here on the headwaters of the Amazon, along the steep and eroding banks of the muddy Rio Aguarico, the encroaching hand of civilization is reaching deeper and deeper into the jungle. Each day trees fall and the rain forest retreats. The planet's greatest repository of leaf and vine and tooth and claw, unchanged for millennia, is inexorably shrinking.
So there's no time like the present to plunge deep into the Amazon, to travel past the roads, villages and clearings and into what remains of the forest's pristine and primeval heart. It is a voyage to an imperiled environment so strange, it might as well be on another planet.
In the complex and interdependent world of the rain forest, the tapestry of life is so densely woven that the eye struggles to make sense of it. Every shade of green can be seen in a seamless web of vines, leaves and grasses that nearly smothers the sky. There are birds painted with every color of the rainbow, butterflies of almost electric hue, dark-eyed monkeys, howling jaguars, chirruping frogs, pinkish gray freshwater dolphins, toothy crocodiles and, yes, lots of big spiders.
Deep in the Oriente, Ecuador's easternmost province, on a tributary of a tributary of a tributary of the Amazon, lies Imuya Camp, a cluster of Gilligan's Island-style huts stilted over the flooded shore of a blackwater lagoon. In Ecuador, this outpost is about as far into the Amazon as you can get - the Peruvian border lies only a blow dart's blast away. The frontier with Colombia is not much farther.
The journey to Imuya begins in Quito with the roar of a chartered prop plane taking off, and ends some 24 hours later, when a dugout canoe coasts silently to the dock at Imuya, the "Lake of the Howler Monkeys."
The moment your canoe slips through the secret entrance to Imuya - a wall of tall grasses bordering the Rio Lagarto - and slides into the silent still waters of a hidden lagoon, you'll feel far from home indeed. And Imuya Camp lies almost an hour's journey farther away.
The camp is something straight out of a Tarzan epic, perched on the edge of a lagoon dappled with floating islands and backed by dense jungle. Nobody would call Imuya luxurious, but its rustic architecture and overall simplicity harmonize with the surroundings. Boardwalks connect the living quarters with a pavilion for lounging, a dining room, and the toilet and shower facilities.
Every splinter of lumber, shred of cloth, scrap of furniture, and, of course, the ingredients for the fine three-course meals served at lunch and dinner arrive here only after an arduous downriver journey.
The camp's remoteness and its utter remove from ordinary concern may be charming, but it's not for everyone, at least not for long.
"After three weeks here, you feel like killing someone," says Roberto Cedeno, a naturalist guide from Quito. "After a month, you feel like killing yourself."
Cedeno's postings to Imuya have been, fortunately, short ones - usually 15 days or so.
Visitors, however, are more apt to complain they're not spending enough time at Imuya - there's too much to see in the surrounding reserve.
Imuya is part of the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, a swatch of virgin forest known to researchers as a Pleistocene Refuge. Think of it as a biologic Fort Knox. The Cuyabeno's 1.6 million acres contain a remarkable diversity of plants and animals. This treasury of life may include as-yet-undiscovered sources of valuable medicinal drugs. Some researchers consider rain forests such as these the lungs of the planet; through photosynthesis, the vast canopy of green helps oxygenate the Earth's atmosphere while cleansing it of carbon dioxide.
From a seat in a 25-foot-long dugout canoe, it doesn't take long to get a feel for the biological richness of the swamps, lagoons and forests.
With the jungle floor under water, sightseers pile into canoes equipped with chairs and cushions. The tippy dugouts, crafted from the trunks of chuncho trees, are piloted by burly Quechua Indians from a village along the Aguarico. The boatmen, Medardo Yiatra and Fausto Hualinga, dip their teardrop-shaped paddle blades into the water, and with silent strokes propel their human cargo past overhanging branches and dangling vines, through a leafy green canyon. In the bow, Cedeno stands with binoculars poised.
Rising toward the heavens are the lords of the jungle - massive, vine-draped kapok trees. Their thick trunks soar skyward to broad leafy crowns that spread over the forest like open umbrellas. The other giants of the jungle are the noble fig trees, whose cream-colored trunks and delicate leaves seem to support the sky like ornamental pillars. Sometimes the machinelike din of insects and birds is shattered by a sound like the crack of a distant gunshot, as one of these giant trees topples earthward in death, plunging into the swamp.
Among the smaller trees, bushes, vines and creepers, there is enough variety to bewilder a botanist. Hundreds of species might crowd their way onto a single acre. Much of the greenery is ornamented with ruby-colored passionflowers, crimson heliconia, pink morning glories or the white blossoms of the amor seco. A profusion of orchids, bromeliads and epiphytes cling to every available nook and cranny, staking their territorial claims in the endless struggle for light and nutrients that characterizes life in the rain forests. Spider webs the size of hammocks drape some of the vegetation.
Overhead are the birds. Most jungle wildlife is shy and hard to spot, but the birds are often betrayed by garish colors and screeching cries. Imuya is the promised land for bird-watchers, with more than 500 species reported in the reserve. There are speckled chachalacas, horned screamers and ladder-tailed nightjars. Some species are so rare, they were thought extinct until spotted in the Cuyabeno.
More frequently, you'll see kingfishers darting along the river, toucans high in the trees, or bands of white-winged swallows that suddenly materialize as if to escort your canoe. In the marshy reaches, prehistoric-looking hoatzin thrash, sporting a crown of feathers that makes them look like punk rockers. Overhead, scarlet macaws screech en route to distant but apparently urgent business. A flash of green reveals a wheeling flock of festive parrots. Along the lake shores, there are snowy egrets and the ever-present jacanas, whose wings erupt with color in flight. Locals call them Jesus birds because the long-legged jacanas sometimes seem to walk on water.
Even brighter are the butterflies, especially the ethereally beautiful blue morpho. Its wings blaze with an iridescent blue so intense, it seems unnatural.
A more practiced eye can pick out the monkeys, sloths and other creatures for whom the forest is home.
The true simian star of Imuya is the howler monkey. Its eerie cry - a cross between a cyclonic wind and a lion's roar - provides a haunting soundtrack as gray clouds bump across the sky and thunderheads boil up on the horizon.
There are many doors to the vast Amazon Basin in South America, but there's a historical resonance in entering the jungle from Ecuador, a Colorado-sized country named for the imaginary line separating the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
It was from the Ecuadorean capital of Quito, 9,400 feet high in the Andes, that the conquistadors Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana set out in 1541 seeking the rich and fabled realms of La Canela (the Land of Cinnamon) and El Dorado (the kingdom of the Golden Man).
Leading a small army of adventurers toward the rising sun, the two crossed the snowcapped Andes, then followed mountain streams and rushing rivers into the unknown. Spice and gold eluded them; starvation did not. In desperation, Orellana led a small exploratory party downriver to seek supplies.
Nearly a year later, Orellana and his men emerged on the far side of the continent, having floated thousands of miles on a great river that emptied into the Atlantic Ocean.
Along the way, the Spaniards battled one Indian tribe after another. One group of attackers was assisted by fierce, long-haired women. The explorers called them Amazons, after a Greek story about Scythian female warriors who cut off a breast to improve their archery (a-mazos, in ancient Greek, means "no breast"). The women, according to a talkative captive, wore fine clothing and lived in villages where men were not welcome. In time, the Spaniards' name for the warrior women became synonymous with the river.
ECUADOR
930801 AMAZON-ECUAD STORY amazon side TOPIC KEYWORD DESK AUTHOR:APX376708/01/93 BC-amazon-ecuador-art - 07-27 0290 job 385 APDF 7/27/93 11:47 ECUADOR By STEVE SILK THE HARTFORD COURANT
There are many doors to the vast
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