The park is also home to the Huaorani tribe; an ethnic minority already disrupted by intrusion into their lands. Numbering more than 25,000 when contact with the outside world was first made, there are fewer than 3,000 today. According to experts, roads associated with oil exploration and production will lead to inevitable colonization and destruction of their culture.

Bunked down in military barracks converted to the only “hotel” in town, adjacent to the Ecuadorian migration offices, the immigration hierarchy curiously peered from the curtains as we returned from jungle forays. With no plumbing in the “hotel” we washed in buckets on the verandah, a source of great entertainment for the watching officials.

Here, the Napo is already about a mile wide, and as we head downstream towards the Peruvian border, our tiny canoe is dwarfed by the enormity of this great river.

This border area has been the source of hostilities between Peru and Ecuador since a 1942 treaty was signed, resulting in loss of considerable territory for Ecuador.  Border skirmishes have often resulted in loss of lives on both sides, the last serious incident occurring in 1995. 

“The troubles” are still a sore point, and Ecuadorian military checkpoints are festooned with faded skull and cross bone flags attesting to the ferocity of their forces. Skimming over the river’s surface with Ecuador on one shore, the other Peru, it’s a little surreal. 

Shouts and whistles of urgency accompany our arrival at yet another swamped, dismal jungle camp. After our passport check, more yells ensued as several soldiers, in full dress uniform, shiny boots in hand, wade through the mud to our tiny canoe wanting to catch a lift over to Peru.

Weighed down, we slowly motor alongside the edge of the dense jungle to emerge at a cleared hill with a few shanty shacks – this is Peru’s first military post.  Voices echo across the water as baby faced Peruvian soldiers in shabby speckled shorts jog down to meet us. We discover later that they are indeed children, aged around fifteen.

Picturesque Pantoja, with shacks made of palm and bamboo and a group of children with big white smiles helping to pull in our canoe, was our welcome to Peru. It is as if we have stepped back in time when compared to the shabby modernity of Ecuador’s’ villages.

While the military have told us to go directly to immigration, the locals tell us to relax – the official is busy. An hour later, he has finished a beer or two, and we watch him saunter arrogantly down the only street in town. The children then = escort us to his offices where we are duly processed.

Displacing someone from their bedroom, we find accommodation at the only bar-restaurant-shop in town. By the time we are settled, the immigration officer has returned and is downing another beer.

We are, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere, and the locals tell us that no more than twenty gringos (foreigners) visit this far-flung village each year.   The only way in or out is by river, and there are rumours that a cargo/passenger boat will take us downriver into Peru in a day or two, but meanwhile we must wait for a phone call from an important personage to the only phone in town.

This village consists of just one concrete path, along which are lined a number of thatched houses, quaint with their steeply sloped roofs, and well suited to the tropics.

A spring that runs out of the mountainside is the only running water in town. People gather there with buckets to collect fresh water and also wash in a concrete bath fashioned in the hillside.   Bathing communally with the women and children, we do as they do, and wash ourselves fully clothed.

A macaw presides over the outdoor kitchen area where the restaurant’s dishes are washed, while in a backyard barrel two baby alligators snap and perform when poked by a stick

Idyllic days pass as we wait for some word that we can move on downriver: No one seems to be in a hurry to go anywhere, so we play with the children, and sun bake beside the mighty river.

We foreign women provide a source of fascination for local children who wait outside our restaurant/bar simply to look. Time seems to have stopped – we glimpse at a simple way of life – poor, yet sufficient with each family seeming to provide enough for themselves on their small piece of land.

But for the tranquility, it seems that we are stranded in the middle of the Amazon.

For part two of this story click here to read Oil Barge Downriver

Copyright Ariana Svenson, 2005 - Comments and enquiries, please email us.