When you have a limited number of days in a community such as Tumbira you try everything you can to stretch the number of hours available to you in a day. A few ways that some of us accomplished this was by getting up at sunrise to swim in the river, to take canoe rides to watch the day starting in the pink light, trying to find the birds and monkeys as they sang to welcome the dawn or try to spot the elusive pink dolphins. This day brought many rain showers with it early in the morning as we prepared for our exploration of a section of primary growth forest with our guides Rafael and Manuel.

 

Our two guides had a perfect balance of knowledge to lead us through the forest - Manuel is a local and knows the forest inside and out so he shared with us what he knows about the area that he has learned over his life while Rafael talked about the biodiversity and ecology of the area and the role that tourism plays there.

We drove deep into the forest on a vehicle that Manuel built himself. We learned about the plants as we passed them, we smelled the roots of the hemiepiphytes called Ambé vines and we learned about the spirit of the forest called Kurupira. Kurupira protects the trees of the forest from evil people or often leads people astray so that they get lost. We also ate the white stems of palms that taste similar to the heart of palms that are so sought after here.

 

 

The experience of walking in the rainforest while rain poured down onto us was an extremely powerful experience. It was a two and a half hour long walk which felt like forever but also like it passed way too quickly. We spent the afternoon in Manuel's wood workshop and spent some time making our own projects from the wood and fibres found in the area. We worked with his tools in a shed that is open to the outside, the floor is covered in wood shavings and dust and dogs and previous projects. We were free to create whatever we wanted, ranging from wall art to bracelets, necklaces, keychains and even a wooden Kurupida figure! The evening was spent drinking beers, learning new card games and sharing stories.