The Amazon Cont'd - DD'ing Shamans and Pickup Trucks

When we woke up in the morning at 5:30am for our morning canoe ride, we were surprised to find that the shaman had just stopped his chanting about 20 minutes before. We then had the pleasure of DD'ing the shaman back to his house because, yes, he was too drunk to paddle himself back to his house. When we dropped him off at his beach, he was using both oars to walk and could not walk straight. Who else can say that they've seen a walk of shame shaman style??

After we dropped off the shaman, we continued on a beautiful canoe trip as the sun rose.

After a big breakfast, we split into three groups and went on a 4-hour walk through the jungle. Unfortunately, we didn't space out enough, so we weren't able to see any big animals, but it was still beautiful.

One of the guides creating a purse- solely from leaves!

In the middle of our hike. It was so hot!

After our walk, everyone was happy to return to the beach from the day before. After splashing around for a while, Juan permitted us to go back to the community…by floating in the river. Several locals were a little baffled to see 20 gringos bobbing about in the river, and it is probably because they knew that the river was contaminated with oil and contained anacondas (although they told us that they were further downstream). Still, "When in the Amazon...."

After canoeing back to the bus, we drove for another two hours and arrived at the same hotel from Thursday in Lago Agria. After a couple of days roughing it in the Amazon, the soft bed, AC, hot showers, and flat-screened TV's were a slight step up.

Sunday morning we went on a "Toxic Tour" of the different oil spills caused by Chevron-Texaco. For an awesome summary of the Chevron-Texaco case, read the article written by Noah, one of my friends in the program. First we went to the first pump that Chevron-Texaco had, which still produces 27 barrels per day.

The first oil pump

After this, we drove to different sites around the region and Hannah, Noah and I had the distinct pleasure to ride in the back of a pickup truck. Other than almost getting hit by another car, it was a much better than the stifling bus.

At the next site we saw a "piscina" which is the place where the dump the extra oil and other gross materials that they didn't need. This was one of the sites that Chevron-Texaco had paid to clean up and although at first it seemed perfectly healthy (with green trees everywhere), after our guide dug one shovelful of dirt up, we could see that the site was the opposite from clean.

Shining dirt filled with petroleum

The dirt was actually shining it was so iridescent with oil. When we took a whiff of the dirt, it smelled like we were sniffing straight gasoline.

The next site was even more shocking. We went to a large clearing covered with ferns, but from the black ground, it was obvious this piscina had not been cleaned up. The guide walked into the pit (the entire pit moved when he walked on it) and stuck a stick into the pit to show the depth. As you can see from the photo below, it was probably about 8-9 feet deep.

Showing the depth of the piscina

He used gloves and picked up the black goo and when he was done, he threw his gloves into the pit. Seeing our shocked faces, he explained that he used to bring the gloves home and put them in his trash until the trash company contacted him and told him that they couldn't recycle any of his trash because the gloves were contaminating all of it. I think that shows pretty well how toxic the stuff inside the pits is.

There was a pipe inside the pit that used to drain directly to the river. Although it no longer drains to the river, we walked down to the stream to see for ourselves. Upon first site, the stream looked completely clean. After the guide stuck a stick in the stream, little black and iridescent bubbles appeared on the surface. He wiped his hand on the surface and his glove came up oozing black goo. What is even sadder is that the oil company paid to “clean up” this site. In a news interview, some of the men from the oil company came to the river, boasting about how clean it was. After some environmentalists did the same thing our guide did, they asked the oil guys if they wanted water. They quickly responded that they had brought bottles of water, but thanks. In general, I really enjoyed the Toxic Tour because it was fascinating, albeit sad, to see the impacts of poor oil drilling techniques firsthand.

As of this far, this was my favorite trip because we got to spend so much time in nature with simple and endearing people while learning some environmental science at the same time.