The Story of an Extinct Society Still Alive in This Side of the Planet

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Those who have been at the largest Latin-American indigenous market of Otavalo must have realized that a world completely different from the one we are used to exists. They must have had a taste of that indigenous world, a world full of joy, art, history and pride. You can go further in the discovery of this mythical indigenous culture continuing on the main road to the north, where the village of Peguche is found: a community of proud craftsmen full of wonderful traditions and achievements, settled by a famous ritual waterfall. Peguche is a living testimony of an ancient society surviving in the modern world.

Peguche is only 20 minutes by car from Otavalo. There, inhabitants greet each other with a “ñanda mañachi”, which means “let me use your path” and is used as a sign of respect. Peguche is a village of unassuming people whose life goes around music and traditional handcrafts. From this mixture of occupations, great musicians have come out with a unique ability to create their own instruments. With the passing of time, these instruments have been improved to be perfect in quality and sound. Nowadays, the village produces both Andean and contemporary instruments with a sound so pure that people from all around the world travel all the way to that place just to purchase one of them.

Following by foot a rustic path that goes through corn and guava plantations is found the entrance to the track leading to Peguche’s ritual waterfall. Among legends and real stories, its secrets are hidden behind eucalyptus and other ancient plants, across a long river. The deafening sound shows that you are close to the sacred waters: a magnificent white water veil of 20m (65ft) high.

The Peguche waterfall is a place worth admiring from the viewpoint located on the opposite side of it, but the spiritual experience is even greater if you let the waterfall’s cool, relaxing waters fall over you, just as the indigenous people do. It is said that taking a bath at the Peguche waterfall renews your spirit, getting rid of all negative energies and welcoming all the good ones. On the night before the Inti Raymi Festival, the waterfall is a meeting point for indigenes and shamans who have rituals before the festivities.

A sign written at the entrance to the waterfall’s path may roughly describe the Peguche experience: “Come into my world and discover the beauty of my ethnic group, my art, my culture, my history and my ecology”. Peguche is a village in which there is much more than pure nature. This place, once ruled by the colonizers and currently completely managed by its own indigenous community, represents its people’s struggle for having a fresh start, overcoming the dark history of the past by recovering their traditions and old ways of life, and constructing a new society based on them.

Photo: colleen_taugher

Volunteer in Ecuador and Have One of your Life’s Greatest Experiences

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A volunteering program’s idea is simple: To help, protect and get to know the nature and the people through voluntary work. This may not be a priority for some people, but it is a lifestyle and a philosophy for a few others. Having this experience in Ecuador is something as rewarding as amazing, due to its great diversity –in all senses. Even though it is a relatively small country compared to the rest of Latin American countries, Ecuador is abundant in natural landscapes and completely different cultures. It is a diverse, multicultural and multiethnic country. This means that landscapes and wildlife, as well as people, races and traditions change drastically within a few miles, giving us the impression of being in a different country. This variety is precisely what makes Ecuador a destination with endless volunteering alternatives. In only one country, there are four different surroundings among which volunteers can pick:

•    The Coast: the fishing and agricultural communities are found in the Ecuadorian coastal region, from the beautiful beaches of the Pacific Ocean to a few miles further to the East. Working in the middle of nature, staying at the typical bamboo-made houses and meeting one of the most unassuming, friendly people of the world who will make volunteers feel welcome will certainly provide a joyful, wonderful stay. Contributing to these communities is immensely appreciated. A few days after working at this place, volunteers will feel as if they have been living there for years, as part of the peasant family.

•    The Andean Region: hundreds of indigenous communities, living in houses made of adobes (sun-dried bricks made of clay and straw), are settled down next to the mountains of this beautiful Andean landscape of blue skies. Each community is certainly unique; each of them has a different culture and a different way of seeing life, always under the golden rule of respecting and coexisting with each other. This respect for diversity has made them capable of welcoming with joy and without prejudices people from everywhere around the world, with any kind of ideology, willing to share their time with mutual learning and affection. A lot of foundations and associations have developed volunteering programs here, each contributing to the development of these communities, their millenary agriculture and their education.

•    The Amazon: the jungle is located to the East of Ecuador, crossing the Andes. If you want to get to know the work of scientists, help discovering new species and learn about them, the Amazon is perfect for you. It has a wonderful ecosystem full of fauna and flora that remain unidentified always in need of volunteers on its various scientific stations located at rivers and tropical forests.

•    The Galapagos: these islands are very similar to the Amazon in terms of variety of fauna, flora and ecosystems, but a little different to the rest of the volunteering options regarding costs and logistics. Nevertheless, Galapagos has always had a special charm. Various foundations are in constant need of volunteers for their ecosystem preservation projects, whose main objectives are to avoid the insertion of foreign species and the pollution of the environment, as well as helping reforesting the area and taking care of the endangered species. Volunteering at the Galapagos would undoubtedly be a valuable contribution to preserve this natural living laboratory.

Ecuador amazes with its great variety of cultures and ecosystems. No matter which volunteering program you choose, it will always be a unique experience that only a few people in the world get to enjoy, remembering it forever.

Photo: alexindigo

Huaorani and Achuar: Ethnic Groups from the Ecuadorian Amazon

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When thinking about the Spanish conquerors’ arrival to the Kingdom of Quito, Ecuador, it is impossible not to imagine how astonished would they have felt by looking at the various social settlements and realizing how different could their culture and customs be, regardless of being separated by very short distances.

This diversity is still found today in Ecuador, a multiethnic and thus multicultural nation that is nowadays home to fourteen ethnic groups, living in more than sixteen communities. Among these indigenous groups we can find the Huaorani and the Achuar, both communities that have stood out as nature’s guardians.

The Huaorani have a population of 4.000 people, located inside the Ecuadorian Amazon basin, in the provinces of Orellana, Pastaza and Napo, which comprised in a 6,125km² (3805sq.mi) area considered by the Ecuador government, since 1990, an untouchable indigenous reserve, thanks to its support and conservation of ethnical customs and beliefs policy. Their reserve overlaps with the Yasuní National Park, one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth, something that provides them some measure of environmental protection and, at the same time, makes them its primary defenders, given their belief of respecting everything that exists.

The Huaorani people are known for taking the decision to live in complete isolation, away from the contemporary world. The forest is their home, and they consider the outside world to be unsafe. Among their beliefs is found that of afterlife. According to them, a person who dies walks a trail to the next life guarded by large python. Those who cannot escape the snake fail to enter the spirits’ domain and return to Earth to become animals. Another Huaorani belief is that deer’s eyes are similar to those of humans, and therefore they shall not hunt and eat them.