Under the Canopy

Amazon Forest

We leave the lodge behind and head on foot into the forest’s interior. It isn’t dark inside the Amazon, it isn’t muddy. You don’t have to fight your way through thickets or clamber between trees like a Latin Tarzan. We have space to move around in the isolated world of the forest floor, approaching colossal trees and eclectic plants that build up from the earth to the viridescent ceiling. Our guide Juan leads the way; he hacks at many of the trees we pass. Struck with the ease of a lifetime of experience, each machete cut yields useful saps, some yellow, some white, one tinged pastel pink. Juan accompanies every hit with a quick lesson in local medicine — he uses the shapumvilla to control bleeding; the leaves of the cordoncillo to numb wounds and serve as an antiseptic. He shows me saps for infertility, for curing cancer, for stemming addiction. Juan confidently tells me that they have no need for modern medicine here. Next, he passes me a hacked segment of hanging vine, to be sparked and smoked for a fruity taste and pale fume. We walk and puff on the faintly flavored stems, all the time making enough noise to ward off the snakes slinking in the undergrowth. Our hike leads us back out to the water — you’re never too far from the river, or its tributaries, in this part of the rainforest.