Day 1: The journey begins
Our first stop was the airport of a small city called Leticia. The entire team of scientists who were going to explore the Amazon met there. From the plane to Leticia I was able to observe the impressive green landscape, broken by the immensity of a river that divided and joined continuously.
On the track, María, our guide and liaison with the Ticunas aboriginal community, was waiting for us, who put us up in houses scattered throughout Leticia.
Day 2: The river
Our next night was spent sailing through the chocolate-colored waters of the Amazon, accompanied by an Amazonian mico, a monkey that slithered from the trees as we boarded a motor boat.
During the second day, we took soil samples, in order to determine the damage that illegal deforestation was doing to the uppermost layer of the earth.
Day 3: Ticunas
On the third day we arrived at the small aboriginal village of the Ticunas. His boss had offered to take us in canoes to clearings in the jungle, where illegals had cut down large quantities of trees with the aim of selling the wood to the UK.
We walked through the clearings and parts of the jungle for hours, to return to the village tired and somewhat embarrassed by what we had seen. That same night we returned to Leticia, loaded with crafts made with feathers and tree bark and remembering the words that the chief of the tribe told us “The Amazon is the lung of the world, we must let it breathe.”
