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New Hampshire - Ecuador Semester
Ecuador
Amazon Basin, November

After a month of living in the Highlands, we will prepare our packs, tie up our esteras, pull out the compass and venture over hilltops across the Eastern Andes following the watercourses that feed the rivers of the Amazon Basin. We will have the opportunity to experience the living history of Indigenous Amazon Tribes.

We will learn about trees, roots and vines for the purpose of building the frame of our cataraft, which will carry us to the remote village of the Shiwakotcha Natives. The indigenous people will teach us about life in the jungle. We pole and paddle a dugout canoe; we ride the river, fish, gather food and learn to identify plants and how to use them. We study the history of the nomadic tribes, and the Amazon River’s ecosystem, ecology and ornithology.

We will look at the impact of the modern world and the oil industry on the Amazonian Tribes. The contrasting realities of Ecuador and New England will open our eyes to the needs of people in the developing countries and the positive role we can play in bringing about change.

“To trace the history of a river or a raindrop, as John Muir would have done, is also to trace the history of the soul, the history of the mind descending and arising in the body. In both, we constantly seek and stumble on divinity…” –Gretel Ehrlich