Are you planning a trip to the Amazon and want to learn about the plants and animals that you might see? Or do you want to learn about the history of exploration in the Amazon - from the adventures of the explorers to the knowledge that they gained?
In the over 20 years that I have been involved in travel to the Amazon, here are some of the books that I have found to be fascinating reading sources.
In the over 20 years that I have been involved in travel to the Amazon, here are some of the books that I have found to be fascinating reading sources.
"A Neotropical Companion" by John Kricher. Billed as An Introduction to the Animals, Plants and Ecosystems of the New World Tropics, this book is on many suggested reading lists put out by tour operators. If you're interested in topics like biology, ecology, evolution, conservation, the different types of ecosystems and the plants and animals in them, then this should fit the bill for you.
"One River" by Wade Davis. This book about ethnobotany is filled with adventure - mainly stories about the famed Harvard scientist/explorer Richard Evans Schultes who spent years exploring the Amazon in the 1940s'-50's, looking for sacred and medicinal plants. Unlike other scientific expeditions where they hauled tons of supplies and equipment with them (such as on Theodore Roosevelt's), the book mentions that Schultes "wore a pith helmet, khaki trousers and shirt, a kerchief and, in the low country, leather moccasins saturated in oil. Besides a machete, hammock and his plant collecting gear, he brought a camera, a spare set of clothes and a small medical kit. For food, he lived off the land, carrying as emergency rations only a few cans of Boston baked beans." He also brought some books to read. And he would sometimes be gone for years at a time! He even worked for the U.S. government during World War II, searching for sources of rubber in case the Japanese took control of the sources of rubber that were mainly located in Asia at the time. He became a hero to Harvard students who were in his classes in later years. In recent years, areas where he explored in Colombia have become open to tourists. It was interesting to find out that it only became safe to visit some tribes in Ecuador in the late 1950's.
Richard Evans Schultes and natives
"The Lost City of Z" by David Grann. In the early 1900's, Percy Fawcett was a celebrated explorer who was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Geographical Society for his contributions to the mapping of South America. He was called the "David Livingstone of the Amazon" and was known worldwide. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was said to have drawn on his experiences when writing his book "The Lost World". In 1925, he started on his greatest expedition of all - to find the lost, glittering kingdom of "El Dorado". People all over the world followed his exploits. But Fawcett and his small party disappeared while on the expedition in Brazil and ever since that time, people have tried to figure out exactly what happened to them. The author tries to piece everything together and lets the audience know about current explorations in the region that reveals new information about cities that existed in the Amazon in ancient times.
"Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice" by Mark Plotkin. Plotkin, an ethnobotanist disciple of Richard Evans Schultes and current President of the Amazon Conservation Team writes about his experiences with various shamans, learning about their knowledge of the curative powers of plants which may lead to the cure of some of today's devastating diseases. While hoping to help to produce medicines for modern society, he was working to also assure that the indigenous people would be compensated for their help and realize the incentive of conserving the knowledge and plant resources.
"Amazon Beaming" by Petru Popescu. This is a book about National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre, who located the source of the Amazon River in Peru in 1971. But before that, in 1969, he made contact with a tribe of Mayoruna Indians, also called "cat people" because of the long whiskers they wear. He was kidnapped by them and later found himself communicating telepathically with the head shaman and was drawn into the tribe's attempt to escape the encroachments of civilization. We used to offer people the opportunity to visit groups of Mayoruna, but not any more because they got too "antsy" and unpredictable.
Mayoruna or Matses Indian
"Amazon Emotions" by Francisco Ritta Bernardino. Francisco was the owner of the Ariau Amazon Towers, built in 1986 near Manaus, Brazil. At one time it was the most luxurious lodge in the Amazon, with a helipad and conference center and it hosted the world's elite. He was a pioneer in the promotion of ecological tourism in the Amazon. But now the lodge is abandoned and in disrepair. In this book he presents his view of the Amazon ecosystems and the importance of preserving them, but to me, the best part of the book is the photographs of the people, places, plants and animals. As an aside - years ago, a representative from the tv show "Survivor" contacted me for suggestions about locations in South America to film from. I gave them what I thought were some really cool options for great places, but then they chose to use Ariau Amazon Towers as their base for the crew - guess they didn't want to have to do without their "niceties".
"Ancient New World" by Jim Woodman. While only a small portion of this book is devoted to the Amazon region, I wanted to include it because I heard the author speak several times and he had fascinating stories to tell about South America, including an ancient trail that went from southern Brazil to Peru. Along this trail, one can find menhirs in Argentina (they call them their "blarney stones") and ancient Celtic inscriptions in caves in Paraguay. Though I was able to contact people in Paraguay who knew of these sites, they did not seem interested in promoting tourism to them. He also talks about the mysteries of Chachapoyas, which I visited years ago, before the Discovery Channel and National Geographic went there to film.
"Warriors of the Clouds" by Keith Muscutt. Again, this is about an area that is technically cloud forest, but it is right next to Tarapoto in the western Peruvian Amazon and is easy to combine with it. I visited it on a trip led by Dr. Peter Lerche, who was the foremost authority about the archeology of the Chachapoyas area. As we would hike along, he would point at mountain tops and say that there were unexcavated ruins on each of them, but there were so many sites, that he just didn't have time to explore all of them, since the only way to get to them was by hiking. During other explorations, he found a network of trails that led from the mountains of Chachapoyas down into the Amazon. Later, when I had a group of people that were going to visit Chachapoyas, the local operator told me that the remains of an ancient city had just been discovered and asked if the people would like to visit it. Of course they said yes and they still talk about it.
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