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ECUADOR – Coca – Numa

October 11, 2009 by Paolo 5 Comments

After landing in Quito I went straight to the bus terminal to catch a 9-hours coach to Coca. From there I was planning to go by boat to Iquitos, Peru’ but I had to abandon the idea because of the current lack of…boats.

This is a town that developed in recent years over the nearby oil plants and the relative business. The water is a Coca Cola product and the coffee is instant Nescafe’.

I’ve hired a local guide for one day, Numa – meaning shaman – who was born and raised in a nearby wooden house in the jungle, when Coca wasn’t there yet. He used to work as an architect but now he does only social and touristic work.

I wasn’t interested in cayman watching or piraña fishing so I asked him to take me to meet the communities that live in the jungle. We eventually got stuck cause of a never ending storm but we still managed to visit a few houses and a school near the riverside. Some less fortunate kids are left alone all day at home while their parents are at work.

I can tell Numa loves the river, the selva “preciosa” and its people. His voice deems when he talks about the “petroleros” and their exploitation of the area. traduci >>

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Filed Under: Documentary, Travel Tagged With: Ecuador

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. markus says

    August 1, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    Hello,
    i heard about Numa some years ago and would really love to hire him for a tour as he is a survival artist and organizes really nice tours into the primary djungle.
    Do you have any further information or contact ( i recently heard that he has been the victim of a kidnapping, so i dont know if he still works there…
    Can you help me?
    Thanks so much
    Markus

  2. Paolo says

    August 10, 2011 at 9:11 pm

    Hi Markus
    Unfortunately I lost my address book soon after meeting Nima but will try and see if I can find some details.
    I’m shocked by the news of his kidnapping though. How did you get to know about it?

  3. linda says

    August 31, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    i think you can find him through yuturi jungle adventure it is not in operation now but the yuturi wildlife conservation might be where you will find him!

  4. Numa Sanmiguel says

    February 7, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    Hola Paolo soy Numa , mucho gusto de estar en contacto nuevamente contigo , estoy trabajando en un proyecto en beneficio de la cultura waorani , tus amigos pueden comunicarse conmigo a : numasanmiguel@hotmail.com o tambièn a : sales@waoraniexpeditions.com …..por lo del secuestro fue hace 4 años en la provincia de Sucumbìos pero bueno todo saliò bien .

  5. Paolo says

    February 7, 2012 at 7:24 pm

    Hola Numa
    Muy feliz de saber de usted!
    Gracias por el mensaje, lo voy a remitir a Markus ahora.
    Me alegro de tu proyecto, buena suerte! que me haga saber cómo se va porque’. No se’ cuando pero espero volver a verte un dia.
    Cuidate

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