This year, Woodland Ways ran their first Amazon expedition, arriving back in the UK only a few weeks ago. While the learning and emotions are still fresh it feels like the perfect time to reflect on what I learned and how I hope it has changed me.
The Amazon has long held a place in my dreams. Actually, it was a well overdue trip – over 30 years in the making. When I was 20 myself and a friend planned on travelling into the Amazon for a long trip. But at the time, it would have cost around £3,500 each on flights alone – this is the equivalent of nearly £10,000 in today’s money – well out of our budget. The upshot is that we went to India and Nepal and explored instead. Still a great experience, but the Amazon never left my imagination. I had read many books about explorers, adventurers and naturalists in that area including Benedict Allen, Colonel Percy Fawcett, David Grann, Paul Rosalie; and watched many natural history programmes. So, when the opportunity to go came up, my hand was raised, and the trip could not come soon enough.
An overnight flight from London to Sao Paolo followed by an internal flight to Manaus to be met by Costa and Giuliano. Costa and his team made up of jungle experts were our in-country experts and trainers. My first impression was, it's hot and humid, very hot and humid, and I wondered how it would be in the jungle? A day or so was spent in Manaus to acclimatise, including visiting the Museu de Amazonia, an area of forest in the Manaus area which is used for research and includes a tower that can be climbed to look over the tree canopy. We were also introduced to the Amazonian diet… lots of fish, cassava, rice, and various root vegetables like types of sweet potatoes. All delicious.
From Manaus, we travelled to the area we were to be trained in jungle survival - this was an introduction to the real rainforest. We put our hammocks up in the jungle. It's difficult to explain how this felt, the area was pretty dense, and the trees were all unknown to me which was disorientating. We then entered into a period of jungle training, being trained by current and ex-military jungle survival experts. Our introduction to the jungle was very well thought out. It was a navigation exercise - an orienteering course based on bearings and distances to find a number of waypoints. Easy right? What a great insight into jungle travel… try walking in a straight line in dense vegetation, avoid the trees with thorns sprouting from the trunks, wade through flooded jungle, and then it rained. Not a little rain… it was torrential.. but at least it was still hot! It also showed how easy it is to get lost amongst the trees, no landmarks to help orientate yourself or use for bearings, just trees and palms. I loved it!
That night we had an introduction to the fauna of the jungle, in particular the ones to avoid. Spiders, scorpions, ants, other insects, snakes, mammals. It felt like every creature in the jungle had decided humans are not top of the food chain. I had taken a UV torch with me, so when I went back to my hammock, I put it on and had a look around. The fungal biofluorescence was amazing, and so was the scorpion in its burrow at the base of one of the trees my hammock was strung up between. It was of course one of the very venomous ones we had been shown earlier.
Our training included a similar breakdown as the Woodland Ways bushcraft courses. We focused on shelter (including cordage), fire, foraging, water, and acquisition of protein including butchery. The actual skills are pretty much the same as we teach and use in our U.K. courses. You’d think if you have some competency in these skills, you would immediately be proficient in the jungle, but the environment is very different, the materials are very different. You still need to adapt to these circumstances and even as someone with some competency, while I had no problem with fire by friction, I had real difficulty in using a ferrocerium rod to light breu branco - a flammable tree resin. It was a real treat to work with different materials, types of shelter and trap mechanisms. Taking a dip in a stream in the jungle to cool down was also a real moment for me.
From this camp we moved up the Rio Negro by boat to a community of riverine people. This community is amazing, it is made up of people from a few different tribes, keeping their identity and languages but sharing the space. We were welcomed by them, and they showed us how they fish, weave to make baskets, mats, sieves, trays and more. Watching the village get together in the evening and play football, volleyball, one stump cricket and sing and dance was a lesson in community. It was while staying in the community that we learnt about different ways to cross rivers, from using our clothes and rucksacks to using natural materials to make floatation devices and rafts.
It was physically and mentally challenging learning to cross rivers!
The next phase of the journey was to travel by a large boat typical of the ferries that ply the rivers to stay with the Tatuyu. Although it was not an overnight journey, it was a dream come true to string my hammock up and get some sleep - something I had read about many times in various books. It was also an opportunity to catch up on a book that two of us were reading about a linguist that worked with a tribe not too far away - the book is called Don’t sleep, there are snakes by Daniel Everett. The Tatuyu are a beautiful and sharing tribe who gave us an insight into their culture and how they live with the jungle. They shared their food with us, lots of really tasty fish, broth with root vegetables like sweet potatoes, cassava, and ants.. sometimes cooked and sometimes alive. There is definitely a trick to eating them alive, they do have fearsome jaws as my tongue can vouch for! They also taught us how to make fish traps, backpacks from palm, fishing, prepare acai and shared some of their stories with us and added their painted designs to our bodies. All the more special knowing that they have deep cultural, spiritual, and social meanings. They are far more than decoration—they function as a visual language and a form of identity.
Then it was with a little excitement and trepidation that we entered the isolation phase. In pairs we were given a small list of equipment we could take with us as we were led into the jungle and given an area to make our home for a period of time. We had tasks we needed to carry out to make ourselves comfortable, but we did not know exactly how long we would be left to put into practice the skills we had been taught. This was without doubt one of the most self-affirming experiences I have undertaken. To write in detail about it, would feel wrong because others will be undergoing this on future trips Woodland Ways runs to the Amazon and it is best left for them to do this for themselves with little or no preconceptions. However, at the isolation phase, we had some stories! The Tatuyu held a ceremony for us, we danced, we were blessed and it felt not only an honour but also a bond was made with both the jungle and the Tatuyu. It was dignified and meaningful. It was with much sadness that we got on the boat to travel back to Manaus.
The trip ended with some R&R in Manaus, some posh food (although I really did miss the food we ate in the jungle), some swimming and a visit to the museum of jungle warfare. The flight home was long, and a little stressful for me, because somehow the airline had deleted my tickets from the system and sold my seat from Manaus to Sao Paolo. But I can’t overstate the bonds developed between us and with Humberto Costa, Giuliano, Luciano, Marcos, Sequeria, and Sarge - they will last forever.
Before setting out, I’d built up plenty of expectations about the dangers and the environment: venomous snakes, spiders, scorpions, disease-carrying mosquitoes, and even jaguars. I imagined impenetrable jungle, flooded forests, relentless rain, suffocating heat, and humidity. I knew I’d be living in two sets of clothes - one always wet, one hopefully dry. These preconceptions naturally stirred up a fair bit of anxiety, perhaps even fear. The truth is, these impressions are not entirely unfounded - what matters is how you respond to that initial apprehension and adapt to the reality. Our minds tend to amplify the risks of the unknown, likely as a survival instinct. But you do acclimatise: the heat becomes manageable, the wetness is constant yet not chilling, and you eventually accept being perpetually a little clammy. The sheer pleasure of slipping into dry clothes and removing damp boots and socks becomes a genuine moment of gratitude. Putting on those still-damp clothes each morning is oddly refreshing, at least briefly. You quickly learn not to reach out or lean against trees without first checking—they’re not always as harmless as they appear. Careful footing and constant awareness of your surroundings are crucial, as the dense foliage and unfamiliar trees can leave you easily disorientated. While the Amazon is certainly full of potential hazards, there’s nothing to be terrified of - so long as you're prepared and treat it with respect.
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Read more and book here.
Watch where you tread – a Bushmaster is not your friend.
Sunset over the Rio Negro
Weaving a backpack from palms
Piranha caught by Colin– what other fish just has to be caught in the Amazon?
