Ash : Well, hello, Ana. You've been our very knowledgeable Amazon rainforest guide over the last few days at La Selva Lodge. So if I could start with your story, where were you born and raised?Ana : I was born in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and I was raised in Quito, still living there, but moving around the country because of my job.Ash : Because of your job?Ana : Yes.Ash : And would you say nature was important to you growing up?Ana : Always. My parents are from remote areas outside of Quito. They were born and grown in the countryside, so when we visited grandma, both sides, we were always going to nature.Ash : Right. So you said visiting your grandma. Was there a person or place that influenced your choice to be an Amazon guide?Ana : The person that really made the biggest influence was my brother. He's a marine biologist, so he was always in love with nature, and I could see since we were little his passion for it. So it was the combination of my parents grown in areas like forest, so we were always going to visit family around the area, and then my brother getting into nature. I wanted to be a biologist like him, but then I found out about ecotourism and that caught my attention. So I ended up being a guide.Ash : So why did ecotourism call your attention?Ana : Because I didn't really like what is just tourism, what is just being in the city, walking around museums. I was interested more in nature and conservation and being in the forest. I found out that in Costa Rica, one of the main things that moves the country is ecotourism. So I started to investigate a little more, and I realized it's something that I can do also here in Ecuador, and that's how I got involved. It wasn't the tourism part. It was the fact of being in the forest, in nature, sharing about this.Ash : Right. And why the Amazon rainforest?Ana : When I started studying in university, they give you a lot of classes about flora, fauna, and ecosystems. And the Amazon, because of its diversity, started to call my attention more, and I wanted to be here. Even though at the very beginning, when I was a kid, I didn't like bugs, like most people. But then when I started studying, I learned about them, and I understood that they are not as scary as we think. And then I just started to like every single being from the forest.Ash : Oh, brilliant. So did you visit the Amazon before you became a guide?Ana : No, the only forest I visited was where my father was born. It is kind of a cloud forest, which is similar in a way to the Amazon. A lot of bugs, humidity, green. That's the only forest I had visited. When I started studying is when I had field trips, and a few of them were to the Amazon.Ash : You've mentioned your family and the influence of your brother. So did your friends and family understand your choice to be a guide?Ana : My family does, a lot. Let's say half of my friends understand as well. The other half not much, because I have a great diversity of friends, people that have studied to be engineers, doctors, so it's completely different careers, and they don't understand much why I'm a guide.Ash : Right. Is it difficult? Is it normal in Ecuador for a woman to become an Amazon guide?Ana : Not an Amazon guide, no. I'm actually not the only one, but one of the few women that work at least in this part of the Amazon, where we are close to Yasuni.Ash : So what does it take to become an Amazon rainforest guide? Can you walk us through some of the training?Ana : Yeah. I studied ecotourism and national tour guiding in university, so I got a license to work as a national guide. Not necessarily specialized in the Amazon or in the forest. That's something you do slowly with your career. So when I started working, I got the most common tourism jobs, guiding around Quito with some small city tours or just day trips outside of the city, going to cultural areas like Otavalo and visiting the volcanoes from the bottom to take photos and stuff like that. But slowly I started to get more into the Amazon. When I was studying, I also focused mostly on doing my field trips and my internships in the Amazon. That's what gave me the experience. So when I applied to these types of places to work in the Amazon, they liked that I already had some experience in it. I was also volunteering with biologists, trying to be in the forest as much as I can. That gave me the opportunity to work here.Ash : Wow. So that passion of being an Amazon guide really drove you.Ana : Yes.Ash : That's amazing. And what surprised you about some of the training to be a guide?Ana : What surprised me about the training was how much study we have of the diversity that we have. To become a guide even includes the diversity of cultures, food, and history. There is a lot to study, so a lot of information to learn when I was studying.Ash : A lot of it. I imagine the answer is the same for the next question, which is: what was the hardest thing you had to learn about being a guide, or becoming a guide?Ana : I remember one of the hardest classes was bird identification. Our tests were just a photo of a bird flying away against the light, with a little information about where it was seen, which time, which date, which helps you get an idea of what species it is. Sometimes we would have a play of the bird's call, and that would help us identify it. I used to hate those because I was like, "That is not a right photo of a bird that I could identify." But then I understood that's how you see them in the wild. So it was the hardest one.Ash : You've got such an incredible amount of knowledge, but do guests ever teach you things about the Amazon rainforest?Ana : Always. This is a place that is always being discovered. There are always new things to learn. Just like you were telling me about the ant, there are some things that we always get taught or learn from our guests. I have guided professors, I've guided botanists. People that are specialized in something very specific, so I may not know some things, and then I get to learn from my guests. There are also people that, for example, work in customer service. They always give you tips on how to deal with people, or how to teach kids, because that's not something I learned in university, but sometimes we guide kids as well. So there can always be things that we learn from our guests.Ash : Do you notice when guests connect to the Amazon rainforest? Is there anything they would do or say that shows the rainforest has left an impression, that they'll remember it?Ana : I think the bugs part. It's not the best to be manipulating animals in general, but I like to hold a few bugs, because that is what reduces the fear of these misunderstood creatures. When we go out to the forest, a lot of people, even though they don't see them, feel kind of stressed because they feel surrounded by bugs. Just because of that thought, you feel things crawling on you even though there is nothing around. But when I grab a bug, they notice it's not that bad. So then they start to relax about it, and they start enjoying the forest a little more. And then it's when they get connected and enjoy the experience in general.Ash : Absolutely. Is there anything about the Amazon rainforest that visitors don't know when they arrive, that you'd like them to know before they visit?Ana : The mosquitoes. Especially here in this part of the Amazon. I'm not sure about other parts, different countries that also have Amazon, but here we don't have many mosquitoes. That's definitely something people like to know and realize when they get here.Ash : That there are fewer mosquitoes than people think.Ana : Yes. Way less than what people think.Ash : What are some of the strangest or most unexpected things that have happened on a trip?Ana : People getting a reaction when we talk about native communities and their connection with the forest, the spirits of the forest. That is something kind of weird for us to talk about, something that we don't really believe. But sometimes when we're sharing that information, I have had two times reactions of people just getting kind of sick in the moment because of what we're talking about. It's very weird.Ash : Oh, really? In what way?Ana : What native people say is that when you get the energy of the forest, it makes you feel dizzy, and it makes you vomit sometimes. And two times when we were talking about that, different moments, different times of the year, maybe different years, they had a reaction right away while we were talking about it. And native people, at the moment, say, "Oh, they got the energy," because we were talking about it. And it's like, okay.Ash : Spooky.Ana : Yeah. That's the weirdest thing.Ash : So what are your favorite animals in the rainforest, and why?Ana : I love to see monkeys. Well, I like everything in general. I like snakes and frogs a lot, but I enjoy watching monkeys the most because they are fun to watch. And I think they look a lot like people, so it's like watching little people doing fun things, jumping around the trees. So I really enjoy seeing monkeys.Ash : Is there an animal, possibly monkeys, or a moment in the Amazon that still gets to you and connects with you even after all these years guiding?Ana : Yeah. An encounter with a bushmaster. This was probably four or five years ago. I was guiding, showing something I found on the ground. So I went down to grab it and started to share it with people, and in a second, there was something that caught my attention from the left. I just turned around, and a meter away there was a bushmaster, this big snake, sleeping, curled on the floor. When I turned around, at the same moment that I saw it, it opened its eyes, and it was just staring at me but not moving at all. Like a moment when it opened its eyes and it was like, "I don't care what you're doing here." It was just so calm. But it was scary and cool at the same time, so I had to kind of back up. And that's something I will never forget, because it was a very cool snake, too close.Ash : Wow. So how many times have you seen a bushmaster?Ana : Only two times, in a while.Ash : And could you describe a little bit what a bushmaster is?Ana : This is a very big viper. It's the biggest viper in the world. It grows up to three meters long, and if we think about how it looks, it is similar to a rattlesnake in the shape that the skin looks.Ash : So it's very, very venomous.Ana : It is a venomous snake, yeah.Ash : What were the guests like when you found that?Ana : Well, that is something interesting, because as they are with a guide, they trust the guide. So if as a guide you show you're scared, they will feel triple scared. But I just showed I was very calm. I'm like, "Oh, this is a very cool snake, but we have to go back." Keep walking, and then we saw it from a distance. I just told them, "This is a cool snake, but it's better if we go away, so just keep walking a little bit." And then from five meters away, we saw it with the binoculars.Ash : Wow. That's fantastic. So they were excited about it.Ana : Yeah.Ash : Yeah, I bet. I would be. Is there a myth or misconception about the Amazon rainforest that you're tired of hearing from guests?Ana : The bugs. When I meet people before the trip, or when they just arrive, the first thing they say is like, "I don't want to see bugs. I'm very afraid of it." They come with extra protection from head to toe. But that's one of the biggest myths, that they are going to be completely covered by bugs.Ash : How has the ecosystem changed since you've been here? Have you noticed any changes?Ana : I've noticed a lot of change, actually. I think more than what I expected, because I've been coming very often to the Amazon since 2018, and it's not that much, it's just eight years. I've noticed the weather has changed, less rain than it used to be before. I kind of realized that because I enjoy that it's not so humid, but then I realized it's because it's raining less. We have experienced times with the forest being so dry that plants start to look weak, like they are going to die. I've noticed some species that are not easy to see now, birds or insects that we used to see more often before, and now it's hard to see them. So I've noticed changes in that way.Ash : And this is consistent. We're talking years, like a decline.Ana : Yes. Since I started coming in 2018, I have seen those changes, and I think it's too quick to be able to see those changes.Ash : Yeah. So getting to the lodge and the tours from a lodge, there are places in the Amazon where you can go on day trips. What would you say is the advantage of staying at a lodge like La Selva versus going on an add-on day trip into the Amazon?Ana : Staying for a longer time gives you more opportunity to see things. If you go on a day trip in the Amazon, and they promise you will see a lot of things, most of those animals are probably animals that have been caught. For example, parrots that have their big feathers cut so they cannot fly, or a pet tapir, a pet monkey that is just moving around the place where they show you. Most people want to see animals when they go to the Amazon, so if on a day trip you're able to see that, it's probably not something that is actually preserving wildlife but destroying it. But if you go for a longer time, that gives you more opportunities to see animals because they are not trained to be around. It's just how lucky you are. The longer you are there, the more chances you have to see animals.Ash : And when someone's choosing between lodges, what would separate a great one from an average or poor one in your experience?Ana : Well, it depends on what people like. If you are a person that likes to be more comfortable, then there are lodges that can fit into that requirement. You can find an expensive, very comfortable lodge. But if your vibe is more like living a real jungle life without much comfort, then you can go to a cheaper, more cultural lodge, or one owned by a village. So it depends a lot on what type of experience people want to have.Ash : And you mentioned before about the conservation elements, such as lodges that don't have captive animals, trying to make sure there are no animals kept there in the lodge.Ana : Exactly. That's for sure an important thing to check before traveling or picking a place.Ash : What do you hope, in your years guiding, you've guided many, many people, that guests are still thinking about a year, or even now, after they've left the Amazon rainforest?Ana : I think when people travel, they are not only coming here, but of course going to different natural areas, because I assume that's what they like if they come to places like this. I hope that at least through my guiding, I can share how important the things around us are. It's not only one place, that is everywhere in the world. So more than just having them go with a different way of thinking about the Amazon, probably being more curious about exploring other parts, at home or around the world, with the same vision of also helping to protect.Ash : Fantastic. Well, thank you very much, Ana.Ana : You're very welcome. Thank you.
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