Ash: Well, hello, Kevin. You've been our very knowledgeable guide aboard the Anakonda Amazon Cruise. How long have you been a guide?Kevin: Hi, Ashley. Yeah, this is me, Kevin. I'm officially working with the Anakonda cruise ship for about 10 years already, and I've been doing this role as a guide for about 15 years in total.Ash: Fifteen years. And where were you born and raised?Kevin: I was born in Dayuma, which is actually in the Amazon area by the southern side of the Yasuni National Park. That place was, when I was a child, up to 100 people, and this is actually a traditional community. It was founded by the Waorani people and some of the colonized people, they also were raised there, and they lived there when I was a child.Ash: Would you say that nature was important to you growing up in the rainforest?Kevin: Definitely. Nature was amazing since the first day that I have memory. I have some good memories myself, with kids in the jungle, running, walking, swimming, fishing. So it was a completely different environment for growing up in the bushes, in the forest.Ash: Can you remember a specific moment, or was there a person that influenced your choice of career?Kevin: Yes. When I went to high school, there was a person who was actually a link that connected communities and education, and his name is Douglas McMeekin. He was my mentor in high school. I got recruited by this man, and he took me to a foundation where I found the opportunity to study, and it was actually in a boarding school. So that was the first encounter with foreigners, international visitors and tourism. And I was just a student, and then I just got to be surrounded by these people, and that's how everything started for me. The immersion in the language and the immersion also with people that in my community was very unusual to see visiting. But yeah, that was the first step for me.Ash: So did your friends and family understand your choice of career?Kevin: At the beginning, no. They actually refused the idea of me just going away from home only for studying. But yeah, I walked away without looking back for about six years, and after six years of studying high school, when I got graduated from high school, I just came back to my place. And it was a very special moment because my family, they got surprised that I survived being out of the place where I grew up. They thought I'd probably not come back. But then when I came back, everything was a very emotional moment, and everything was different because I brought knowledge and the desire to keep learning and studying about the outside world and life. The Western thinking was actually what attracted me the most because I was a curious guy in a community that was always questioning and looking for answers about everything. Sometimes answers that probably if I stayed there, they're probably not going to come. But yeah, it was great.Ash: So they started to understand more about what you were doing and why.Kevin: Yeah. They actually accepted it because they've seen me happy with that decision I made, going out from my place, going out from my comfort zone, which was in the bushes, in the jungle. And then when I came back, it felt a little bit different because I got knowledge that probably in the community, it was supposed to be not possible to get. And then yeah, it was actually something that at the end they accepted and understood. That was a big step and a big change for me, being a guide.Ash: And you mentioned about the knowledge that you acquired, and I've witnessed that firsthand. It obviously takes a lot of knowledge. So can you walk us through what it takes to become a guide in the Amazon rainforest?Kevin: Sure. Part of it starts early age. When you're a kid and you're surrounded by nature and you have a very big playground, you have to learn skills to make your life in the forest and the bushes. And then the second step for me was having the opportunity to get through high school. It's completely different because if we go to a public school, it was actually something that not many people find good to have if you're trying to develop yourself in a role as a guide. But then when you have the opportunity to be surrounded by people that have the tools and open the doors for you, that's completely different. So I went to that boarding school. I was surrounded by volunteer teachers. The English, it wasn't learned in a classroom. It was learning by doing, just experiencing, talking, practicing. And all the knowledge about nature came from following biologists, entomologists, ichthyologists. You get a bunch of scientists with you, and that's actually the best way to learn about different topics in the jungle. Some years after, I applied for a scholarship at a university in Quito, and that was the official graduation in the theoretical part to become a guide. Then I got the licenses for guiding in the national park, and a national tour guiding license as well. That's how I ended up being a guide. But everything started from growing up in that environment and then just having the opportunity to get through education. And that brought me here to the cruise ships. I'm one of the few naturalists from the national park that truly love what we do.Ash: Fantastic. So was there anything that surprised you about the training for being a guide?Kevin: Yes. The ability to pick up knowledge in a very remote environment, which is something uncommon, because most professional tour guides attend university to learn the theoretical part. But it's impressive and surprising that we, the Amazonian people, can actually adapt Western languages plus Western knowledge with what we learned since we were very little. And that was what surprised me the most, personally talking.Ash: Can you give some examples of that? That sounds quite interesting.Kevin: Yeah, of course. The way that we survive in the forest, we use the resources for food, and when you get to study, you get to see all the different knowledge that biologists bring you. And then you actually change the way of thinking. Things that we used as resources for food actually point toward a different perspective. For example, the Tortuga charapas. We Amazonian people, we grew up eating those eggs. We didn't know that this is actually a bad practice. We've been consuming this as a way of getting protein. And then, when I studied a little with these biologists, they said, "If we get this many eggs every day, every year, we're probably going to be pushing these animals to extinction." So we thought this was a good meal, but then after studying with them, we realized that this was going to generate an impact. And this is how I learned that if you use resources too much, you're going to make a negative impact on nature. It was a moment that makes you think about what you've been doing, what you've done, and what you can do to preserve and change the habits of the people.Ash: And aboard the Manatee and Anakonda, we get to visit one of these projects, don't we? To protect these turtles.Kevin: Right. And some years after, this reaction came in the long term, and I didn't know that, for example, when I started working with this company, we could have the opportunity to work with the people in the communities involved in this project. It was actually just a mind-blowing fact that since I was a little kid feeding on turtle eggs, and then later biologists just teaching me about ecology and conservation, and then some years after, I just found people working on the conservation project involving the same turtles. So it was actually something surprising, because who thinks that this little action is going to be connected to the entire career as a tour guide.Ash: So what were some of the hardest things that you had to learn?Kevin: The first and main challenge at the beginning when I went to school was the language. Because we come from a rural background where you don't get access to a good education in terms of languages. We studied English in school as a subject for years, but then when you get to a point where you face foreigners that speak the language fluently and you don't speak it, it's going to be a big step. Because if you don't speak the language, there won't be any communication. When I was a student not speaking the language, that was the main challenge for me. But then the curiosity I had always helped me a lot. When I worked with people, I talked to people. I tried my best at the beginning to get into easy conversations and just open myself and express myself. That was the most difficult part, because not knowing the language was difficult. But then after a couple of years just practicing, not studying it in a classroom, it actually helped me out, and helped me out developing myself to be open and informative with the people that visited us at the school.Ash: You mentioned before about guiding ornithologists, herpetologists, scientists. Guests, presumably, especially these types of guests, sometimes teach you things about the Amazon rainforest that you, with all your knowledge and life experience, don't know yourself.Kevin: Right. And we know some information about the Amazon rainforest, but the theoretical part, people bring us information about the Amazon that we probably don't know, because studies prove that things change every year in the rainforest. Being one of the most diverse places on the planet, it's a big area and a deep environment, so nobody knows everything in the jungle. We are human beings, and part of being a human being is that life is a learning process. We as naturalists know much, but not too much. Sometimes we get very specialized guests from the US or from the UK, scientists and biologists, with very wide knowledge about the Amazon rainforest because some of them are professors. They have traveled and experienced the Amazon a lot. And what I actually find very interesting is that they are always open to share. If there is something we don't know, of course they will share. And this surprised me the most, because I'm not the only one feeling the passion for the Amazon and its environment. There are so many more people out there that have the same passion and bring us lots of different information, and that actually connects people. That's what brought us to expeditions like the ones we do here.Ash: And I imagine in your job you must see when that passion gets ignited with people who don't necessarily appreciate the Amazon beforehand, but then after experiencing it, you can see something ignite in them. Do you notice when guests connect with the Amazon rainforest? Do you see when that curiosity or that passion ignites?Kevin: Right. That's actually, being a guide, one of the main things we expect, playing the role of tour guide. This is actually what we are here for as guides, to embrace everybody in the group. But sometimes it's a little difficult because some people are nature lovers, some of the others have a different focus. Some of our guests come with certain ideas about poison and terrifying experiences because they've watched movies about the Amazon, and they consider it one of the most deadly places in the world. So they have this kind of fear of experiencing the Amazon very openly. But my role as a guide is always just trying to get that connection, so that everybody loves it. And at the end of the trip, everybody just liked the experiences in the forest. When we see that, that's mission accomplished.Ash: Fantastic. Is there anything that many visitors don't notice about the Amazon rainforest that you'd like them to know?Kevin: Oh, yeah. This is basically one of the main ideas that we actually try to get everybody well informed about. The Amazon rainforest is a very huge place here in South America, but it's not only for South Americans, it's for the entire world. We have to be conscious about what we do to preserve it, to save it, and what we are doing here actually reinforces the way people think. When they come here, they come with sometimes certain knowledge about the importance of the Amazon, but then when they go home after experiencing it for some time, they go with different ideas and this desire to spread the word that the Amazon rainforest is a megadiverse place. The benefits of this megadiverse place are not only for the people that inhabit the Amazon portion of South America. It's for everybody, because we consider the Amazon the lungs of the world. Oxygen gets purified here, carbon sequestration occurs because of the tons of CO2 emissions being captured by the forest. And the majority of the fresh water production in the Amazon rainforest occurs here. In fact, 20% of the world's fresh water is actually produced here in South America, in the Amazon rainforest. And this is actually what I like. The people just get that information, and everybody gets hooked and linked to what we're trying to show and teach.Ash: You must have guided many people in the Amazon. Has anything unexpected happened on a tour?Kevin: Well, according to the feedback of people, what was actually one of my main expectations is the people loving it, enjoying the experience. But sometimes we get people that feel the fear of being exposed out there in these wild environments, and sometimes they just end up crying. And mostly when we finish the expedition, sometimes this impresses me because you don't know what the guests are feeling. If they're crying because of happiness or sadness that the journey is done. But then, when the moment just passed and I had the opportunity to talk about why this was happening to them, they say, "Yeah, because it was a lifetime experience." The majority of the feedback I have from my guests is positive, but sometimes we get to see some tears, and that's the moment where we don't know if they're happy or sad. But then the majority of it is just positive because they say, "We are out of our comfort zones, and we weren't expecting to be enjoying this much." And then just by the time that we pass on the ship, and then just we experience and explore, they say, "We actually just loved it." And then, therefore, the tears. But this actually just creates a very special feeling.Ash: Do you have a favorite part, animal, plant, or something in the rainforest?Kevin: Yes, I do. The most majestic tree for me is the great kapok tree. This is actually a special, iconic character in the rainforest because this tree holds a lot of life and plays a very important role in nature. Birds are very attached to the tree because of the nutrition and the energy, and we as human beings also have a certain connection with the tree because it represents the beauty of nature, but also the powerful forest that we have in the jungle. My favorite tree is the kapok tree. It resembles history, strength, and knowledge.Ash: I imagine there's some mythology and stories for the local people regarding this tree. Could you go into some of those?Kevin: Sure. Depending on different ethnic groups' cosmovisions, they think that shamans in the past used to gather by the buttresses of the kapok tree to do the preparation of the ayahuasca, and this is actually a ritual that the shamans use in order to be in contact with the unknown knowledge. After ingesting the ayahuasca, they open a door to the mystic world that inhabits the forest. And one of the most iconic places to be able to get this knowledge from nature is by the buttresses of the kapok trees. Therefore, even the local communities are very respectful with this tree because of these events happening with the shamans. During the rituals, they get to open the door to the knowledge that only nature provides.Ash: Wow. If you could make sure guests knew something before their visit, before coming to the Amazon rainforest, what would that be?Kevin: It would be the desire of learning, the enthusiasm of discovering. If you feel the passion for conservation, if you feel the passion for nature, you're already hooked and you're already ready for this experience. So if you get that, that's going to be the perfect combination, so come along.Ash: Sort of bring your curiosity.Kevin: Bring the curiosity. Curiosity is actually what keeps us going in the world. Keeps us learning, keeps us doing what we're doing, I think, in all different aspects.Ash: And is there a myth or a misconception about the Amazon rainforest that you're tired of hearing?Kevin: Yeah. That it's actually the most dangerous place in the world. For Amazonian people, for all of us, this is the forest of life. It's the forest in the middle of paradise, and the jungle just provides us everything. Food, tools, knowledge, some poison, too, but yeah. It's a magic place. When you deeply get immersed and you get to understand the meaning of the rainforest, of course it's going to change completely the way you think.Ash: In your years of guiding, and indeed you were born in the region, so in your lifetime, has the ecosystem changed in these years that you've noticed?Kevin: Right. Well, because of human beings' actions, and of course climate change affecting us too, I have noticed changes in the rivers, changes in temperature as well. And of course this affects animal species and also people's living as well. This is what we have seen in the last decade happening along the Napo River. This is affecting the fish and aquatic species that inhabit in the Napo River waters. We have also noticed changes affecting reptiles and their reproduction. People in the communities are interfering in order to save them and get them protected, but then it's something that is largely out of our hands. For example, during September is the reproduction of the turtles, the yellow-spotted river turtles. And sometimes in September, there are no sandbars for the turtles to go and nest. This is because of the water overflowing the sandbars and the riverbanks. Ten years ago, this wasn't happening in this area. You would see the turtles track to the sandbars, lay the eggs, and eventually the turtles would hatch, and you'd see little turtles going into the waters. But in these last ten years, we haven't seen this happening because there are no sandbars along the river. People in the communities have taken action to save these turtles from extinction, and this was actually one of the main projects that the communities along the Napo River have in order to save them. Rescuing the turtles before they get washed down by the river on the sandbars. And this worked out well because last year, from the records of this project, there were 5,000 turtles being released in the wild waters of the Napo and the black waters, because of the communities being part of this project, saving turtles before they get completely washed downstream. And this is actually one of the main examples of the changes that I have seen as a guide during these last 10 years along this river.Ash: We're now aboard the Anakonda, and you're one of the guides here. For the people who are currently deciding between whether they should go to a lodge or try the cruise, is there anything that the cruise offers that you can't experience from one of the jungle lodges here?Kevin: Yeah. It's a completely different experience. First of all, if we just think about the fact of cruising on rivers, it actually opens a door to experiencing not only a single place. It's experiencing multiple different areas, communities, and even different habitats where you can appreciate and sight different species that you're probably not going to encounter in a single place. Nothing against lodges. I've been a freelance guide in the past. But what brought me here was the fact of sailing through different habitats and different areas where you can enjoy different species. Sailing on the river is an opportunity to discover more than just being in one place.Ash: For people deciding on their Amazon experience, you mentioned that you've had a lot of experience as a freelance guide. What, in your opinion, separates a really good Amazon lodge, tour, or cruise from a not so good one, so guests can be sure they'll be getting a very good experience?Kevin: Yeah. Besides cruising, it's the way that we interact with the communities. The majority of the places here in terms of community-based tourism are attached to a single community. While you cruise on an Anakonda or Manatee Amazon cruise ship, what you do is get to experience and be part of different experiences involving multiple communities. So you're not attached to a single community. You're actually open to interacting with multiple communities along the river. And this actually creates a little more impact because you're not attached to a single area. You actually create opportunity for these different communities to get benefits from what we are doing and what we develop in this project with the cruise ships.Ash: And going back to talking about all the guests that you've guided in the Amazon rainforest, what would you hope that they're still thinking about today, or a year after their experience of the Amazon?Kevin: That that was a lifetime experience cruising. But then I would like everybody just taking part of the experience as an example home, and applying what we're trying to apply here too. And this is the way we just spread out the idea of conservation, preserving, protecting, encouraging people to protect the natural resources, the natural areas. That's a philosophy of this company. Trying to help everybody spread the word that we have to care so much about what we get, because if nobody does the conservation, who's going to take over and do it for us?Ash: Very good. Well, thank you very much, Kevin, for your time.Kevin: Thank you, Ashley. It's a pleasure. A pleasure to have some time to talk.
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