Answers for
Audioconference 4
(August 13)
This week Andrew was away travelling in
Manu
Reserve. Instead, this week's
audioconference had a very special guest speaker – Joe Kane, who was in the first expedition to travel the
entire length of the Amazon from source to sea (in 1985).
He also spent time living with the Huaorani Indians in
Ecuador, helping them battle American oil companies
polluting the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Joe is author of the books Savages and Running the Amazon.
1. Haydon Curtis, Albury School
Why did you choose to travel the
Amazon?
I was brought along to write a book about
the exploration and navigation of the Amazon, also I
wanted to see the Amazon.
2. Lucy Dalton, Ilam School
How does the flora and fauna vary
down the Amazon?
Well, it depends what you call down the
Amazon. Up in the Andes (roughly about 18,000 ft, 6,000
meters) there is no vegetation and plant life but as you
come down to the Amazon basin at sea level you can
probably find 5 or 10% of all the species on the planet.
The tree life is amazing, for example in an area the size
of two football fields, botanical gardeners have so far
counted 470 trees (that's more native trees than in all
of Western Europe). A single bird watching station has
counted 512 different kinds of bird.
3. Nelson Cheung, Hukanui School
What are the most dangerous Amazon
creatures you have seen?
Anacondas,
Caiman, Sharks,
various kinds of other snakes.
I saw Jaguar once.
They don't usually attack humans but they are the
fiercest creatures of the forest. All kinds of little
creatures, piranha.
There are creatures you cannot see, like little fish that can
swim up your orifices and cause a lot of pain inside you.
And probably the most dangerous creature is the human
being for the mess they are making in oil exploration.
4. Renee Strachan, Hurupaki
Primary School
Can you tell us about the River Dolphins?
There are two kinds of river dolphins.
One is the fresh water dolphin which is the small black
dolphin, the one jumps out of the water, and there is the
very ancient pink dolphin. They move slowly and have
blowholes like a whale. It is very old and very big and
they can do a remarkable thing. They can spin around
entirely within their own circumference. This enables the
pink dolphin to follow the flooding water all along into
the forest and never get trapped by a log or something,
they can simply back out. They live off berries etc.
5. Hutt Intermediate
What sorts of things did you take in
your luggage and how did you carry it?
All has to be waterproof. Tent, stove,
water bottle, notebook and also had a small tape
recorder. Every night I would write my notes and then
speak them into the tape recorder. Each time I finished a
tape I would wrap it up in waterproof duct tape and send
it out of the Amazon as soon as possible.
6. Sarah Hobson, Albury School
As leader of the expedition down the
Amazon, what did you regard as your main
responsibilities?
I was not the leader. I was taking record
of the expedition so we would know what happened and to
be able to write a book about it. So that was my main
responsibility. The leader was a Polish man and with him
I finished the record.
7. Mark Bennett-Robertson, Ilam
School
How did the Indian tribes
react to your presence?
On the first expedition we went down the
main branch of the Amazon the forest was so dense that we
paddled pretty much in the middle of the river. We only
spent about one month with the Indians. They are very shy
and we look very strange to them with our big plastic
boat and modern equipment. They live in a very
traditional way in handmade huts. When we would share
food with them we would have things like monkey, snakes
and fish. We couldn't speak the same language. Nobody
ever threatened us.
8. Latham Burgess, Hukanui School
Did you see any of the Indian tribes'
rituals or ceremonies? Could you describe these?
No. We were moving so fast, trying to get
down the river. We had to move every day since we were in
danger of getting flooded out and running out of food and
equipment. Later, when I went back to the Ecuadorian
Amazon I saw a few different rituals but really they
didn't have that many rituals, they are warriors. The
warrior tribes have the Jaguar ceremony where the shaman
became a Jaguar and he went into a Jaguar trance and he
communicates (or at least he believes) telepathically
with members of the tribe hundreds of miles away. That
was the most impressive ceremony I saw.
9. Jamie Chisnall, Hurupaki
School
What are the common diseases suffered
by the people of Amaz⌠nia?
Well, that depends on where you are in
the Amazon. Probably the most common is Malaria because of all
the mosquitoes. People who live along the river get a lot
of snake bites. There is a little bug that enters you
through your feet and doesn't surface for 20 years and
then your nose or something falls off. That's a really
weird one. Yellow fever. In places where there is a lot
of logging and oil development people have malnutrition,
blindness etc from not having food or clean water.
10. Hutt Intermediate
Were you bitten by anything
poisonous, and if so how were you affected?
No, I was very lucky. I was very close to
getting bitten by a bushmaster
snake. I was with a man who got bitten by a
bushmaster and it took him 36 hours to get medical help.
By then gangrene had gotten into his leg and it had to be
cut off.
11. Mark Morrison, Albury School
What dangers did you encounter when
kayaking down the Amazon?
We had all kinds of dangers. The biggest
danger was the white water in the upper part of the
river. Once you get into it there is no way out except
going with your boat. Down river we got captured by
communist guerrillas and then we got captured by
Government Marines which was also dangerous, we got shot
at by drug dealers and later we got trapped out on the
river and thought we would drown.
12. Nick Strettell, Ilam School
Were you always traveling down the
Amazon River or did you go exploring in the rainforests?
During the first expedition we were
always on the river. When I went back I didn't go on the
river at all. I stayed 1,000 miles from the river inside
the forest.
13. Kimberley Harding, Hukanui
School
How long did your expedition along
the Amazon take?
Six months. We were on the water almost
every day for six months.
14. Max Tarrant, Hurupaki Primary
School
How fast does the Amazon River flow?
The speed depends where you are in the
river. Up in the mountains it goes very fast and you
don't have to paddle, down below if you move in the
middle of the river it goes 4 to 5 miles. On the bank it
can be still or moving against the current. Once you get
out to the mouth of the river, but still 800 miles away
from the ocean, you get a tidal wave and that can be
moving 4 or 5 knots upstream at certain times. So, the
speed changes all over the river.
15. Hutt Intermediate
What part of your journey was the
most memorable?
There are many many memorable parts. The
one I remember most is almost drowning in the white
water. We had a lot of bad accidents in the white water
section of the river and I remember being kept under
water for so long that I had absolutely no air left and I
just gave up completely and thought that was it and then
as soon as I gave up, the river spit me out - as if I
wasn't good enough. I got up and got some air, went down
again and came up again and my budddy from the expedition
rescued me. I really thought I was dead.
16. Callum France, Albury School
Did you at any stage of the
expedition require outside help?
We certainly could have used some but we
never got any. But nobody could have reached us. But we
always got help from people along the river.
17. Brooke Malloy, Ilam School
What were the Indian tribes'
villages like?
They were for the most part very similar.
There would usually be huts made out of thatch. There
would be 4 or 5 in a central clearing with the forest
right up to the huts. That's where many of the tribes
live in their traditional ways. Often they live near the
river to get drinking water and fish etc.
18. Tracey Trotter, Hukanui
School
What kinds of foods do the Indian tribes
eat?
All kind of food. What they eat most, our
equivalent to potatoes or rice, is a tuber, called
Manioc. They boil it, put it on the fire and char it,
sometimes they chew it up and spit it into a pot and make
some kind of a beer, called Chicha. They drink a lot of
that. They eat almost anything they can hunt. While I was
there we ate monkey,
snake, ant, piranha, three
different kinds of rats, wild pigs, many many different
things I had never eaten in my life.
They do not season their food. All my
emergency rations were very very spicy food, like salami
etc. and they would taste it and not like it and they
would leave it alone. They haven't many spices and for
that matter no fat.
19. Angela Buckland, Hurupaki
Primary School
Do all the people of South America
use the same currency?
No, they do not. Each country has their
own currency. In fact currencies change a lot according
to the economy. It's all very wild and erratic.
20. Hutt Intermediate
What did you do when you came to a
waterfall?
Usually, we prayed, we shouted and held
on when we went over it. There is no way around it. You
just have to shoot right over the waterfall. It felt very
very scary.
Part 2
21. Nuhaka School
How do you like being an explorer?
I was a reluctant explorer. I wanted to
write a book about exploring and everything went wrong
and I ended up right in the middle of an expedition and
wound up being an explorer myself. That's not what I
planned. I am not a particularly brave person. I really
don't like being scared. I really do like, and feel very
privileged, to see wild and unseen places and meet people
who live outside our world. It is very inspiring.
22. Rangimaria Brown, Pt England
School
Have you been on any other
expeditions?
Yes. I have done an expedition for the
National Geographic Society where we made a navigation of
the deepest canyon in the world, the Hoka Canyon and an
expedition to the Aronie people and I lived with them on
and off for almost a year. That was a very big
expedition.
23. Michael Ferrier, Poukawa
School
How big was your boat? Could you
sleep in it?
We used two boats in the navigation of
the Amazon. We had four man inflatable paddle rafts.
After three month I had my own boat which was a 16 ft sea
kayak that I paddled 600 miles. You couldn't sleep in
either one but one night I had to spend in the sea kayak
because we couldn't go ashore.
24. Shaun Clemland, Stratford
Primary School
How long did your journey take?
Six months from the Andes to the Ocean.
We had six weeks beforehand to sort out our gear and
about two weeks on the other end to get ready to go home.
25. Sharon Arnold, Whataroa
School
What was the strangest thing to
happen during your trip?
There were so many strange things
happening to me but perhaps the strangest is probably
that I made it at all. I have never been on a river
before, never been rafting, never been mountain climbing.
Ten people started in the expedition, only two made it to
the end and I was one of them and probably the least
experienced of all.
26. Nuhaka School
Did you ever get robbed or attacked
by people in the region?
Yes, we did get robbed and attacked. In
fact, we almost got killed by Guerrilla fighters in Peru,
members of the Shining Path. We came under heavy
automatic weapon fire from them and they captured us. We
bargained our way free and they let us go. Then a group
of Marines captured us, Military, and they were almost as
bad. We got away by sneaking out during the night. Later
on we got shot at by drug dealers and by cattle ranchers.
But we got never attacked or threatened people who live
along the river or by Indians.
27. Anaru Hamilton, Pt England
School
Did you see signs of pollution when
you first traveled along the Amazon?
We saw some Mercury from gold mining up river.
Down below there is a lot of pollution from oil
development, logging and cattle ranching. Especially, the
rivers are polluted by oil spills and chemical
by-products from the oil production. There are no laws in
the Amazon area against pollution and the oil companies
just pump everything in the river.
28. Anna Franklin, Poukawa School
Have you seen any giant lily pads?
Yes. In fact we spent a whole day
paddling in giant lily pads. It is very beautiful.
29. Lydia Fay, Stratford Primary
School
What are the least seen and most
common plants in the Amazon?
That is a hard question to answer. There
are so many plants and nobody knows exactly how many
there are. The tree life is amazing, for example in an
area the size of two football fields, botanical gardeners
have so far counted 470 trees (that's more native trees
than in all of Western Europe). A single bird watching
station has counted 512 different kinds of bird.
30. Laura Nolan, Whataroa School
When you were on the Amazon, did you
notice any ways in which man was affecting the ecosystem?
Yes, in many ways. There are terrible
ways, which I have already mentioned like gold mining, logging,
cattle ranching and oil development. The only way man
actually affects it in a big way is how man uses fires to
clear forests.
31. Nuhaka School
Do you get paid for exploring?
No. I get paid for writing magazine
articles and books about the expedition.
32. Azarnia Smith, Pt England
School
Did you have any problems with your
health on the trip?
Yes, all the time. It is very easy to get
fevers and rashes. Sometimes stomach troubles from eating
strange food and drinking contaminated water. I also had
trouble with my arms and shoulders from paddling. We
paddled 12 hours a day for many months. Nothing was
serious enough to threaten my life.
33. T J Houltram, Poukawa School
Have you been attacked by any wild
animals?
No. Like almost everywhere truly wild
animals are scared of humans and prefer to run away. They
only attack if trapped or if they cannot find any other
food.
34. Lilion Fenerty, Stratford
Primary School
Which animal was the most eye
catching and why?
That is a hard question to answer. On the
one hand there are so many animals in the Amazon, on the
other hand they are very hard to see. There is the Jaguar, of course, which
is the most powerful animal in the forest. I liked the
birds myself, like the exotic
parrots. They are very colorful.
35. Thomas Cleland, Whataroa
School
Would you do another Amazon trip if
you could?
Yes, I would. I really enjoy the Amazon.
Right now I have a little baby and a family and it is
hard for me to get away for a long time. Maybe when she
is a little bigger.
36. Nuhaka School
Were you able to help any of the
tribes that were having trouble with the oil and mineral
companies?
I think I was. Most important duty was
that I write about what I saw in my articles and tell
people about what is going on in the area with oil
companies etc. I do help raise money for tribes in the
area to help with projects.
37. Sophie-Lee Wiperi, Pt England
School
Can you tell us about any interesting
tribes
you saw?
I can talk about that all week. There is
one tribe, the Mayoruni. They are considered to be the
fiercest tribe on earth. They are stone age warriors. It
is a small tribe, with only about 1500 people. But they
are so fierce they have never been conquered by Inca or the Spanish or
anyone else as long as we can remember. They are very
interesting people to hang around with and get to know.
38. Dave Stewart, Poukawa School
What kind of insects were you bitten
by?
Every kind of insect under the sun, like mosquitoes, bees,
spiders, ticks, leeches – everything. You can never
get away from it, they are always around.
39. Karen Hendren, Stratford
Primary School
What dangers did you experience?
There are many different kinds of
dangers. Probably the most dangerous was getting through
a 2 mile deep canyon. The second deepest canyon in the
world. It was a white water canyon and very dangerous. We
had to go right over waterfalls on so on.
40. Sandi Lobb, Whataroa School
Have there been many changes to the
Amazon since your trip?
There are always changes going on in the
Amazon. Probably the biggest is the logging and the
American oil companies. These companies are really doing
big damage to the Amazon.
 
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