Arajuno; Out In The Jungle

This will be the first in a series of several postings of pictures and comments about Arajuno, the Arajuno River and the jungle around it.

Saturday December 1, was a good day to take a break from school problems and teaching. We decided to take a bus ride northeast of Puyo as far as the road would take us. The road ends in the rainforest village of Arajuno (ara hOOn o). The two and a half hour ride was as close to riding a jackhammer as I hope to experience. The road was graveled with large round river rock for the most part. The final 10 miles was a single lane road cut into the mountain side and yes there was two-way traffic. Because Arajuno is located on a major river, the last five miles was a fairly steep decent into the valley.

One of the major reason we wanted to travel to Arajuno is because it is one of the few roads one can take into Huorani territory. We had heard and read of the very dense rainforest and the very rugged mountains in which they live. None of the descriptions were exaggerated. The Huorani were called “savages” or Aucas by the neighboring Indian tribes and then also by the Spanish and other white people. They came to the attention of the world in general when they speared five American missionaries to death some 50 years ago in the general region in which we traveled today. They not only had a history of spearing outsiders, but they also got caught up in revenge spearing among their own clans. As late as the 1960’s, 60% of Huorani deaths were due to murder within the general tribe. Those of you readers who have seen the movie or read the book End Of The Spear will know all about this.

We saw no older Huorani today. The young generation has tended to melt into local society. The older men have grossly wide feet at the back of the toes and a huge space between the big toe and the next one. This is due to climbing trees barefoot. Also, the older generation of men and women had ear lobes larger than a quarter because of implanted balsa wood flat plates.

The pictures today show the airport at Arajuno. This is a major airport with transfer of supplies here from larger planes to smaller ones which can land on very short village landing strip.


We walked out on the runway just in time to see a plane coming at us. A careful look at the picture shows the nose wheel not on the ground yet.

In the space of about four hours, five planes came in and took off again. The airport was originally built in the 1940's by the Shell Oil Co. to act as one of the bases for oil exploration. It was abandoned in the 1950's and was frequently used by missionaries and government officials.

We enjoyed watching the children act as "cargo hands" in loading the planes. The plane is fueled out of plastic drums. An electric pump is used. The dropcord is run from across the nearby road.

It appeared as though the Ministry of Education was getting supplies into remote villages by air. These supplies include food for the school food programs which may mean two or three meals a day for the kids.

The very first picture shows a solution to MJ's problem when we first arrived in the village. Men are often seen standing partly hidden doing their thing. MJ just used a local resident's outhouse. No harm, no foul.