After so many years of traveling the World with Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic, I have developed an inclination to look for art. No matter what destination, I am not only on the lookout for animals and landscapes, but for the very essence of the place, described through the eyes of the people.
Whether they live nearby or because of the amount of time spent in the area, people have the natural instinct to develop many ways to describe their surroundings, and in some cases, utilize their natural resources to achieve this. It has been a pleasure to see over the past few years how the river villagers in the Amazon had developed ways to use these resources due the positive influence of the increasing tourism.
Casual is the name of the trail that we hiked today. In addition to encountering lots of wildlife with the great assistance of the naturalists and locals, we also appreciated the souvenirs made-out of the left over wood used to build their houses and their canoes. The residents of the nearby village known as Casual (hence the name of the trail) have developed great skills on the wood-carving techniques to create beautiful bowls and trays that, personally, I found hard to resist! The same phenomenon has happened in other villages, which had branched-out to created their own type of souvenirs, such us seed-carved necklaces, and even the weaving of pre-colored palm tree fibers into forest figurines.
Today I decided to celebrate art and nature together, by creating a serious of pictures that, later during post processing in my computer, transformed as pencil-colored images. The idea will be, once home, to print them and create a set of greeting and thank you cards for friends and family!
