PERU


preserving their people’s ancestral knowledge by growing medicinal plants that are used to cure everything from typhoid to skin infections. Margarita shows me a tall, leggy plant studded


with cylindrical flowers sealed tightly shut. She tells me this vanilla orchid — which flowers for only one day per year and must be pollinated by hand — is revered in her community, often blended into a flu-relieving tea. Awajún women also wear its fragrance to parties, a way to signal to the men that “they’re ready”, she says with a wink. “If a man betrayed his wife, he’d come back smelling of another woman’s vanilla, and she’d know.”


Sacred paths We climb back into our van and drive deeper into the forest, the open fields turning to wild, knotted thicket as we bump down the road. We pull towards a clearing, where five Awajún women dressed in the traditional garb stand sentry like a row of red, glowing lanterns. “Welcome,” says Nivia Cumbia, smiling brightly at the front of the group. Like Margarita, she wears a tangle of necklaces, which she explains are made from seeds foraged from the Nuwas. Nivia places one over my head that’s threaded with the black-and-red seeds of the huayruro plant, symbols of spiritual protection


Clockwise from right: Vanilla orchids are revered in the Awajún community; the San Martín region is home to thousands of plant species; meandering rivers are the Amazon’s highways; for Awajún communities, rivers provide vital routes for travel and fishing


IMAGES: ALAMY; AMAZON RESORTS S.A.C; CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL PERU/MARLONG DAG


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124