Women line the shores of the river in Borbón, beating their laundry clean with macetas. All photos by Kimberly Conger © CARE 2001.

Day 2: San Miguel: A Home of Richness and Resource
Bathed in sweat, we awaken to the sound of dogs barking and roosters crowing as the sun hits the horizon at 6 a.m. Down by the riverfront, fishermen already are paddling around in small, dugout wooden canoes, hoping to catch a few large colorado fish. Women line the shore knee-deep in water, beating the dirt and soap out of laundry with wooden sticks called macetas.

After buying and loading supplies, we are on the river in a motorized dugout canoe headed to the village of San Miguel.

San Miguel is a river village that sits on stilts at the edge of the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. Located three hours upriver from Borbón, San Miguel is removed from just about everything, including roads and electricity. But San Miguel's assets are obvious: Located on the shore of the bountiful Cayapas River, it is part of Ecuador's last remaining coastal rainforest. It is a bastion of biological richness and resource.

For the past nine years, CARE's SUBIR Project has played a major role in ensuring the success of the reserve. The project focuses not only on preserving the environment, but also on improving the lives of the Chachi Indian and Afro-Ecuadorian communities living in the area.

The Cayapas River region is a living tapestry of ancestral indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities.

"The SUBIR approach creates economic incentives to conserve biodiversity," says Jody Stallings, CARE SUBIR director. "What the people value, the people will protect."

The Chachi Indians are a quiet, stocky people who settled in the area about 400 years ago, after fleeing the grasp of Spanish conquistadors. The other indigenous residents of the area are descendents of African slaves whose ship wrecked off the coast of Esmeraldas about the same time. Both groups have been living off the land and river ever since. They rely on the environment for their survival.

"For these rainforest communities, the natural resource base is their pharmacy; it is their supermarket; their Home Depot and their Wal-Mart," says Jody Stallings, CARE SUBIR director. "It's where they go to get most of what they need to survive."

Part of the Community
As we continue the journey upriver, brown waters sweep by us and beneath gargantuan foliage on the riverbanks. Electric-blue butterflies flutter about and turtles slip from mottled logs as we head to San Miguel.

On the river to San Miguel.

Eight years ago, CARE and the Chachi and Afro-Ecuadorian communities built a field house among San Miguel's 36 softwood, bamboo and palm-thatched homes. The field house accommodates both the SUBIR Project team and the occasional eco-tourist. An elderly Afro-Ecuadorian known to everyone as Don Pedro is the caretaker.

Voices in the Night
Rain begins to fall as a few SUBIR staffers join us after our arrival in San Miguel. For the past couple of days, they have been reviewing conservation management plans with communities deep in the forest. As they climb up the steep cemented stairway leading through the community to the field house, they look like they have been in a mud fight. And in their wake, muddy bootprints track atop each other and cover the stairway. Taking off their knee-high rubber boots and clothes, they hit the showers, rinsing themselves with water supplied from a huge rain-catching tank on the side of the house.

That night, under generator-powered lighting, we eat boiled chicken and white rice for dinner. We talk about the SUBIR Project and why these people have decided to live and work in such an isolated environment. Most of the SUBIR staff have been living in San Miguel for three to five years. They call this village home.

The CARE field house in San Miguel, which overlooks the Cayapas River, is managed by local residents.

As Don Pedro shuts down the generator at 9 p.m., we lie down in our mosquito net-covered beds. It's now so dark you can't see your own hand in front of your face.

As the sounds of the jungle echo through the hot night air, the voices of my colleagues continue to explain how SUBIR is making a direct contribution toward saving an important part of the South American rainforest and providing an economic life-line to the people who live there. Their passion and commitment is evident in every word and unseen gesture. One voice explains: "This reserve is the last coastal rainforest left in Ecuador. That's why this project is such a big deal. There are not many places like this left on Earth."

We finally drift off to sleep, excited, but a little anxious too. Tomorrow we walk into the rainforest.