I heard about the great Amazon River Raft Race soon after coming to Iquitos in 2006. People came from many parts of Peru and the world to build a raft out of logs and paddle downriver from Nauta to Iquitos. The event grew to have over fifty four-person teams enduring hard adventure and competing for prize money.
Some years back, I connected on Facebook with the adventurous Kate Hagstrom from Canada who was a regular race participant. We just missed meeting about 4 years ago when the race concluded on the outskirts of Iquitos.
COVID halted the race for 2 years, but it was back on this year. The number of teams joining the event had steadily shrunk since the government took over sponsoring the event, but 12 teams seemed ready to join this year.
I joined Kate, her teammates from England, Switzerland and Peru and an all British team for dinner last night. It was fun to finally meet a virtual friend in person. It was an interesting dinner, because the company co-organizing the event shared the disturbing news that the government had told him an hour before it was pulling its financial support for the event. More funds would be needed to secure the support boat for the rafters. The discussions that followed were understandably very emotional. Ultimately new agreements were reached that would permit the event to go ahead.
No prize money would be available this time, so it was neat to hear the group agree to recast the event as a joint adventure instead of a race. They would stay close together to support each other in case of groundings (the river level in this intense dry season is very low) or deal with storms. Kate spoke passionately about the importance of havng fun and paying attention to the genuine perils of this trip. Paddling down the Amazon should not be taken lightly. The government may have been hesitant to support the raft event because it was criticized for poor support for a triathalon two months ago when one swimmer drowned.
I appreciated the group was interested in my work so some of them may visit a native village partner with us in the future.
It was great to learn that Kate's team won the international division of the race!
Andrea spent months working with this designer and four artisans to make dozens of colorful balsa wood birds and giant chambira butterflies. The birds included an egret, tiger heron, toucan, macaws and a kingfisher. When we stopped at the mall after visiting the aquarium, I loved seeing these creatures twirl around in a mild breeze.
I was most happy to hear the Chino artisans wanted to resume attending our bird ornament workshops. Half of them have made some birds based on what they learned five years ago, but they were eager to improve the quality of these woven animals they could sell to their visitors and have secure sales to us.
I selected a few baskets laid out on benches and placed an order for elegant two-color models. Lindy reported good progress making lady bug ornaments and planned to attend our artisan facilitator training. We were happy the group looked forward to hosting a bird-making workshop in July with artisans from 3 Tahuayo communities.
