I began crossing over to Colombia by a main and long road…  I didn’t expect it would be so easy to cross from Brazil to Colombia. I stopped at a small immigration office along the road and got my stamp out of Brazil. The taxi driver told me that I should also get a stamp of entry in Colombia at the immigration office but the office was already closed at the time I arrived and I had to go the following day. He drove me directly to my hostel... 

 

Now, I was in Colombia... It was my second time in this country. I really enjoyed my time there but I had never been to this side of Colombia before...  I remember that I really liked Colombia for the same reasons I liked Brazil: the warmth of people how it was easy to speak with someone you didn’t know... 

 

I arrived at the hostel as I was waiting for a friend to come in the next few days. I didn’t plan anything for the next day… My idea was to see the city first…  I met people at the hostel that were going to do a trek in the amazona and sleep inside the forest…  I told them that I was waiting for a friend and that I would wait for him to go somewhere… 

 

When I woke up the next, the people that I had met the day before were still there... The interpreter didn’t reply to their call and there were looking for someone to translate from Spanish to English and French with the Colombian guide…   I spoke with one of the workers of the hostel and told him that I was willing to do it... as I would have my tour for free…  

 

They provided me with all the stuff I needed to go in and walk in the jungle: Boots, hammock … Food and water…  the guides arrived at the hostel with a tuk tuk that drove us up tp the point where we started walking inside the rainforest...  

 

We started to walk deeper in the amazon when it started to rain…  We walked in the middle of the rainforest... I had no idea where we were going and I would tell myself that I would never be able to come back alone... We get totally lost inside the rainforest following our guide… He looked as though he know where he was going, I could not say how I was able to recognize the way as there was not really a road to anywhere… We kept walking and walking and made some stops where I translated the explanations of the guide… 

 

After few hours walking, we reached a small hut in the middle of “ clairiere”... it seemed as though the woods had been cut to build a tiny house...   The guides explained to us that we would sleep here tonight ...  the house belonged to an indigenous 70 year old man living alone in the forest… his name was Johnny… We settled inside the hut and put all our stuff to dry around the fire as it didn’t stop raining since we had left... we were literally wet. 

 

Johnny arrived in the afternoon. He wanted to show us some plants and collect them...   one of them was the Coca leaf…

 

We cooked with him and tried it.

 

As we were trying the coca leaf, he told us more about his life and how he lives…  We all started to be tired but not him...  He told us that he was going to have a meeting with other indigenous people... He had to walk in the forest in the middle of the night to get there...   how could he find his way in the middle of the night? I was speechless… 

 

Johnny left us and we all went to sleep in our hammocks...  The night was really dark, I could not see anything and the noises of the forest were really loud... we heard all the animals communicate between them  …  It was terrifying but amazing at the same time...  the power of nature and the jungle... as if life started during the night..

 

We woke up early, had a breakfast and started to walk back to the city of Leticia... we reached the city in the afternoon... I was quiet happy to be back, I have to say, I needed to put dry clothes on...  

 

The day after, my friend arrived and we decided to go visit a small village called Puerto Narino, a few hours by boat from Leticia...  We reached villages only reachable by boat..