Hello, hola, and numaēgü! Welcome to the land of the indigenous Amazonas people, who speak the language-isolate "Tikuna". I had the incredible opportunity to explore the Amazon region of South America during my five-day stint in southeastern Colombia. My trip was filled with beautiful views, unique activities and delicious food.
This semester, I traveled with six other Fulbright scholars down to Leticia, Colombia and spent a week exploring the Amazon. El Amazonas is a protected region of Colombia, so we were only able to fly there in a small plane which landed at a tiny airport. A small land-protection tax is paid every time someone visits El Amazonas, and once we walked out of the airport doors into the beautifully hot, humid environment of Leticia, a three-wheeled motorized chariot-like tuk-tuk brought us to our hotel in this region's capital city. Birds, butterflies and insects of many different kinds mixed with Colombian, Brazilian, Peruvian and indigenous Tikuna citizens until sunset, when the humans paused their bustling activity to witness the sights and sounds of the flying creatures bidding us farewell for the night in groups of thousands in the city square.
