Video: Descending Brazil's Rio Mambucaba River

Earlier this year, expedition kayakers Ben Stookesberry, Chris Korbulic, and Pedro Oliva set out to take on Brazil's treacherous Mambucaba River, a powerful run that drops more than 4000 feet over a distance of 20 miles. The three men made the first descent of the upper portions of the river, discovering massive drops, nearly impassable jungle, and rugged, remote terrain that turned the experience into a mix of both canyoneering and whitewater paddling.

In the video below, you get the team's report on what they found along the Mambucaba and a glimpse at a part of the world that few ever have the opportunity to see. This is kayak exploration at its finest and it is an amazing thing to see.


Mambucaba Report from Ben Stookesberry on Vimeo.

BBC Video On Uncontacted Tribes

Yesterday I posted a story about another uncontacted tribe being discovered in a remote region of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. In that post, I mentioned that there are a number of such tribes in the Amazon, and that the Brazilian government has been taking steps to protect them and their environment from outside threats. It turns out, the BBC documentary Human Planet filmed a piece on those tribes, which you can watch below. The video does a good job of explaining the situation while offering up some fascinating images of these isolated people who continue to live in the same manner that they have for generations.

While watching the video and seeing these tribes first hand, I can't help but wonder what they think about the airplane that is flying overhead and shooting the images. The narrator says that the plane stayed a kilometer away, but I'm still intrigued by thoughts of what that first contact was like for the people in the village.

Big thanks to Ethnonomad for sharing the video with me!

Another Uncontacted Tribe Discovered In The Amazon

Brazil's National Indian Foundation, better known as Funai, has announced that it has discovered a new, uncontacted tribe in a very remote region of the Amazon Rainforest. The organization first spotted a clearing on satellite images, then used airplanes to fly over the region. According to this story from The Guardian, those flyovers spotted four small huts built next to banana trees and surrounded by very dense jungle.

The tribe is said to live in an area close to the border between Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia. Experts estimate that there are approximately 200 people living in the village, none of which have ever seen or met someone from the outside, modern world. The discovery brings Funai's official count of uncontacted tribes up to 14, with approximately 2000 people living in those tribes.

The Brazilian government has made it a policy to not establish contact with these indigenous people, and instead they work to protect their lands. Those regions have come increasingly under threat in recent years due to logging, poaching, and mining and other outside influences. There is a fear that contact will eventually have to be established because of those threats.

This story reminds me of a similar one from a few years back. When I wrote that story I remarked about how remarkable it is that these primitive tribes still exist in the wildest places on our planet. We take so much for granted in our modern lives, and yet these people have continued living a simple, yet successful lifestyle for centuries on end. That is such an amazing thing.