Zabalo Village
Quiet Stay

We invite visitors to come and share, if only for a few brief moments, our amazing forests, our quiet and pristine rivers, our abundant wildlife, and even more than that, our lives, as our culture continues to live with, in, and for the Amazon rain forest. We are the Cofans of Zabalo, and we are proud to be able to offer you the opportunity to visit our world. We are not a people trapped in the past, nor are we the typical stereotype imagined by romantic outsiders. We often wear tee shirts, and our kids love to connect via Facebook. But the roots of our culture are solid, and, as we deal with the outside world, we always seek to be ourselves, figuring out the future based on the present and backed by the past.

Our knowledge of the forest is legendary. We know the birds, the mammals, the fish, and the other denizens of our rain forest well. We understand the use of over two hundred medicinal plants, and, if necessary, can slide back into our age-old patterns without a hitch. But meanwhile, we have learned that we must deal with an outside world, that is often hostile and always difficult to understand. Most of what was once our territory is now home to agricultural interests and extractive activities. Towns have grown up over the remains of our villages, and the freedom we once took for granted as we traveled through the forest and up and down the waterways is sharply curtailed.

We entered "ecotourism" early, as we sought a culturally friendly way to make our livings in our forests. We found, much to our surprise, that we also wound up making solid friends and allies as we sought to manage and protect our forests. It was an incredible "win-win" situation all the way around as we opened our forests and our culture to visitors who not only appreciated the value of our world but also truly enjoyed it for itself.

Our forests are the best in the world. Our community management is an ongoing process based on consensus gathering decision making that ensures healthy and tame populations of wildlife, intact and pristine woods, clean and uncontaminated waterways, and a constant care for our environments. WE manage over 140,000 hectares (approximately 300,000 acres) of some of the most biodiverse and productive climax forests, wetlands, and waterways yet remaining in Amazonia. Meanwhile, our culture maintains its language, its lifestyle, its vision of the world, and its customs. As with all cultures, we are in a constant state of evolution to deal with the demands of changing environments, but in it all, we continue to be proud to be Cofans.

To make things more comfortable for our visitors, we've built the Zabalo Visitors Center, with four cabins built to accommodate twelve to twenty visitors. The cabins are constructed with hardwoods harvested from productive riverside species, and a blend of modern technique and age-old materials ensures comfort, cleanliness, a minimum of "creepy crawlies", and a pleasant stay for our visitors. We boast running water, indoor bathrooms, electricity, and comfortable beds.

Our modern kitchen provides fusion menus adjusted to the needs of each group, with room for vegetarians and even vegans to stay healthy and well fed! We try to use local food sources as much as possible, but we also realize that our guests don't necessarily have the same tastes in food as we do. However, at the end of your trip, we will offer a meal normally eaten and drunk in the community--a unique opportunity to experience our native food.

Our guides will introduce you to the contrasting habitats we manage. Most well-known is the terra firme forest which extends across Amazonia. With over 3500 woody species identified in our territory, it is one of the most biodiverse plant systems in the world providing us with literally hundreds of useful materials, ranging from medicines to roof thatching to emergency spears to the swinging vine loved by people of all ages and backgrounds. This forest is truly a world of plants, yet, often see birds, monkeys, peccary, and other denizens of this habitat on our trips. Our guides will show you many useful plants, speak about the ecology and the numerous interactions and interconnections which make this forest so special.

The second huge ecosystem of Amazonia, the riparian, is best experienced from a canoe. We will be take you up one of the most beautiful rivers in the world—the Zabalo. The Zabalo River drains a huge wetland to the west of the village, and flows down through a sandstone-based channel which drains thousands of hectares of Mauriti swamps and wetlands. When the water is high, this region is truly a "flooded forest", and the deep dark waters with their characteristic black stain from the numerous humic acids in the water flow in awesome silence through a forest teaming with monkeys, birds, reptiles, and fish. Yes, the fish use the forest almost like land animals do, waiting till the water is high and venturing back miles from the channel to eat fruit, seeds, insects, and grubs. This river is home to the famous Zabalo game fish- hence the river’s name—powerful omnivores who are high on the list of the hardest fighters in the fish world. Seldom over six or seven pounds, these fish will give you an experience to remember! And even if you're not a die-hard fisherperson, it’s always fun to cast a hook for the famous tasty piranha. Fishing is a great way to be silent in a quiet world.

Your guides, cooks, and boat crews are all members of the Cofan nation living at Zabalo Village. As a village, we open our doors and welcome you to participate with us in our daily lives. There will be no faked cultural events, tribal dances or shamanistic ceremonies. Instead, we invite you to be part of our real lives, and if your visit coincides with a community or family event, we will be honored to have you join us. A quiet hike to collect real life materials for a hammock, a slow float fishing with a traditional wooden pole and seeds, a mad chase after a herd of peccary, sitting with a woman who is making necklaces from jungle seeds, playing some soccer with the kids, all are part of offering you the opportunity to share a world and a lifestyle which is incredibly precious and increasingly scarce in this modern day and age.

Randy Borman
October 25, 2022