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We made a journey through the Timbiquí River: From the Pacific Ocean to a small mining village called Santa María de Timbiquí. We embarked in a wooden canoe (the only means of transportation in the area) that we hired, with a driver, with as little equipment as possible and some canned foods. During the entire trip, we were "out there" with no access to telephones, roads and hardly any electrical supplies.
We were following the river's course, in between mountains and rainforest, surrounded by the sounds of insects, birds, rain, and water, water, water. Dr. Nina S. de Friedemann's description of what she saw in the early 1970s was still accurate in 1999:
"Through the innumerable labyrinths of streams, swamps, rivers that flow through the soggy jungle, the inhabitants paddle their dugout canoes, the only vehicle for transportation. The rain drips continually from the palm-hatched roofs of their huts which raised on wooden pillars two or more meters above the ground."The villages are small and have extremely poor infrastructures, without sewage or waste management systems and without electrical or telephone lines.
(Friedemann 1974, 1998: 185)