The journey actually began in 1997, when tribal member Edmundo Vargas won a contest organized by Drake in which artists sent in their interpretation of the nativity scene. Vargas' jungle piece, which included Christ in a hammock, won second place, earning him a 10-day visit to Bellingham.

　

If you go

For information about traveling to Ecuador to learn about medicinal plants in the Amazon rainforest, call George Drake at 734-9757.

A friendship grew from there. A year ago, Drake and his wife traveled to Edmundo Vargas' village, located roughly 40 miles over poor roads from the town of Puyo, which is the size of Ferndale. Called Puyopongo, the village sits near the juncture of the Rio Pastaza and Rio Puyo.

During that visit, Jorge Vargas, a widely respected medicine man and Edmundo's father, asked Drake to help preserve their community, whose people were leaving for larger towns to make money.

That exodus, coupled with deforestation threatening the biological richness of the Amazon rainforest, has raised concerns about protecting native cultural heritage.

"The loss of that environment will destroy their culture," Drake says. Incredibly, the Amazon rainforest covers less than 5 percent of the Earth's land but contains nearly half of the planet's animal and plant species.

"Many people lament the loss of biological diversity," he adds. "We also have to be concerned about the loss of cultural diversity."

In response, Drake organized the seminar with the Indichuri. It was lead by Jorge Vargas, with input from his wife, Cecilia, a midwife.

Hoagland and his assistant, Carl Neal, a pharmacy technician, were the lone medical professionals on the March trip.

Though he hopes to attract more visitors from the medical field, Drake felt it worked out, saying he wanted to see how well the clan would do during the first seminar.

Judging by the reaction of the visitors, they were a success.

From the capital city of Quito, home to roughly 1.3 million inhabitants, it was a six-hour bus ride through the Andes Mountains to get near Puyopongo. At each stop, vendors would jump onto the crowded bus to sell wares that included bananas and chocolates, hopping off at the next destination.

When the Whatcom travelers weren't gazing in awe at the blanket of greenery covering the Andes or the waterfalls falling from their sides, they were holding their breaths as their bus approached other vehicles on the narrow, sometimes dirt, road. With sheer cliffs on one side, there wasn't room for a false move.

The bus continued until the road ended, where the Indichuri met the visitors and took them on a 45-minute hike into the village.

There, Hoagland described an idyllic and lost rhythm. Life ebbed and flowed naturally, instead of being marked artificially by pagers, phones and other trappings of so-called civilization.

"The sun gets up, you get up. The sun goes down, you go to bed," Hoagland recalls. "The day was focused on the needs of the day."

One of the most important aspects of the trip, Drake says, was seeing the Indichuri's relationship with the jungle around them. Plants -- and the environment -- not only served as food and medicine, but also were tied into their spirituality.

Such a holistic connection no longer exists in Western culture, which has ripped apart and compartmentalized the pieces, he notes.

"They are totally self-sustaining in the jungle," Drake adds.

The Whatcom County residents returned with memories of lush plants and brightly colored animals, a fermented sweet and milky drink called "chicha," and of a superb meal of catfish cooked with palm heart.

"The cooking was tremendous," says Bellingham resident Dawn Kodin, who sells advertising for Sierra Magazine and went to learn about the uses of plants.

The visitors ate everything, even rhinoceros beetle larvae that were picked from the bark of a dead tree. They popped them into their mouths raw and chewed.

"It was pretty tasty. I can say that now because I don't have to eat another one," Kodin says, laughing.

She described the taste as akin to a "buttery avocado."

What they also remember are their hosts, who treated them like family.

"The feeling that emanated from their heart -- they are very gentle, loving, caring people," Kodin says.

Drake agrees.