Travelling to the Amazon with Dr. Rosa Vasquez Espinoza. Non-fiction.

Sometimes life surprises you by leaving a present on your doorstep when you least expect it.

Last June, one of the busiest months of the year for teachers, Beatriz, the lovely National Geographic salesperson personally invited me to go to an event organized for teachers because some years ago I used their books. First stroke of luck.

Although I found the idea fascinating because she told me a NatGeo explorer was going to speak, I was about not to go because we had a meeting that afternoon.

I arrived when the first talk was about to start (I'll tell you why some other time), and there were only spaces left in the first row. Same as in a classroom... There were three people sitting there: two of them were obviously British because of their looks, but the one sitting on her own was a beautiful young woman I assumed was from India. I sat next to her. BTW, I was mistaken. She is Peruvian.

During the first talk, the young woman and I had to do a short speaking exercise together. No suspicions of any type yet: I thought she was a teacher like me.

And then Beatriz introduced the last speaker and the 'teacher' stood up! Oops! Her talk was incredible. She was a modern Pocahontas wearing a gorgeous dress made by her mum and, as I soon discovered, a highly qualified scientist. 

Rosa's mission is to save the Amazon with the help of other scientists, indigenous people and stingless bees. Yes, you read correctly. Stingless.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was extraordinarily lucky and Rosa gave me the chance to write some posts for a blog she was planning to start.

There are only five right now, but we'll be adding some more little by little.

I'm going to share the link to the first post on the blog here (a blog that you can find in Amazon Research Internacional- the last word is in Spanish, it's not a typo.

And I'm going to ask you to do me a favour: not for me, not even for Rosa, but for the future of our planet.

Can you please share anyway you can or want to?

You can also follow Rosa on Instagram:

@rosavaspinoza

@amazonresearchint

Here goes the first post as promised above:

https://www.amazonresearch.org/blog/cinchona-tree

This one was edited by Rosa because, if I remember correctly, I had depicted the European settlers in a slightly negative light and she always chooses to be positive and proactive.

Thanks so much for reading.

P.S. You can read a lot more about Rosa online and watch videos and interviews with her.