Amazonas Jungle Tours Operator

My experience interpreting in the Amazon in Puerto Nariño, Colombia, can’t be summarized in just a couple of photos, words or even paragraphs. It was fantastic, exciting, incredibly fun, rewarding and exhausting at the same time. I worked for Amazonas Jungle Tours Operator, an agency owned by a father and his son who are originally from Bogota. They employ 8 native indigenous guides and offer 2-4 day tours. The tourists are mostly from Germany, Holland, and the US. I was the guide’s and tourists’ personal interpreter. That means I would accompany the guide to welcome the tourists once they arrived in Puerto Nariño by boat (there’s no airport in Puerto Nariño, you have to fly to Leticia and then take a 2hr boat to Puerto Nariño), take them to the hotel, and interpret the plan to them. During the next 4 days, I would have breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same guide and tourists and in between the meals there would be a number of activities. Activities included 1-2hr walks in the jungle, visiting a reservation, sighting pink dolphins, visiting and spending the night in an indigenous community, piranha fishing, caiman catching at night, going to the Amazonian beach, wake-boarding, and going to the local museum.

As you can imagine, there were many challenges and rewards as an interpreter. In general, the guides are used to interpreters and usually know how to make our job a little easier, but the setting was an unavoidable challenge. I would constantly have to position myself as close to the guide as possible. One of the most challenging settings was when the guide would teach tourists how to wake board. When the boat is moving, the motor is loud and the guide will yell to the tourist to lean back more and give many more instructions. As an interpreter you can’t be sitting in the front of the boat. You have to be sitting next to the guide in the back of the boat and you also have to yell your interpretation to the tourist.

Another challenge was the informality of the setting. The guides are all in their 20’s and many of the tourists are young people looking for adventure. Being together for 10-12 hours a day for four days means you get to know each other pretty well. For example, not only did I give thorough explanations on why the Amazon River is brown as opposed to black, I also interpreted all kinds of jokes and personal stories/questions/answers. The tourists would also ask me personal questions so I would answer their questions and then tell the guide what they had asked/I had answered. And sometimes the guide would make a comment/joke, but didn’t want me to interpret it.

The last challenge I’ll mention is the hours. I would interpret from breakfast at 8am until dinner at 7pm. Of course I wasn’t constantly interpreting, some activities involved more interpreting than others, yet I was often exhausted at the end of the day because of the physical activity plus interpreting.

This interpreting job was also very rewarding, professionally and personally. I was exposed to interpretation in tourism in a very exotic setting. I learned a lot about the fauna and flora in the Colombian Amazon in preparing myself for the job, but learned so much more once I was actually there. I was also exposed to a Spanish variety that has been influenced by indigenous languages and by bordering countries. What was most rewarding was seeing the direct impact of my interpretation. The tourists showed amazement and excitement when learning something new and would ask questions, which in turn motivated the guide and me as well. Due to the high influx of German tourists, I was also able to interpret German<>Spanish. If you speak German, it’s a huge plus as an interpreter in the tourism industry here. I worked off memory, stenopads aren’t necessary because the guides are used to interpreters and will talk in short segments. There’s also a lot of back and forth. Personally, I was really a tourist and interpreter during my first tour, and was very excited about the information I had to interpret, which made the job very enjoyable. All in all, I loved the tours of the Amazon and could imagine living there in the future. As long as you love nature, I highly recommend this interpreting experience.

 
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