The River That Changed My Direction

There’s something deceptive about the Amazon River. On a map, it looks like a braid of ink sprawling across the continent, but in person, it is infinite. The current moves patiently along the riverbeds, almost as if it’s too ancient or wise to rush for anyone. I had gone there expecting wonder, but what I didn’t expect was to change.

When I arrived in Iquitos, Peru, I was a different version of myself: a high school student, hungry for stories but disconnected from their substance. I was chasing “adventure” with the entitlement of someone who had never considered what that meant for the places and people being adventured through. My idea of travel was self-centered: take pictures, collect memories, leave. I’d signed up for a ten-day volunteering program with a conservation group that monitored pink river dolphins and helped document deforestation along the Amazon. I imagined myself holding clipboards beside glistening waters. But by day two, the reality hit: we were ankle-deep in mud, recording coordinates of illegal logging sites, swatting mosquitoes the size of coins, and sleeping in hammocks suspended under tarps that barely held back the rain.

On day five, we spotted a pod of boto, these mythic-looking pink river dolphins. One calf veered close to our canoe, peeking up with eyes that didn’t seem to blink. It was beautiful and surreal. But our guide, Alejo, pointed out the white slashes carved on the mother’s back that were likely caused by a boat propeller. “Boat propellers,” he said. “Too many boats. Too fast. Tourists come for the dolphins, but it’s their boats that hurt them.” That hit deep in my chest. I had always believed that to admire something was to protect it. That wonder was innocent. But standing there, watching that scarred dolphin disappear into the brown water, I had my turning point. Admiration, it turns out, isn’t the opposite of harm. Sometimes, it’s the beginning of it.

I started asking questions I hadn’t thought to ask before. I spoke with locals, fishermen, shopkeepers, and mothers washing clothes in the river. I began to understand that the rainforest was not just a landscape for Western awe but a home, and one being carved up rapidly by forces both foreign and domestic. Conservation wasn’t merely about counting species or photographing the rarest orchid. It was about relationships between people and land, local economies and international interests, tourists and truth.

I’d changed my return ticket by the time I left the Amazon. I spent another month in Peru, but not as a tourist. I volunteered at a permaculture farm, learned to compost, and studied native plants. I started writing articles and stories that tried to capture what it meant to be somewhere without taking from it.

Back home, my backpack gathered dust. I stopped flying for leisure. I joined a local environmental justice group, planted a garden, and stopped thinking of sustainability as a lifestyle trend and started seeing it as a moral obligation. That river trip wasn’t the most luxurious journey I’ve taken, and it definitely wasn’t easy. It didn’t make for great Instagram content. But it split my life into two parts: before I understood the consequences of movement, and after. The Amazon showed me that the world doesn’t exist for our consumption. It exists with us. And travel, if done with humility and purpose, can deepen that bond rather than strain it. So no, I didn’t find paradise. I saw something more valuable: a scar on a dolphin’s back that taught me what it means to travel without leaving destruction in your wake. And I’ve been thinking differently ever since.