Man quits rat-race to live with remote tribe after falling in love with Amazonian
Justin Alvo, 23, met wife Maria – who is a member of the Shuar tribe – while she was working as a chef at an Amazonian restaurant and the pair now live together in the Amazon rainforest
Justin and Maria are married with a child(Image: @justinalvo/Instagram)
A man has ditched his life in the US to live deep in the Amazon rainforest – after falling in love with an indigenous tribeswoman. Justin Alvo, 23, met wife Maria – who is a member of the Shuar tribe – while she was working as a chef at an Amazonian restaurant.
They now live together in the eastern Ecuadorian Amazon, where they document their daily lives on a YouTube channel. Justin, who grew up in the US, had initially travelled to the country as his father had grown up in a remote tribe there.
But despite being half Amazonian himself, he admitted stepping into tribal life for real was like landing in ‘an alien world’. He said: “I genuinely thought I might get kidnapped, we were meeting in the middle of nowhere.”
Justin with Maria and her sister(Image: @justinalvo/Instagram)
Justin said he had no idea which plants were dangerous, which insects to avoid or which snakes could kill him. The tribe quickly educated him on some of the more dangerous aspects of life in the Amazon.
But he was banned from going near pregnant women after ignoring advice not to touch a boa. The tribe views boas as spiritual animals and because he’d touched the snake and he had to be ‘cleansed’ over fears he might pass on bad energy to the women.
And while half of Maria’s family took to him instantly – impressed by his eagerness to bring gifts and get stuck into tribal customs – some of her relatives assumed he was an organ trafficker and that is how he made his money.
Justin documents his travels online(Image: @justinalvo/Instagram)
But despite the culture clashes, Justin said he wouldn’t trade his new life for his old one. He says he has swapped the daily grind for being surrounded by nature every single day with “parrots flying overhead, monkeys howling in the background.”
He’s even taken on an unusual pet – a javelina, a type of wild peccary he describes as “the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” despite knowing it’ll eventually grow to around 40kg.
Justin and Maria are happily married and welcomed a new child earlier this year. But it wasn’t plain sailing when they first met, he revealed.
Justin and Maria are raising their child in the jungle(Image: @justinalvo/Instagram)
He told Unilad: “I basically said, ‘Hey, I like you a lot, you’re really cute, and I want to make documentaries and videos about the Shuar people. She said yes, let’s do it.”
They swapped numbers, but Maria had what he described as “one of those $20 phones that barely works,”. However they were able to swap messages before agreeing to meet up in person.
And he said another culture shock was chicha, a fermented drink made from cassava root. He said the women “chew it up for around five minutes” to soften it before spitting it into a big container and let it ferment for about a week.
The pair document their daily lives on a YouTube channel(Image: @justinalvo/Instagram)
It becomes an alcoholic drink and Justin says it gets him ‘very’ drunk, to the point where he’s ‘stumbling’ if he’s had three bowls of it. He added: “The first time I saw it made, I remember thinking, ‘What on earth am I supposed to do with this?’
“In their culture, refusing to drink it is seen as disrespectful – as turning down someone’s invitation into their home. So I drank it. The first time gave me the worst stomach ache of my life, and bad diarrhoea.
“But after about a year and a half of drinking it, I’ve got used to it – I actually love it now.”
