Name: Getting Lost in the Amazon with the Matis Tribe | Superskilled with Eva zu Beck
Uploaded: 2025-11-17T16:52:13.000Z
Duration: 35 min 41 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Yeah, Somewhere there below the canopy of the largest rainforest on Earth.

And over the next few days, I will be learning how not to get lost out here.

My teachers are the Matisse, an indigenous people who have mastered the art of navigating this treacherous terrain without maps or modern technology.

I want them to teach me some of their incredible wayfinding skills to see if I, too, could find my way in a jungle full of deadly creatures.

Really hope we're going in the right direction, but

as it turns out, there's a lot more to this experience than I had signed up for.

This might just be my most misguided challenge to date.

I'm Ava Zubeck, and I'm an adventure filmmaker and YouTuber.

My mission is to show you the powerful potential hardwired into the human DNA and help you unleash it for a healthier, happier and wilder life.

I'm in Leticia, Colombia, a frontier town along the Amazon river and my first stop on the way to the rainforest.

Leticia is a busy, loud and chaotic place.

Not exactly what you'd expect from a remote outpost in the Amazon.

It was here that I was supposed to meet Dan, our producer, and

start heading deeper into the rainforest.

I feel like we're getting the real experience out here.

The pandemonium of the market continued at the dock, but

I boarded the boat and we were on our way.

Honestly, I never thought I would see a traffic jam on the Amazon river, but here we are.

We were bumper to bumper on the second longest river in the world.

But the length of the river makes no difference if there isn't much depth to go with.

Was dry season and the water levels were very low at the spot.

Traffic Jeff creating a gap too narrow for the boats traveling in both directions.

After some maneuvering by our captain and with a little help from Dan, we made it past the bottleneck Freedom.

And just like that, we found ourselves on the legendary Amazon River.

Heading deeper and deeper into the rainforest.

We were on our way to meet the Matisse, a tribe that's called this place home for countless generations.

When you're this remote, the conditions for survival can be severe.

My mission was to find out how the Matisse have mastered this extreme environment and learned their techniques for wayfinding and in this dense jungle.

It makes you feel like a tiny little speck of human dust.

I am leaving behind all the usual distractions.

For the next several days, I hope to tune into this completely new environment, mind, body and soul, so that I can eventually find my way in the wild.

After leaving our boats, we walked a few minutes into the forest and linked up with Ivan.

Ivan is a Matisse elder and my main teacher for the next few days.

I think he's saying we're going to go over to eat something and I guess that's where we'll meet everybody else.

On the way to the camp, Ivan shared a warning about the jungle.

The Amazon is full of things that can kill you, from tiny insects to jungle cats.

And we're very far from any modern medical care.

Everyone at the camp greeted me warmly, though Tuma here was the most eager to chat.

I feel like I've been thrown into the deep end.

I speak no Matisse, apart from two words.

And I feel like I should be making a full blown conversation right here.

Everyone's enthusiasm when talking to outsiders is striking.

You learn what this community has been through in recent history.

The Metis were first contacted by the Brazilian government in 1976, less than 50 years ago.

Unfortunately, what happened next was tragedy on a mass scale.

Back then, the Metis had no immunity to diseases like the common flu.

With first contact came first infections.

Within a few short years, the majority of the Metis population had succumbed to sickness.

By 1983, fewer than 90 Matisse individuals survived.

The majority of their population, including most elders, together with their traditional wisdom, was gone.

The wounds from this tragedy may not have fully healed, but

and the traditional way of life was forever changed.

Today, the population has recovered for the most part, and

many young Matisse now move to towns in Brazil where they go to school and get jobs.

But some, especially the older generation, are keen to preserve the traditional way of life.

And one of the ways they do that is by allowing outsiders like myself to learn about their culture and share it with with the world.

As a first step, Ivan has prepared a concoction for me that he says has profound spiritual significance to his people.

I was nervous to drink without knowing much about what exactly it would do to me.

But I was here to immerse myself in Matisse culture, so I couldn't refuse.

It was energizing a bit like an espresso.

They weren't gonna let me off the hook with just two cups.

This is my third one, or three, for that matter.

After filling up on that cheek, things escalated really quickly.

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Getting Lost in the Amazon with the Matis Tribe | Superskilled with Eva zu Beck

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