The Yawanawá - Rio Branco, BR 364, Tarauacá, Ponte Sobre

The Yawanawá tribe people are one of many indigenous people of Brazil. They, that are a few hundred of Yawanawá people, live in small villages or settlements along the narrow Gregorio river. 



Some also live in a small town called Tarauacá situated on another larger river called by the same name and about 1.5 hours drive East from the Gregorio river. Other towns where some members live, include Cruzeiro do Sul and Rio Branco. They are all located in the North West of Brazil in the state of Acre.

Image taken from Google Maps


Access to the town of Tarauacá and the Gregorio river further to the West is not easy. There is a small airport called José Galera dos Santos Airport with a service to Rio Branco, the capital of the state of Acre. Most people however use the controversial road BR-364 (the fear was that it would give easy access to logging companies to reach further and deeper into the Amazon forest with trade routes into Peru), which links both towns at a distance of over 400km. I stayed in the towns of Rio Branco and Tarauacá en route to the Yawanawá tribe.

On the Northern outskirts of Rio Branco where some members of the Yawanawá and other tribes live.

The BR-364 which connects Rio Branco (capital of the state of Acre) with the small town of Tarauacá at a distance of about 400km plus is in mainly straight road passing small settlements as well as farms. From time to time there are weight check point for lorries.The condition of the road nearer to Rio Branco is fairly good to excellent but after about 80km or so it becomes poor and with periodic outburst of heavy rain becomes very treacherous, not only because of the eroded parts of the road but also because people on foot, dogs, cows and other animals walk along the road and relatively many youngsters on mopeds and bicycles use the road.

Tarauacá, with a population of around 35,000 people is a busy town North-West of Rio Branco on the BR-364 and a river by the same name, which like the river Gregorio caused flooding.

The town serves as trading centre.

Tarauacá is full of small stores, some basic hotels, restaurants. Many people use bicycles and mopeds as a means of transport. The main commercial or two centre is near the the river.

On Sundays Tarauacá is a quite place, and residence, those with transport travel outside the town to lake leisure resorts such as Chacara about 20 minutes South.

Some of the Yawanawá tribe live both, in the villages and in Tarauacá or just in the town. It appears that they live in the Southern part of the town. The Cooperative Agro Yawanawa - Cooppyawa and the Yawanawá Sociocultural Association are situated there and the latter operates an accommodation for people visiting from the tribe and also a vital transport service to the Gregorio river. 

In order to reach the various Yawanawá villages it is necessary to travel from Tarauacá by truck on the BR-364 for 1.5 hours to the river Gregorio where at the Ponte Sobre there is an access point to the river with a number of small commercial outlets. From there using a small narrow light-weight aluminum canoe boat with an air cooled long-tail outboard it takes about 4-5 hours to reach the first Yawanawá village and another 4-5 hours to reach the last settlement, which is about 80 km away. The Gregorio river is relatively narrow, depending on water levels and extremely windy whilst littered with tree branches and stumps. The river has become more hazardous due to a major recent flooding (November 2014), bringing down riverside trees as well as destroying some houses and equipment of indigenous and non-indigenous people living alongside the river. The flood apparently was the worst ever and illegal tree logging is being blamed as one of the causes. See Nahoum (2013) for a more detailed description of the area. Also the road BR-364 has been scanned by Google Maps.

For the trip to the tribe we needed lots of provision (including diesel and petrol for the boats and generators at the villages) catering for the various guides and family members.

A truck would bring the 'crew' and other locals to Ponte Sobre where we would access the river Gregorio.

Ponte Sobre is not one the place to access the river but also has a few stores to be further vital provisions.