Like a snake, Sote streaks from the rain forest in the Amazon, through the Andes, to the coast of Ecuador. Sote is an oil pipeline, carrying the black gold from the jungle city Lago Agrio to the port town of Esmeralda, at the Pacific coast. The oil extraction has brought tremendous impact on the environment and wildlife, and many people living near the mining are having problems with their health.
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Saturday is laundry day in Santa Cecilia. Emerita dry her laundry on the scorching Sote.
Rio Victoria. The river was named after that oil companies finally started to listen to the people in the area and stopped dumping waste of oil in it.
A truck, loaded with oil, has passed on the winding road from Lago Agrio.
The open oil reservoirs are treacherous to wildlife. The oil seals the respiratory tract and this frog is not much time left to live.
Juanito is 17 years old. He is malformed after he was born with meningitis. Since the oil companies came to the village, several children were born with deformities.
Lago Agrio means "Sour lake". Texaco named the city after an American village in the state of Texas.
People who have moved into the jungle, due to oil extraction, has taken over the natural hunting ground of the indigenous.
The open oil reservoirs are treacherous to wildlife.
As long as Sote isn´t leaking, Eddie Medoza have no problem having the pipeline as a neighbor.
