Experience the Amazon without those pesky mosquitoes

by Sarah Blaskovich

FORT WORTH — As a kid, Diane Simons Lovell never got to go to camp. So 28 years ago when she had the opportunity to visit the Peruvian Amazon, she considered it her final opportunity to go to summer camp. Except this time, Lovell would spend weeks at a time in the jungle, surrounded by tribes and fierce animals like anacondas and jaguars. She was in love.

“I really just wanted to go once,” she says. Nearly 50 visits later, the Fort Worth resident is the only person who has visited the Peruvian Amazon that many times who is self-funded (according to her research). “It's like my other life,” she says, her warm southern accent not reflecting a hint of the Spanish she so fluently speaks. “I've got one foot in Texas and one foot in Peru.”

At first, Lovell went with small groups of adventurous people, flying into Peru and then taking boats through the jungle. After she got used to it, Lovell began traveling alone; later, she became a guide.

She's kept a log of all 49 trips and takes hundreds of photographs each visit. While she has no classical photography training, Lovell learned to love photography from her parents, who often bought her “little cheapie cameras” when she was a kid. Her photographs and some of the “jungle junk” she's collected over the last three decades are on display at the North Richland Hills library until the end of November.

The exhibit appears unremarkable, crammed into two small wooden bookcases that are locked shut. The venue doesn't do justice to the “Amazoning” lady's years of research and camaraderie with jungle people she now calls friends. What you can't see from the exhibit is that Lovell is godmother (they call her “madrina”) to a handful of children in the Amazon. She's got friends from the Amazon who have defended her against wild animals and have become like family during her many adventures. One chief of a tribe named his daughter Diana (spanish for Diane) after Lovell.

The exhibit at North Richland Hills Library is the 54th time Lovell has put her photographs and novelties on display. Though it's a small representation of the artifacts she's collected, she says presenting it publicly generates more interest and better foot traffic. “That little white mat [around the photographs] is a little window to see a different culture,” she says. “The Amazon is a really good place; it needs to be saved.”

Trips to the unknown

Lovell was fascinated by Tarzan movies, curious about the mysterious Indians who shrunk heads and lived in tribes. “I wanted to go, I just didn't ever think I'd get there,” she says.

As a young adult, Lovell traveled to several countries. “I never met a country I didn't like,” she says. Today, she's visited 45 countries and all seven continents. But none compare to the Amazon. She's often joined by scientists exploring the unknown, including a group from Germany collecting tropical fish, a man from Texas who writes books about snakes, a bat expert who'd catch bats and let Lovell pet one (ick!), and a group of scientists from the Smithsonian.

But her quintessential National Geographic moment was when she and a small group came upon an anaconda when wading up-river. They were looking for a hoatzin, a bird that looks like a turkey. The group was instructed to stand still in the water as the local guides took a vine and wrestled the anaconda until they were able to loop the vine around its neck. They then hauled the snake on shore and took pictures with it; it wasn't dead yet, but was likely tired from the fight. They measured the snake at 16 feet long, later releasing it back into the river where Lovell says it probably survived.

When Lovell heads on her next adventure, she brings coloring books, toothpaste, towels, and shampoo to the tribes she visits. She also takes the kids into town to buy them new shoes and other small necessities. But what she gains from the experience far outweighs the cost, she says. (It should be noted that traveling to the Amazon isn't cheap. But while she has to pay full price on air fare, Lovell gets discounts on travel in and around Peru since she used to be a guide.)

Included in her exhibit at the library are square and oblong pieces of fabric, embroidered by the women in the Shipibo tribe. They also make skirts that are 2 feet wide and 5 feet long and take about a month to complete. Lovell has an entire room in her house devoted to tribal treasure. “I'm always collecting little things,” she says. “It's sad; one time I came home with a canoe. I was walking through DFW … and people were staring.”

Lovell's story with the Amazon will likely continue. And now, she can devote more time to visiting her “other family” and displaying her art in local galleries and public places.

“I'd like to invite everyone to share my Peruvian Amazon experience without those pesky mosquitoes,” she says.

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