Man who left the US for remote Amazon tribe reveals 'biggest misconceptions' people have
Topics: Nature, World News, Life
Thomas Bamford
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/Justin Alvo
Topics: Nature, World News, Life
Justin Alvo, the 23-year-old who left the US behind to live life behind to live deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon with his wife Maria, a member of the Shuar tribe, says the single biggest misconception people have about her community is that it's primitive.
Alvo, who previously told UNILAD how he met Maria whilst hoping to shoot videos documenting life with the Shuar people, has now opened up about what he's learned living among them, and the assumptions he says need correcting the most.
"The biggest one I see across all my social media is that people think the culture is primitive and uneducated," Alvo said. "It's true that the formal education system in that part of the Amazon isn't strong, arguably weaker than in the US, which also has its own issues, but what they do have is knowledge passed down through generations.
"They know every plant, every animal, what's safe to eat and what isn't."
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According to Alvo, that inherited knowledge extends far beyond survival basics.
"They're master craftspeople, nobody in the Amazon goes hungry, because if they need tools, they make their own tools; if they need clothes, they make their own clothes," he said. "They're not undereducated, they're master keepers of knowledge about the jungle."
Alvo said he's had several moments that 'blew his mind' since moving in with Maria's family, starting with a hunting trip using traditional weapons.
"One was going hunting with a blowgun alongside my wife, her uncle and her younger brothers, they could hit a small target from about twenty feet away with real accuracy," he said. "Watching how skilled they are with blowguns and slingshots really stuck with me."
He's also been struck by the speed and simplicity of Shuar home-building.
"Another was how quickly they can build a traditional house, using thatching and bamboo, they can put one together in about three or four days," Alvo said. "Seeing them live in houses that are essentially just wooden frames and thatched roofing, with no walls, was eye-opening."
Alvo said his first impressions of the Amazon were shaped by just how much he still had to learn, despite his own family ties to the region.
"Honestly, the number one thing I felt was like I'd landed in an alien world," he said. "You're stepping into someone else's entire home, their entire body of knowledge. Even though I'm half Amazonian, I didn't grow up the way they did, I grew up in the towns of the Amazon, whereas they grew up deep in the pure jungle."
That unfamiliarity meant Alvo had to rely entirely on Maria's family to stay safe.
"I didn't know which plants not to touch, which insects to avoid, which snakes were venomous," he said. "So I was stepping into their world, and they were the ones teaching me, not the other way round."
Alvo said he'd gone in expecting the exchange to run the other way. "I originally thought I'd go in and show them all these cool things about the modern world," he said. "In reality, it was the complete opposite, they showed me things about the Amazon I could never have dreamed of."
Alvo and Maria welcomed their first child, a boy named Oliver, in June 2026, and Alvo said his son's size has become a talking point within the community.
According to Alvo, the average height for a fully grown Shuar man is around 5ft 5in, and around 5ft 1in for a woman, with little genetic variation across the population, meaning outliers like a 6ft-tall adult are essentially unheard of.
"My son was already wearing clothes made for a six-year-old within his first month," Alvo said.
He compared Oliver to his sister-in-law's baby, born around the same time.
"My wife's sister had a baby around the same time, hers is two months old, mine is one month old, but mine is already twice the size," he said. "It's not a huge baby by Western standards, but compared to a typical Shuar baby, it was completely unheard of."
Alvo said the birth itself came with complications, with Maria undergoing an emergency C-section after doctors found the baby was positioned incorrectly, close to what he described as a near-record delivery for the community.
Despite the steep learning curve since moving to the Amazon, Alvo has said he wouldn't trade his new life for the one he left behind in the US, and continues to document his family's day-to-day life with the Shuar tribe on social media on his YouTube channel.