Tuesday was a full day here on the Arajuno River, and we spent a good chunk of it taking the power canoes up and down the river expertly piloted by the local indigenous community members. We were extremely lucky with the weather as we had some clouds in the morning, but brilliant sunshine in the afternoon and into the evening. As you can imagine, that made it feel somewhat like a wet sauna but made getting around easier. The feel of the air in the jungle is beautiful. The only other place I can think of that feels as great is the old growth forests of BC or the Redwood forests of California.
Never did I think I’d get up at 6 am to scramble into a wet boat, clamber through mud up the side of a river bank, and then stand for 15 minutes precariously perched on the side of a muddy slope with nothing but netting (to camouflage the humans) between me and a ravine just to see some damn parakeets. Haha, it was actually fun, and the parakeets were beautiful a fluorescent green colour with grey heads. The birds need to clean their innards every few days to wash out all the seeds they’ve ingested and they came to a cliff where some clay was exposed to eat it. It was fascinating to watch the flock of them gradually move towards the clay lick (Saladero). We waited in the boats by the river bank as they gathered in the trees across the river from the clay lick. A few birds at at time would fly to trees nearer and nearer. The guide knew when it was time for us to leave the boat and climb up the bank so that we didn’t have to stay on the slope too long waiting for them. We all got our spots along the ridge and within a few minutes the first few birds started to land on the clay and start the process. Then more and more joined them. Seems like such a silly thing to do when I read this, but it really was interesting.
Some guests showed up at breakfast to join us. A stick insect (on Maria Sol’s shoulder) and a leaf insect (on her phone). She was constantly showing up with something interesting to show us.
We barely had time to get back to the lodge for breakfast and it was time to head out for what turned out to be an incredibly interesting experience and one I suspect will be one of my favourites. We went 20 minutes or so down the river to the Kichwa village where many of the people working at the lodge live including our guide for all activities at the lodge.
The women of the Kichwa village are the farmers and our first stop was so that one of our guides young daughters could show us how they farm yuca and bananas and plantains. Yuca is a root vegetable that looks like a potato but comes from a tall and fast growing tall bush and it is a staple in their diet. The plants can be re-grown using stalks from the bush and they are ready to harvest in 4 – 6 months. The tool of choice is a machete and the young girl that is maybe 12 was very adept at using it like she meant it. To harvest, once the branches of the bush are cut and the pieces for re-planting are secured, the root is pulled up to harvest the various bulbs of root. A couple of our group got to try both the planting and the harvesting, with Aussie Jeff taking the lead, but Elizabeth from Gatineau swung a mean machete.
We moved to another area where there was a bunch of plantains ready to be harvested. It seems the whole top of the tree gets loped off but you have to cut only part way through the stock with one swipe of the machete so that the weight of the bunch doesn’t bring the whole thing crashing down and bruise the fruit. Nancy from Colorado did the honours and did a great job of getting a huge bunch of plantains down without bruising them. Plantains are in the banana family and have to be cooked to eat, but they are a staple of the diet here and are delicious sliced and just fried up.
Next it was back to the boats and down river just a bit farther to a level sand/rock bar at the side of the river for our guide to demonstrate one of the ways the Kichwa fish the river. This demonstration was using a net and throwing it into the river and then pulling it up, hopefully with fish caught in the net. They also will put a net completely across the river when the height of the river is right and catch everything going by or another method is to catch them using a line. This time I was one of the brave guinea pigs and I failed miserably. When the guide threw out the circular net, the weight of the rocks along the bottom of the net landed in a perfect circle in the water. The guide hung the net over one shoulder and showed me how to swing and turn to throw it. I couldn’t believe how heavy it was and how easy he made it look. My throw resulted in the net in a pile about 2 feet from me barely in the water. A couple of the guys tried it and they did a little better but not much. Clearly an acquired talent. There was one tiny little fish in the net at the end of our attempts which I’m sure I caught, but the guys seemed to want to claim it.
Then back to the boats and over to the village to learn more about their way of life. There are 135 or so people in this village, made up of of 20 families. (Our guide contributed 12 children to that number). We gathered at a community area, near a building that had been built communally by the whole village with the help of Volunteer organization. The families sometimes work together but they have their own land and make their own way. They elect a President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer every 2 years, and there are also Committee Captains, like Sports and Chicha Captains.
Chicha is a drink which the Kichwa make using yuca. They drink it starting on day 1 but also let it ferment for up to 10 days when it’s very strong. We got to taste Day 1 which tasted like a green tea and Day 3 which was now milky looking and already had a kick to it. So when the families are gathering to work on a cooperative project the Chicha Chair is responsible for keeping track of how much Chicha each family brings and reprimanding them if they don’t bring enough and telling them how much they have to bring next time.
Each village has a Shaman who looks after the well-being of the community and one of our crew volunteered to have her energy restored with smoke and waves of a palm limb of some kind by the Shaman.
The women had prepared some of their food for us to taste and showing us their cooking methods. They use the broad leaves of one of the plants to wrap the food and put it right into the fire. It cooks the food in its own juice and kills off any germs. We tried fish, chicken, larva, potato patties, and fruit with chocolate dipping sauce. It was amazing.
I’m not sure about the Kichwa, but some of the Indigenous people still use blow guns to hunt and can hit targets 40-50 meters away using blow guns that are 6 feet long and really heavy. They also practise fishing using the poison curare where they throw it in the river which doesn’t kill, but stuns the fish so they can’t swim and they float to the surface and then they scramble to net them before the water flowing over the fish cleans away the toxin so they are able to fish again.
The community had set up a stand to sell their handicrafts, and of course I helped their economy purchasing a little dish made of clay and painted in three colours.
Then it was time to say goodbye and back up the river to the lodge for another great lunch before our afternoon activity, a visit to an animal rescue centre called AmaZOOnico. By after lunch the day had turned sunny and really warm and with the humidity just standing still had the sweat dripping off of us. So we really enjoyed the 30 min boat ride to and from the rescue centre. The rescue centre is doing amazing work, mostly with volunteers, in returning lots of injured animals to the wild after patching them up. But they also have a lot of animals that they can never release because they’ve become too used to humans or they can’t teach them the skills for them to manage in the wild. Lots of them are Amazon parrots, but there are toucans, snakes, small cats, etc. It was tough work walking through the centre because nothing is on the flat here. We were up and down steps for over an hour in the heat so we were glad to be back on the boat on our way back to the lodge for our evening.
Dinner was once again fantastic, and I opted not to go on the Night walk. I saw the pics people had of the things they saw from the walk the night before and decided I had tromped up and down hills, over tree limbs and through the mud enough for one day.
I’m sure today will end up being at the top of my list of favourite experiences of this trip with the diversity of nature and culture, and the sheer beauty of the area.
Lois' Adventures 