Visiting the Locals

At the end of our first trip, we stopped at the hut of a local Indian farmer. It was a family with six children and a plot of maybe 500x1000 yards. The people were quite short but seemed healthy and leading a nice life on their little homestead. They grew different fruits, nuts, lemon grass, manioc, coffee and other crops and they had a cute pig roaming the premises. We got to taste fresh Brazil nuts - the individual nuts come in a pod that looks a little like a coconut, although smaller and with a thicker shell. Fresh Brazil nuts taste more like dried coconut meat and are much better than the ones you buy in the US. We also learned how manioc and tapioca flour are made (they come from the same plant) although we didn´t get to see the process, since it wasn´t the right season. We bought some handicrafts (Jennifer wouldn´t let me get a blow gun) which are quite inexpensive.

The next day after our jungle hike we visited the Village of the Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. It consisted of a small church (with a lovely mahogany ceiling that would cost a fortune abroad but was inexpensively made from local wood) a school, community hall, a small clinic, a soccer field (of course) and a bunch of small houses. The village is a kind of show village that the tourist lodges take their guest to to see the locals and buy handicrafts. For that reason they provide the village with a generator and pump. I bought a carved macaw relief for the house. After hiding in the local bar from the rein and admiring a six yard long anaconda skin we headed back to the lodge.