Jewelry making and cooking jungle style.

The next experience Freddie has set up for us is a jewelry making lesson with the micro enterprise students. I set out to make a necklace and Roger a bracelet. We are each assigned a student, who initially patiently show us what to do (again and again) an who undo and redo the string work until finally we get it… we are just totally relaxed when Freddie arrives… time for your cooking lesson!

The food has been great and so we are looking forward to lunch. We meet up at the outside BBQ and carefully marinate fish and wrap them in banana leaves. We then make a palm heart salad with salt and limes… yum. The chef then hands me more banana leaves, unwrap these Freddie says. I do and they are full of fat white crawling bug YUK! Yummy says Freddie and he pops one head first into his mouth! YUKO!! The chef and Freddie tuck in tothe delicacies. They then spear them on skewers and place them on the BBQ with the fish.

I am sure they will taste great but after seeing them wriggling and squirming, I can’t face eating them……thank goodness the fish tastes great!

Visit to the Shaman’s house

The next day Freddie decides it would be a great idea to go and visit the shaman … it will make you feel really good he says. He does a smoking/healing session. I am a sceptic with these things but decide I’ll give it a go.

Off in the canoe as usual and up a steep muddy bank where we are met by two of the shaman’s children. The path takes us over rickety bridges and through muddy streams, as usual Freddie is able to spot birds and animals. He leaps into the rainforest assisted by his trusty young helper Leandro and after much rushing too and fro he emerges with a yellow bellied black snake. He can’t work out why we are not too impressed.

I have been pretty relaxed until this point… but after thisI might even need this healing session! We emerge into a clearing with a traditional wooden hut, chickens scurry around underneath thehut, a mangy dog scratches itself and we head up the steep stairs to the hut. I have aproblem getting the wretched wellington boots off, especially as I am trying not to coat myself and everyone else in mud.

We sit on a long bench, in the room next door a mother lounges in a hammock reading a book, a young child plays on the floor at her feet, a grandmother sits sleepily by the door.

A wheezing and jangling announces the arrival of the shaman. We are sat in the centre of the room on two chairs, I try not to giggle…. These sorts of things always bring out the worst in me. We close our eyes and the shaman proceeds to chant, blowing smoke over us and hitting us with fragrant leaves. We are encouraged to walk over to the window and to throw all of our pains and worries out of the window. Now I am feeling pretty relaxed and not in any pain at all but I throw my cares away anyway.

The session over we all laugh and joke and it is time to put the wretched gumboots back on. I struggle for a while and then decide to sit on the step.. but what I don’t realize is that is only a thin board and so I go toppling backwards into the room to the huge surprise and amusement of everyone. Even the shaman is crying with laughter. I am so shocked that I cannot get up for laughing. NOW I need a healing ceremony.

Finally I have the boots on and we are downstairs, time to learn how to blow darts, Roger turns out to be the absolute champion, Freddie and I are pretty hopeless…. And so ends our visit to the shaman!

Bird watching in the jungle

A 5.00am start … This was to set the pattern for our South American experience… the two of us on an travel experience designed for 40!!!

Off by canoe, of course, up through a muddy path and there is an opentopped double decker bus. It was fantastic because Freddie could spot a bird instantly a with aquick whistle, he stops the bus we are at eye level with these fantastic birds - vultures, parrots, toucans. In the rainforest, the animals disappear when it is dull or raining and so we didn’t see as much as Freddie would have liked but we just loved it.

The bus drops us off and we have a2 hour hike through the rainforest.. Lots of warnings look before you put your foot, hand or any part of your body anywhere … when we saw Vine snakes (OMG!) I knew what he was talking about!

Loved it when we asked what the red cables were… hey they were the roots of trees! That gave Freddie a laugh!

Also loved it when he wound a vine together and shimmied up the tree. Wow he is good! There is something exhilarating about walking though the jungle, All around you can hear the wild life calling, you can almost feel the jungle grow. There is the slow drip, drip of the rain on thehuge leaves. We climb up past huge trees, we slither down wet muddy slopes to a deep river. Here we go says Freddie and he carefully shows us where to put our wellington clad feet… one foot either side of the underwater path and we would disappear into the muddy water ready to be eaten we fear by all sorts of flesh hungry beasts. When we finally reach the shore we feel reassured until I ask the stupid question, what lives in these burrows. we forget the name as Freddie tells us they are huge rat like creatures that can give you a nasty bite!

Now I have never thought of myself as a fearful creature but you know you can change !

Climbing up out of the valley we suddenly find a fantastic frog… mmm don’t know what that one is says Freddie… we should take photos for the scientific station. I couldn’t get over the fact that he stroked its tummy and it became ecstatically comatose… mmm what bliss… a few photos later we head off back up the hill.

Along the way Freddie feeds us different fruits and berries, as well as giving us a face painting session designed to keep the bugs away he says but I think he just enjoyed making us look foolish!

Our last stop is at the scientific station, again part of the Yachana project. Juan and Douglas are constantly trying to raise money to buy more rainforest. Once they have purchased a newsection they then conduct a scientific survey. We meet Ricahrd who is from Leeds but has spent the last 6 years working in the jungle here and in Columbia. He was ecstatic that more funding had come through and he could return back to Yachana. He was less enthusiastic about the fact that he had been woken by a HUGE pink anaconda the night before. I didn’t envy the guys their basic accommodation, really nothing more than open wooden huts strung with hammocks. Pretty tired by the time we got back to the canoe which was waiting for us.

Back at the resort there is just time for a quick (cold) shower before dinner where the two of us enjoy the glorious sunset before making use of the hour of electricity to make phone calls and blog before the dreamless sleep of the exhausted!

Chi Cha

After lunch, Freddie had hired the boat to go over to the local village. In my mind I had imagined a poor town with people selling food and handicrafts. MMM so wrong. We arrive by canoe, all we can see is a muddy path disappearing into the rainforest. Freddie with great enthusiasm leaps out and is met by a non committal Rose who has on an old muddy political T shirt, a machete in her hand and two grandchildren jumping about by her side.

She leads us through virgin rainforest to a clearing, which has manioc ready to be harvested. Freddie assures us a bit too heatedly I though that as they have cleared the undergrowth there shouldn’t be any snakes!

We are then shown how to dig the manioc up, skin them to get rid of the arsenic and various other stuff like how useful banana leaves are as toilet paper. Now it is time to carry the peeled manioc up the hill to the village. We start of well sort of enthusiastically but gratefully hand over our baskets to the grandmother (who is younger than we are) and amused by the fact that a laden basket is a bit much for us.

After perilous river crossings – (well to us and nobody else). We arrive at Rose’s house… lots of mud…. Of course it is a rainforest, chickens, dogs and children everywhere. We climb the steps into a large wooden room with a slatted floor which allows the breeze to come through In the corner is a a small dug out canoe into which Rose dumps all of the manioc plus a bigbucket of water that she collects from a barrel underneath the house.

Freddie said to us, ”Go and wash the manioc,” So dutifully as good tourists, we carefully wash each manioc… along comes Rose and with a strong muscular movement swirls the water and in two seconds the dirt is gone.

Manioc uncooked is really poisonous and so 20minutes cooking is the next stage. We head off to explore the village which is virtually muddy tracks through the jungle. Double storey wooden buildings bursting at the seems with people, chickens and livestock roaming freely,

When we return the manioc is cooled and returned to the canoe where we now mash the manioc into mush ready for the next stage which is to soak it in water for 3 days when it becomes a soft drink for children or for 3 weeks when it comes a powerful alcoholic drink.

Ho Hum... Roger suddenly becomes enthusiastically passionate about trying chi cha…now Freddie and I look at him dubiously… I had been dreading the moment when asked to try this stuff. In the past they used to chew the manioc and spit it into the mix to start the fermentation process.. even though they now have a commercial product, I am nervous.

But Roger is keen and not to deny the tourist, Freddie nervously pours Roger a glass. Mmmm really boring says Roger… not for the next three weeks as Roger suffers from a parasitic onslaught only relieved by antibiotics supplied by a sympathetic doctor two weeks later in Quito…. Ho Hum indeed.ß

Whoo hoo 60th birthday!

Here in Vienna for a surprise birthday party ... fantastic place........couldn't resist the hat shop!!!!!

Our first day with Freddie

At breakfast we meet Freddie our personal guide for the next 4 days. He was fab! We found ourselves in a really unusual situation, the only two people in a whole resort and well, you know, it could be a bit much with only two people and one guide but Freddie wasfantastic. He was from a mountainous region near Tena but had travelled extensively through N America and Europe. During our time with him there was never a time he did not recognizea bird call.. insect trail or plant …and he was really good fun.

So after breakfast we set off in thepouring rain (of course it is rainforest) over to the secondary school where our friend Katy was organizing internships. Its probably a good time to explain how the whole Yachanna complex works. The Complex has 4 main enterprises: The resort, the Secondary School, the scientific research centre and the medical centre. They all support each other.

Douglas & Juan started off by wanting to preserve rainforest, which they still do. They realized that education was an important aspect of this and so they started a school for kids from the jungle. They stay for 3 weeks and then go back to their families. They rotate through 3 programs. Hospitality … running the resort; Micro economics … running a small business usually jewelry making and agriculture.

The students keep pigs, chickens and grow all of the produce for the resort. They take these skills back to their families so that they can better manage their land and get more varied and better food production. Freddie took us on a grand tour of the animals.

When we got to the school buildings we met up with Katy which was great…She was really looking forward to Caroline visiting (her aunt who we met up with on Galapagos trip). The generator had broken at the school (a common occurrence) and so everyone was heading up to the resort where we had the luxury of generated electricity for 4 hours each day from 6.00 – 10.00!

In no time t all it was time for lunch served by our shy students and then siesta! Bliss!

Wellingtons are de rigor in the jungle and they are our footwear of choice from morning to night! Our village walk takes along a narrow path, past the medical clinic started by Yachana and onto the village green. Mud all the way!

When we arrive coco beans are drying but are quickly removed as the afternoon game of volleyball is about to start. This is the secondmost popular sport… soccer of course is the first!

Past very bleak classrooms and volunteer accommodation and onto the village itself. It is so not like where we are staying. Huts, surrounded by mud and dirty washing hanging on lines with children everywhere and chi cha cooking on fires underneath the houses. But you know apart from a few crying babies everyone seemed cheerful and happy.

Back for drinks, fab sunset and dinner and ready to meet our guide 6.00 am tomorrow morning. Who knows what is in store.