Day 3 - Amazon River Communities.
Today we got to sleep in (6:30am). We woke up to music playing at the main lodge. I was awake anyway, but it was like being at summer camp.
After breakfast, we took a boat down river to San Luis, a small village of about 250 people.
There was a man putting the finishing touches on his boat. He had started making it 6 months ago, and now he was applying the tar to seal the wood.
The village gets it water from the river. Just recently, they have had a filtration system installed so they can get clean water for drinking and cooking. All other water they use straight from the river. Everyone has a job in the town, most of the people here are fishermen.
We toured the local school. As we approached the school, you could hear the kids shouting “Gringo Gringo” We got to meet the small ones 3-5 year olds. It is mandatory in Peru for children to start school at age 3. This is their kindergarten class. There are 12 students in this class, but only 7 were in today. Here they prepare for elementary school by learning their colors, numbers and writing their names,
Elementary Classroom.
Next we met the 10-11 year olds. The students sang a welcome song for us as well and a song about all the countries in the Americas. The teacher had each student stand and tell us their name, age and what they want to be when they grow up. Then the students wanted us to do the same. Say our name, age, where we are from and what we do for a living. We initially said no to the age question, but the students insisted!
We also visited a local community of Yagua Indians. The Amazon is actually named after this tribe. When the Spanish saw the men from shore, they mistook the men as women and they thought they were the Amazonian from Greek legend. This village does a re-creation of traditional dress and traditions. They performed a traditional tribal dance and had us join in as well.
These people are known for their skill in the art of blowdart hunting. We got a demonstration, then I was able to try it myself. I did pretty good, I nicked the target twice and completely missed the last try. The hunters still use blow guns to this day to hunt as guns scare off the prey if they miss. The darts are made by sharpening the quivers with the piranha jaw bone with teeth as there are no stones in the amazon. They make poison from frogs, bark and caterpillars. They will then shoot a Toucan to see if the poison is effective.
Native demonstrating the blow gun
The local tribes people keep sloths as pets. We were able to hold a baby sloth!
Sandy with a baby sloth.
Me with a baby sloth.
They also had hand made crafts available to buy. Sandy got some earrings and I got a bracelet. I should have gotten a blow dart, but I was too in decisive!
A short boat excursion took us on a trip to see if we could find the local pink dolphins. We found them in a cove where they were feeding. There was a pod of about 5, moms and babies. They grow to about 7 feet for females and 9 feet for males. They are unsure why they are pink as they do not eat anything pink. The dolphins were jumping and playing. It was fun to watch.
We then drove the boat down an Amazon tributary to fish for Piranaha! We used a stick with line and hook. We put pieces of beef on the hook. Then you thrash the water with your pole and throw the bait in. In a few seconds, a HIT!!! You have to yank quickly to get the piranha. We caught Red Belly, White Belly, Red Cheek and someone caught a silver sardine. It was great fun. Tonight we will feast!
The chef at the lodge cooked our piranhas and did a great job on the presentation!
After dinner we went on a night hike through the jungle. We saw frogs, spiders, sloths, owls and at a nearby pond there were hundreds of turtles, and electric eel and Hugh catfish.
