Hola Everybody:

There won't be too many more emails after this one just a couple more perhaps. Starting with where I left off. After our trek through the jungle we had a very nice lunch and some free time, just like at camp. In the late afternoon we went by pirogue again to visit a family of Quichua Indians. After a twenty minute boat ride we walked through the forest again wearing rubber boots provided by the hotel. Rubber boots are absolutely essential. There is water in many places, plus snakes, spiders and most terrifyingly conga ants. Conga ants are huge and black. They have a ferocious bite which is not only intensely painful but will leave you with a tremendous fever. There is a cure available from a plant found in the jungle but it's not always close by.

This family only buys 3 essential things for which they need money. They buy salt, kerosene and matches. The rest they mostly grow themselves or trade although jungle conditions are certainly not ideal for growing any kind of food. We saw a few coffee trees. They have mostly abandonned growing coffee because it pays so little. Wait till you hear the figure it willl be enough to make you run and hide your face in shame, I know I felt that way. Here it is $3.00 for 50 KILOS. Unbelievable and shocking but true. Most of their money comes from coco beans which pay a little better, $50.00 for 50 kilos, still it takes a lot of coco beans to make up 50 kilos.

They also grown corn and yucca which is the real staple of their diet.

We arrived at the clearing where the house stood on stilts. A very simple, basic structure consisting of one room open all around, no windows, with a peaked roof. Unfortunately the shaman, a healer, was gone with his wife to attend to some illness elsewhere and the couple who also live there were gone as well on some unspecified business. Left behind were 5 children 2 boys and 3 girls between the ages of 14 and 4, it was a little hard to tell. They were very shy but also very curious about us. We walked around the grounds a little more and then went into the house. Basically it was a bare room with only the most rudimentary cooking items to be found. In the middle of the room was a rectangle packed with sand with a fire going on top. This is where they do most of their cooking. They never eat three meals a day and most of their nutrition comes from an alcoholic beverage called chicha which is fermented mostly from yucca roots but also from platana. It's only sweet during the first 5 days and then it's super stron at about 80%. The children are accustomed to this and apparently do not suffer any ill effects.

This chicha gives one the illusion of being full even if one has eaten very little so that is its main advantage. The children wore fairly grubby clothes and we did not see any other clothes elsewhere in the room. They all walk barefoot. They sleep on the bare wooden floor with just a thin blanket for cover. Nine people live in this house. They do not make a lot of demand on their environment. We contrasted it with all that we needed just to come for 2 days! Draw your own conclusions. Our lives are just so full of stuff and we always want more. It would be a mistake to assume that their lives are pure drudgery. It's what they know, it's their place in the world even if it could never be ours.

The next day we went for a four hour hike into the Jaguar reserve. The jungle can heal you but it can also kill you. There is a leaf so potent that when ingested your abdomen swells up as your intestines are being liquified. In years past women chose to kill themselves that way to escape family violence. There is a leaf that is so sharp that it can almost cut you to the bone. There is a palm tree that walks at night, no shit.... There is a leaf in the shape of the manta ray which can heal you from that poison. There is a leaf called "sigame" follow me which can make a person fall in love. There is a liana root which can provide you with one liter of water in half an hour and there is also a liana root which is a potent hallucinogenic. It's a veritable pharmaceutical cornucopia. I've only named a few examples but there are so much more.

Our ride back, that same day, was leisurly and beautiful, the sun was shining. We finally did get to Amazoonicos, the animal refuge and saw a variety of animals from the selva. We arrived back happy and tired. Our last day in Misahuali was uneventful except for our supper meal where we got to listen to a tango music player on his bandoneum, those queer little accordeons which they use to create that inimitable sound. It was a beautiful finish to our amazone adventure.

Today we visited the womens' prison in Quito but I will write more about that later. It was quite a harrowing experience. Lots of love,

Josiane

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Hola Everybody:

I don't have too many more of these to put together since our trip is slowly coming to an end.

When I last wrote we were still in beautiful Banos. On the day before we left the sky cleared up magically and allowed us to have a good view of our first active volcano. We had to hike for about 45 minutes but what a view when we got up there. One side of the volcano still had snow on it and the other side was spewing thick black smoke. If it had been at night we would have seen lava flowing down as well but as it was we were quite happy to have seen at all. It was a fitting end to our time in Banos.

We left for Puyo the next day and only stayed one night. We did visit an animal reserve in Puyo where they are in semi-liberty. The monkeys hang around but some of the birds have had their wings clipped. Sad, I know. We pressed on towards Tena and our final destination which was a tiny jungle town called Misahualli right at the junction of the Misahualli river and the Napo river, population maybe 500. It really felt like the end of the world with jungle all around us and what incredible abundance of vegetation and flowers like bird of paradise, bromeliads, and too many others to list them. Misahualli also has its resident monkeys. A group of about 37 Capuccin monkeys, just like the one I had. They were so mischievous and quite entertaining. One jumped on my bag and stole my cigarette pack right out of the pocket. Luckily there were only 2 left but they proceeded to share them and EAT them. One was really pissed when Stan attempted to retrieve the pack. They are beloved by the town people and treated like naughty children.

We were staying at a wonderful hostleria and paying only 14.00 U.S. for both of us. We had a balcony overlooking the rio Napo. Through this hotel we arranged a tour to the jungle, just the two of us. We paid a little bit more for this privacy but it was worth it. We set out in a long dugout canoe, pirogue in French, with a cover on top in case of rain. The Napo river is the longest river in Ecuador at 1,400 kms. from its source to when it throws itself into the Amazon.

It was just like in those movies about South America that are set in the jungle. The boat, the trees, the guide, the whole thing was quite spectacular. We arrived at a beautiful lodge. We had our own cabin with private bath and cold shower. Our cook prepared all our meals and the setting was the cooking and dining lodge in company of 2 delightful and one not so delightful parrots. We went for a long 2 hour hike in the jungle and surprisingly very few mosquitoes were present. We learned a great deal about medicinal plants and I will write more about that in Episode 2. We also visited a family of Quichua who are the indigenous people who still live in remote areas of the jungle. I don't want to write it all now because it will be too much to read and I don't want to try your patience. On another note the day before we left we walked quite far to attempt to go to this place called Amazoonicos, a refuge for animals. We had to walk, take a one hour bus and waited for more than an hour for a pirogue to take us to the other side of the river, all this in the pouring rain and it poured like it can only pour in the jungle. I needed to go to the bathroom and fell on some slippery mud and gashed my arm pretty badly. The good thing about it was that we learned about this salve called Sangre de Drago or blood of the dragon which is quite miraculous. It comes from a tree in the jungle which literally weeps these gooy tears that resemble blood. My wound dried up in just a couple of days. I will write again about some of these amazing and not so amazing plants sometime this week.

Josiane