Breakfast was ready. Fried eggs (hmm why are those yolks so orange), a very salty bacon (was delicious), home made biscuits, a breakfast "energy drink" made of bananas, coconut, pineapple and a few local fruits and berries of an unknown source. It was crazy delicious as well. There also was a rolled up floured item that looked like styrofoam. It wasn't very tasty. It reminded me of rice cakes. I found out later it was made from a root casava, more on that later.
We got started on our hike. The first hour and 45 minutes we were in the secondary jungle, which is the area that has been traveled through or farmed. Ceci explains these are areas where rubber trees used to be, but were burned out instead of replenishing back in the early 1900's, so the growth are mostly large ferns, an abundance of ground level bushes and plants, some rubber trees and fast growth trees.
At about hour two we start noticing the jungle getting much darker. This is starting of the Primary Jungle. This is the part of the jungle that is mostly untouched by man, farming or what Ceci calls, "ecological abuse." It is also where you will find most of the medicinal plants and tress that can be used for various treatments of illnesses, mostly used by local indigenous people. We were shown plants and trees that treated everything from stomach aches, menopause, PMS, insomnia, kidney stones, general aches, flu, malaria, prostate, etc. I did a lot of filming and picture taking during this period of our hike, so check out Facebook for those. At one point we came across this small brown shell that was actually a miniature coconut. When opened up it had several compartments that contained coconut, but some of these compartments contained a live larvae. These larvae eat the coconut and eventually turn into a giant firefly type animal. Magro split one open removed a larvae and says try it its good to eat and very nutritious. Yeah right! So he tries to get Vincent , my Spanish friend to try it, that will be the day. So Magro pops one in his mouth and eats it like it was candy. Okay, I come to the Amazon to do things Ive never done before. Okay give me one of those larvae. Magro pops one out of the coconut shell and hands it to me. After, inspecting it a bit, it starts to move, damn thing IS alive. Okay, now or never, I pop it in, chew on it and it crunches. To my surprise is actually was pretty tasty. It tasted just like coconut. Of course it does the thing eats the coconut in the compartments of the shell. Well so much for lunch.
We also ran across these giant trees that had enormous trunks, they were Brazil Nut trees. They reminded me a bit of the redwoods that I have seen in Northern California. They unique thing about these tress they are actually somewhat predators. There roots are below ground but some roots stay above ground and will seek out other "weak or dying trees". The root will climb up the tree and literally take it over, feed off its nutrients and actually become another Brazil Nut tree.
Another interesting vine that we ran across apparent can cure insomnia by smoking it. Im for that since Advil and Excedrin PM doesn't seem to work for me. Magro took his machete and chopped off a 18 inch portion. He says to let it dry out then take a small 3 inch piece off the end and smoke it. But, he said if you smoke to much it works like LSD. Well I took the vine and stuck it in my suit case later that day. Local tribes used it to give to women during child birth. It was also given to "old men/women" to treat arthritis and "old age" pains.
After three and a half hours in, we start circling our way back to the lodge. Then I start thinking, I sure hope Ceci knows his way back. I ask him how he knows how to get back, he looks up at what is barely the sun through the trees. He says he knows which way the sun is helps direct him. So I ask him what if the sun isn't out. He says that he follows the sounds of the jungle as he was coming in and follows them back. Then he smiles and says sometimes he just guesses. Well that was encouraging. Now I wish I would have brought a couple of extra granola bars.
Well he apparently knows how to get back. It took us about two hours getting back since we did not stop as often for our jungle lessons. This was such an exciting venture into the jungle. The sounds, smells, lightness/darkness changes really wakes up your senses. One thing I didn't mention. I was very curious about everything I saw. But one rule we were told going out, not to touch or pick up anything. There are as much bad things for you as they are good things in the jungle. So every time I was curious about something, Ceci would say, " you might not want to touch that". I was so glad to have this experience.
We had a late lunch. The meal consisted of the fish that we caught in the mangroves last night, rice, noodles, tomatoes/cucumber/okra salad, a creamy chicken soup and bananas for dessert. After lunch it was time for Vincent to leave and I took a shower and had my afternoon siesta.
The afternoon was going to be shore watching for animals. Magro reminded me that you dont see any larger animals during the day since 90% of the animals in the jungle are nocturnal, or eat and are active at night. Well that was disappointing to hear. After about 30 minutes Magro, who I now had to myself as a guide, stopped the boat suddenly. He had spotted something high in about a 30 ft tree. He had found a sloth. He kep pointing up and asking me if I could see it. I did see something of a brown spot in the tree top. Well that will be a lot to talk about seeing a brown furry thing in a tree. Magro ask me if I wanted to see it. I thought he said DO you see it. I said yes. Next thing I know he has jumped onto the shore and was climbing up the tree. Now most of the trees along the river bank don't have lower branches because where the water is up in the rainy season it loses its branches, due to water current or just fall off. Magro is shimming up this tree like a monkey. He gets to the top, strips off his shirt and makes it into a sling. He puts the sling around this sloth and proceeds down the tree carrying this sloth. He says i should wash my hands with the mud and water along the bank. This to remove the insect repellant from my arms and hands, since it would not be good for the animal. I guess this means Im going to hold this animal. Magro holds the sloth like its a baby cradling it in his arms. He tells me some information about this sloth which is a 3 toed sloth. There are other sloths that are smaller that are two toed. Sloths sleep about 18 hours a day and are vegetarians. They also are good swimmers and can cross a fairly wide river. This sloth was a female, we named her Rosarita. Okay now its time for me to hold her. As we are passing her over to me while Magro holds the GoPro so he can film me, Rosarita grabs the rails and the seat of the boat. It took a while to remove her claws from the boat. After we both finally got her loose, she had grabbed Magro's finger and he cant get her to let loose. He finally gets her to let loose after he puts pressure on her wrist and she lets go of his finger. Now I get to hold this animal. First thing I notice is how heavy she is, about 25-30 lbs. she has extremely long arms and legs which are used to climb up branchless tree trucks, as Magro had done. Her toes or nails are extremely long, about 4-5 inches long. Her face is very tiny compared to the rest of her body. She looks at me several times as if she wanted my attention. Probably like, "let me loose you bastard!" We have some very good footage on FaceBook on this Interview with a Sloth. We let Rosarita go and she proceeded to move very slowly up a different tree. As we parted, it was really funny that she stared at us the whole time after we pushed off from the shore and headed back up river.
We start heading back. It is now the hottest part of the day and Im sweating like crazy. Magro stops in the middle of the lake we were on and says lets go swimming. Okay, I know we have seen alligators, dolphins and piranha in the water the last couple of days. He says it is safe, so he jumps in. He says piranhas do not like the deep water, its too far from shore for the alligators, but the dolphins might come by to play. Okay I have to do this to say I swam in the Amazon River. So, once Magro comes back in the boat, its my turn, Spalsh. First thing I notice how warm the water is. Has to be over 80 degrees, but the water by my feet is very cool. I swam around a bit and then got back in the boat. I was concerned I would tip the damn boat over, but got in after the second try. We sat there for awhile and decided we would stay to watch the sunset. After a about 20 minutes we started to see several pink and grey dolphins. There had to be about 6-8 of these beautiful creatures. I got my camera out but I just couldn't get them filmed. Suddenly we felt large bubbles hitting the underside of the boat. magro laughed and said the dolphins were just playing with us. Soon clouds started moving in so the sunset wasn't the best. But, we sat there and I decided to turn on some music from my cell phone. Turned to a couple of Mozart pieces that seemed appropriate. I think Wolfgang Amadeus would have approved. We moved to get back to the lodge.
At the lodge we ate dinner after I took my third shower of the day. We had breaded fish, macaroni, salad of tomatoes, cucumber and guava, rice and fried chicken. Watermelon for dessert.
What a day, and again Im exhausted. Started with an early morning 5-6 hour jungle hike, found and handled a sloth, swam in the Amazon River, watched dolphins play in the lake and watched an Amazon sunset. Priceless.
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