Amazon Jungle Breakfast and a Shaman Ceremony Day 11 Peru
Day 11 Peru
Jungle Breakfast, Jungle Hike, Shaman Ceremony and Tree Planting Ceremony.
Another full day on the Amazon River. We're now on the Yanayacu-Pucate tributary. We'll do some exploring and then have breakfast on the skiffs. First we need to register at the ranger station and some of the village children gather to show us their crafts.
Their carvings are made from local tree nuts.
We pass a few more villages along the way and catch up with the other skiff for our breakfast break.
We have sandwiches, juice, coffee, tea, crackers and fruit. The La Perla crew really has their act together. Breakfast is simple but elegant.
Next we do a quick Jungle Hike to see if we can find anything of interest. Neal leads the way with his machete and lets Natasha give it a try.
Neal points out many things...parasitic fungus, leaf cutter ants and fire ants and a blue-tailed trogon.
And an armored millipede.
Time to head back to La Perla and we can see rain clouds in the distance. It's heading towards us. It downpours!
My Nikon D7200 gets somewhat wet and is electrically freakin' out. I dry it off as best I can and hope for the best.
Lunch today is all Peruvian dishes and they are excellent!
At lunch Ricky jokes about using a dessicator at work for people who get their cell phones wet and I get an idea. I'll put the camera into a ziplock bag with a bunch of silica gel packs and hope it dries out. I'll use by D7000 body as a back-up.
The boats moves to the village of San Regis.
After siesta we'll have a visit with a local shaman, a dugout canoe trip, the Chunky Monkey Band, then dinner.
We pass some of her crafts...and enter the hut where she performs ceremonies.
She tells us about how she was chosen to train as a shaman and her many years of training-surviving on only fish and bananas.
She performs a ceremonial diagnosis for one of the Chinese women. She also gives Ian some "Lazarus Juice" apparently it helps with men problems and might also help with his cough.
She tells us she's left a couple patients to join us: a woman about to give birth and a person she's treating for a snake bite.
We thank her for her time and move out of the hut to check out her crafts. Ian buys a couple of dolls for someone back home.
And Jason poses with one of Carlotta's masks.
Before we leave we do a ceremonial tree planting to help replenish the Amazon. The trees are all fruit tress that will help provide some fruit for the villagers.
Then it's back to the boat for a quick re-fresh before we are treated to a dugout canoe ride. We meet a bunch of people from the village who graciously take us on canoe rides on a couple of local streams.
Unfortunately the serenity of the ride is broken by one of the Chinese men who felt the need to scream some songs at the top of his lungs. We can hear some howler monkeys in the trees but never get the chance to see them because this guy's screaming scares them away. We can hear them jumping in the trees to escape the noise.
More photos: https://photosbynanci.smugmug.com/Peru-2018/Jungle-Breakfast/
Before dinner we get to dance up an appetite to the Chunky Monkey Band.
More videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKa6O-DUsAoClmn4VU14XHFo1lpbcgnKb
Next up: An Amazon River Village visit and lunch with a village family.