South America Sojourn

After the downpours of yesterday evening/night we woke up to a lovely cool morning. And I even managed to brave the toilets in the middle of the night. Not a single arachnid in sight! Today we played at being Quechua. We went into the jungle to gather the food we needed for lunch and I learnt a new insult. Carishina. It means "like a man" because in their community the men only hunt, everything else is done by the woman, and therefore to do something like a man means to be rubbish at it. I also learnt how useful a machete is. It is their one tool and they use it for everything. The little girls are very good with them. Then we made chocolate. For real: super easy! You simply cut the plant, remove the beans, dry them, toast them, grind them, add powered milk and sugar, grind again then add some (in our case lemongrass) water and voila! Beautiful chocolate sauce. There is something lovely about growing everything you eat. Want some chili sauce? Go pick the chilies! In the afternoon we continued our experience with panning for gold, shooting blow guns (I was pretty damn good, if I say so myself) and making bracelets. Finally a night walk with lots of flutterbyes (and definitely no spiders... especially not tarantulas or poisonous ones) then goodnight and goodbye to the jungle and our new friends!Read more