gail sheffield on sat 21 aug 99
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Experiences by various group members at the Yachana lodge include: trying =
out a
blowgun and a spear, a =22cleansing=22 of each individual by an indigeneous
curandero (healer), getting our faces painted with traditional designs using=
red
pigment from a halved echote fruit, swimming in the Rio Napo (supposedly,
piranhas don't like swift flowing water), treks to secondary and primary =
forest
with a curandero guide who showed us many medicinal plants and explained how
they are used, preparing our own chocolate and coffee from scratch, tasting
interesting things, like fresh palm hearts, palm grubs (they are big and =
white
and squishy and are a local delicacy cooked or alive=3B a few of us tried =
it, but
only cooked, tasted rather like unseasoned shrimp), and crossing a small =
river
in a very, very narrow, long and, to us, unstable, dugout canoe. We left
Yachana in a fitting manner--for about 3 hours in the motorized canoes in a
heavy, heavy downpour, with a long narrow plastic tarpaulin, just as wide as=
the
boat, sitting on our heads, while those of us in the back row bailed the =
whole
time. When the bail container, a plastic jug cut in half, was swept from =
the
bailer's hand by a wave, we had to stop in a small river port to buy a jug =
of
bottled water to get the jug to cut in half (but then we had more than one
container).
Gail Sheffield
Covington, LA
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