more amazon

The next day we headed to the nearby Quechua (indigenous) community. When we arrived the whole community was out on the big field with machetes, mowing the grass by hand. We talked with the Shaman, some artisan women, saw a traditional dance, watched an impressive volleyball game (in Ecuador the nets are a good two feet higher, and all the people are shorter, so it's pretty impressive to watch them play. We also played with their pet monkey and then had a lunch of an entire trout each, served on huge banana leaves. Jaime told us that if we didn't want the heads, he did because they are apparently the best part because the eyes are quite a delicacy. I ate mine; they were salty and squishy and I'm glad I tried them but I don't plan on eating a lot more of them. We canoed back to our cabins which was mildly terrifying since the canoes felt incredibly unstable, but our canoe-guide was very capable and we didn't tip over or encounter any dangerous animals.
Austin and I decided to do some more exploring on the far side of the river, so we got a machete (by we, I mean he) and we wandered around on some paths that led to what seemed like a farm and then more cabins. The farm was clearly not producing anything at the time we were there, so we looked at the variety of plants there. Banana leaves and stems, we discovered, are quite strong but they're really light because the stem is made of tiny compartments, presumably to hold water, instead of being solid. We swam/waded (it was only three feet deep max) back to our side of the river, and I was surprised at how strong the current was for looking so calm.
After it was dark, some of us went back to the indigenous community to either experience ayawaska, the hallucinogenic indigenous drink, or to watch the ceremony of administering the drink. I was most definitely in the later group. The experience was weird. Those that took the drink didn't really feel anything, and the ceremony was marred (in my opinion) by the excessive number of cigarettes the shaman smoked (think about 13 or 14 in an hour and a half). He incorporated the smoke in almost all parts of the ceremony but he also made interesting noises that were sort of like water and sort of like an airplane and used a plant that rattled.
The next morning I woke up at 6:30 from an unfortunate mixture of asphyxiation, claustrophobia and a bizarre but very strong pain in my shoulder due to the awkward mosquito net and the lack of a real mattress. I relaxed and read my book on a hammock for a while and they we packed up and headed to the monkey park, where Jaime normally works with his wife. Basically 40 or 50 monkeys have the run of a large space outdoors and some of the house that's on the property as well. Some of them were calm, some were rather aggressive (one ate Taylor's earring, for example, and another one almost escaped with my headband, but I won). Being able to hold them was SO COOL though; they're so cute and extremely capable; they can climb with any of their limbs or their tail, and they're fast. There were also use guinea pigs, i think, which were almost a foot long, parrots, and these weird sort of badger-type animals with long noses that turned up at the end.
We were then dropped off at the bus station in Puyo and headed back to Quito. I read (and finished) my only book, The Cider House Rules, which I'm still decided if I liked or not, but it was definitely interesting.
When I got home the power was out so I had to wait two hours to take a shower which felt like forever because the only thing I wanted was to become clean in hot water!
I did not get sick from this experience but I'm one of the few that was that lucky. Austin contracted some terrible fever and stomach problems on the last morning; Ali got something similar a few days later, and almost everyone got covered in bug bites (I only got 20 haha). All in all it was a fun couple of days that were beautiful and fascinating and make me glad to be back in Quito :)