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Published: August 11th 2008
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candy for the kids
As soon as they hear there´s candy, the hands shoot out and there are suddenly a huge throng of kids. I´m well-rested and well-fed and ready to write more blog (at least until we head out for dinner).
We last left our heroine feeling recovered and rejuvinated in the rainforest (well that´s a stretch...). The second day of clinic went much better than the first. I have to get the names of these villages. All I know is that we never made it to the actual Amazon river, but to the tributaries. But really, seen one rainforest village seen ´em all. I was actually hungry and able to eat breakfast. After a modest breakfast of a runny egg (that was AFTER asking them to cook it completely, you should have seen it before!)and the best white bread I´ve ever had (wonder bread tastes better in the amazon after 24hrs of not eating), we set off for our next day at the office. I was actually getting used to traveling by boat everywhere we went. It became the norm (and a nice way to get around...if you have a fast boat with a motor). Thanks to the dry season, we were again forced to walk to the village. This time we were warned ahead of time and told it would be
local transportation
They travel in wooden canoes, but sometimes throw a motor on the back. A bit anachronistic... a 2km walk (which of course meant I was prepared for 4 miles based on the apparent local conversion). It was a very nice walk though, and not nearly that far. We walked across a sandy plain, and into the jungle. The clinic day went very much like the previous one. This village was a little smaller (only 200 people as opposed to the 500 from the previous village). The only difference for me is that I was actually functioning and able to see a full day of clinic. More of the same, though, as far as patients and treatments. Oh, I forgot to describe the bathroom. Ha! The first day, I was drinking so much water that I had to pee almost as soon as we got there. Someone else got a pic for me (I forgot my camera that day). The "bathroom" was a little wooden platform with 3 walls (the front was open on one and had a cut up bag hanging for the other), and the "toilet" was a square hole cut into the floor (and apparently men can´t make it into the hole here any easier than they can in the US haha) looking straight
The village
This is where the river should have been. We would have ridden right up to the village. Instead we hiked it. And I´m pretty sure that´s not the village in the background -- it felt a lot farther than that. down at the dirt littered with trash and "other stuff" about 3ft down. Surprisingly, though, it didn´t smell. Good thing I brought my own TP. Gotta hand it to them though. Pooping indiscriminately is a HUGE problem in developing countries and leads to MANY diseases and problems. At least they have a latrine. Sorry for the sidebar and vivid pictures, but I felt that since you´re not there, you should at least get to feel like you are. haha ew...
Clinic that day was fun. Moved smoothely and we saw everyone by around 2pm. A big fat heavy MRE for lunch at 1pm and our station was done! And of course, right as we were packing up to leave, it started to rain. It went from hot and sunny to a gust of wind (everyone groaned because we knew what was coming) and we started running to get stuff together to hike back to the boats before the downpour. We almost made it too... At least this time we got to leave some of the empty black cases we brought with meds as we emptied some of them. A slightly lighter load (and those dang black boxes became
canoe
Wooden canoe a pain in the butt after a while). As we were walking back through the rainforest (and it REALLY looked like the classic picture of the rainforest jungle, just missing the macaw), the sky opened up. We got pretty wet. And even though we had some air force people, no one brought an umbrella. (haha that was for you Jason). I wish I could have captured it on camera. Walking in the rain in the rainforest I think was a highlight of my amazon experience. Seemed somehow inevitable I guess, but really made it authentic. Fortunately, I had just hit up REI before my trip and bought a pretty good rainjacket, and I had a fancy schmancy rain cover for my bag (VERY nice!! Everything stayed dry! And everyone else was jealous...) By the way, I can now put in a pretty decent review for the daypack I ended up buying (the Osprey Stratos 40 -- a pretty good bag with only a couple of drawbacks, but very nice!) I don´t know how I ever traveled without one... We made it back to the boat, a little muddier and a lot wetter than when we started. In a previous blog
rain in the rainforest
It´s hard to tell, but it´s actually raining fairly hard in this picture I mentioned the water and sewage system (at least for that village -- in the jungle they just get buckets of water from the river to drink. EW!), but didn´t really mention the trash system. The mayor of the village had told us to just leave our trash and that they would take care of it. Well while we were walking back to the boat, 3 little kids ran by with our trash bags on their backs. They ran right to the water near our boats and ran into the river (to play). They were tossing around the garbage bags and playing with them. The crossed the little puddle/lake in the river and started throwing the bags around. Then, when they were done playing, they opened them and dumped everything right into the river. With our mouths open, we watched as they "took care" of our garbage for us. We were appalled, but not too surprised. In general, that is the trash system for many people. There isn´t much infrastructure for formal garbage men or anything like that. Even in the bigger village, while we´re standing on the dock waiting for the boat, one of the locals took a bottle
lugging boxes
Those black boxes were a pain in the butt, especially when soaked from the rainforest and walking over wet sand. of our water out of the plastic bag, made a nice tight little ball of it, and just dropped it in the water. Really sad. You´d think that with all that trash being thrown in, you´d constantly see it float by, but not so. Saw almost no trash on the river (and it doesn´t move THAT swiftly...) Anyway, our story has a happy ending. The kids came back all smiles and happy from playing with our trash, and we bribed them with candy to go collect it and bring it back. We recovered most of it and brought it back to camp with us (where THEY can throw it in the river. haha no, I hope not...)
We were back pretty early, which was nice for a change. We were almost at full-strength (only 1 or 2 feeling ill). After another fish and rice dinner, we bought some cervezas (beer) from the cantina and all hung out in a cabin playing cards (good thing I brought them! My next piece of wisdom: whenever you´re on a trip with a group of people, always bring a deck of cards. It´ll eventually come in handy. Only wish I had had two...) A nice, relaxing, fun night. We even brought along a giant toad we found hanging out by the cabin as a mascot. (he didn´t stay long, but we did deal him in) And with all that we still were in bed by around 10:30. I nice night´s sleep (I had actually gotten used to the hard foam bed and my bag as a pillow), and we were up again with the sun the next day. It would be a nice peaceful life -- if it weren´t for the constant onslaught of mosquitos and not being able to drink the water, or even brush your teeth with it. I must say that I wish I had seen more jungle life. At night the jungle comes alive with strange sounds, but we found out later that most of it was just the frogs (very loud, weird, and slightly disappointing). We did see the famed leaf-cutter ants though, which have an interesting biology if anyone cares. They live symbiotically with a fungus there. They cut the leaves and transport them for miles in a little row, then clean them off and ward off any parasitic flies while they wait for the meal of fungus to grow on the leaf. They support the fungus for life, then eat the fungus. Interesting... Besides that, no monkeys, no macaws, no jaguars, just some pet parrots. Granted, there are actually biospheres you´re supposed to visit if your goal is to see the wildlife. Maybe on my next trip...
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