Today began at 08.00. There were 9 of us plus guide that climbed into the canoe after breakfast in order to visit the local indigenous community of Siona. It was another 2 hour trip on the river to the small community where we would spend 6 hours. There are only a few buildings here housing several families. All are built on stilts for circulation and made of wood and thatch. Many don't have walls. Siona is semi-traditional community in that only the elders still speak their original language and everyone wears modern clothing instead of traditional dress and uses modern tools. The plan here was to observe and participate in making the standard food in these parts - yucca bread. The local word for yucca is manoc although I am probably spelling it wrong.

Using a chef knife the matriarch partially dug up a number of yucca plants that Dan pulled from the ground. Then it was up to use to peal the long, fat tubers. With so many people it went fast. Back in the house the roots were washed and then the longer task of grating them into mush began. That actually took a bit of time. Tina put the most work in there. I told her to not do such a good job or the Señora might try to marry her to one of the sons. Eventually everything was grated and the mush was rolled up into a long woven mat. Using a post and a wooden lever the mat was twisted and the water squeezed out of the yucca. Afterward it was surprisingly dry, I thought. That worked good. While the cook was sifting the resulting "flour" I made a decent movie of the proceedings. Time to fry the "bread". Considering that the only ingredient was this grated yucca I don't really consider it bread but that is the result that we were going for. A pile was spread out onto a large round dish on a wood fire and fried. Soon there was a large round tortilla waiting to which Edison added some lettuce and beans. It was fairly good food. The tortilla had a vaguely familiar taste and texture that I still cannot place. Afterward I was able to try chicha for the first time. This is a drink made of fermented yucca but I don't think that it was ready for consumption quite yet. It was still acidic. It didn't taste as bad as people have told me though.

Sometime during this Rhona managed to get her rechargable batteries back from the children.

We left the community on a trail for a short 40 minute walk through the jungle. Rhona and I both got some interesting flower and plant shots. We also encountered a parade of leaf cutter ants on the trail carrying their booty back home. My movie of that turned out rather well.

The canoe was late in picking us up but eventually I was in the delightful shower and then clean clothes. These were my "night clothes" or my "after shower clothes" to put it another way. It isn't realistic to bring to many fresh sets of clothes so it is prudent to wear the same set while you are relatively clean and change back into dirty clothes when you will be getting sweaty and filthy. We were going to be going out that evening but staying in the boat so I would get to enjoy clean clothes for a longer than usual.

The two of us thought this would be an ideal opportunity to take a little wine out for the night and we were right. We took almost two bottles of Cabernet with us to enjoy on the water and they were appreciated by many.

First we went out piraña fishing. Our gear was pretty basic: sticks with a little bit of fishing line and hook. For bait we used bits of raw beef. There are 3 different species here to catch. Edison took us to a spot just outside of the lagoon where we swam yesterday. In reality piranhas aren't the vicious beasts that their reputation makes them out to be and it is safe to swim in the same water with them. It wasn't too long before Rhona caught the first one. Hers was all silver and the guide said it was the least aggressive and actually ate a lot of fruits and such. I guess today this one felt like having steak. It had the teeth for it. Then Dan and Tina each caught one at about the same time. Theirs had red coloring and were from more aggressives species. Lastly I caught an aggressive one too. Good thing because we were running out of bait (they were quite good at stealing it without getting hooked) and we left shortly thereafter.

Following our fishing (catch and release) we went back out to the lagoon to watch the sunset, returned to the lodge for dinner, and then went back out at night to try and find caiman. Caiman are small alligator-like reptiles that hunt at night. The best way to find them is take a canoe out at night and look for their reflective eyes with a light. We were semi-successful. There were a couple pairs of eyes spotted by some of the group but I was not one of them. Caimans don't stay around so if you aren't looking right there when the light hits them you won't see them.