It's a jungle out there!

During our 4 day Amazon tour, we were acquainted with some of the tough locals who live along the Amazon. 
These people rely mostly on the medicinal properties of the jungle around them for their health care. If there are any major catastrophes, they are forced to travel many hours to a hospital, and even further for a larger hospital. 
It's not an easy existence out there. But this is the only way they know. 

Local family

Paharito, our guide, told us about a tribe that exists about 8 hours away by boat. The people of this tribe wish to have no contact with the outside world. They are modern day cavemen. Any outsider that enters their village is killed immediately. And it's happened more than once. Helicopters have flown over their community and they have launched spears at it.
They are as primitive as they come. They have no idea that television exists, let alone a helicopter. So can you imagine what was going through their heads when they saw a helicopter hovering in the sky??
They are happy with their lives in the jungle and want to be left alone. So, people leave them alone......most of the time.
The important thing is, we know that they are there. That's pretty cool to know that these kind of people exist in the world today. 
Throwing them into a city like L.A. would be something straight out of the movie "Encino man". Haha!

One day Paharito brought us to a local village to learn how to make bread from cassava, which is a root. 
First you pull the root out of the ground...

 Then you shred the root into small flakes...

Then squeeze out the excess water...

Then bake it on an open flame....

It tastes similar to a potato bread. 

Paharito had a sore on his leg. I watched as he took a scoop of the soft shredded cassava, slapped it on his leg and covered it with a plastic bag. He said it helps with the healing and the pain. 

Paharito was a master of making bird noises. He could distort his mouth in all sorts of peculiar ways to make some very believable animal sounds. He could mimic them to a T. 
He said that while growing up along the river, he would practice the noises everyday, out of boredom. It really paid off because it's helped him in his career! When we went trekking in the jungle, he made a monkey noise and the curious monkeys came closer. The noises that come out of his mouth are unbelievable.  

We also met a shaman (a medicine man) during a visit to one of the communities. He was dressed in traditional dress, looking very warrior-like with the paint on his face. 

He gave us a very lengthy explanation on how he became a medicine man. It's a family thing. His dad and grandpa were medicine men, and so is his son. He was born into it. To be completely honest, I don't believe these medicine men have any real powers. Just like I don't believe the witch doctor in Mexico that worked on me was real either. 
Ok, I'll come our and say it. I think they're phonies. 
The medicine man, happy to be getting $3 from each tourist, explained what he had to go through to become a medicine man. It entails drinking a hallucinogenic tea made from leaves. It's called ayahuasca. This way, they can cross over to the "other side". They can see entire villages from a birds eye view and see any danger lurking nearby. 
You know, hocus pocus stuff. 

He announced how he would be doing a cleansing on one of us that day. 
The group elected me to have the cleansing and I was super pumped about it. I love to experience different forms of medicine in other countries. It's very interesting to me. He chanted and ran some leaves over my back and shoulders. Then he ran his hand down my back and wipes his hands clean in the air to take away all the evilness. I was cleansed, even though I felt nothing different. Oh well.....

One more thing before I go. I have to warn you all about a fish that exists in the Amazon. This warning is for males only. Males who decide to pee in the river. There is a fish that is attracted to the ammonia and will swim up your penis. It only travels in a one-way direction, so once it's in, you will need surgery to remove it. It has a pretty nasty barb on the end of it's tail. Ouch!!
Consider yourself warned!!

The penis fish