All good things must come to an end, and this was really an uneventful day... On our jungle walk this morning, Jhon had to chop his way through every metre of the thick jungle. Clearly not an established path... Between chopping sessions, we learned some more about medicinal plants, edible seeds and materials used to make weapons, build houses etc. but there was not a single animal in sight, hardly even a bird... Spoilt by our previous adventures, we were quickly bored and lost our energy. Convincing Jhon that there was no need to do an excursion after lunch, we spent the early afternoon sleeping in our tents.

It took a huge mental effort to pack up camp, but we had to get going... A couple of hours upriver, we settled in at the sandy beach and set off to visit the Hoarani community once again.

I didn`t have any desire to visit the community, as the 10 minutes we spent with them on day 1 were painful enough. I felt embarrassed, like an intruder or a visitor to a human zoo. I came with a bad attitude, and left with an attitude almost as bad...

We went to visit a family in their thatched common-area where Max was fascinated with their colorful parrots, especially with a tiny baby-bird kept in a woven basket. I don`t particularly like petting birds, but greatly enjoyed being eaten alive by mosquitoes and admiring the lovely plastic crosses and Jesus figures the kids were wearing around around their necks courtesy of the missionaries that pester the local tribes in order to "save" them. The highlight of my visit was trying out some of the Hoarani hunting weapons, and "killing" a banana from a distance of 3m with a 1 1/2m long blowtube and poison arrow. I must have been a hunter in a previous life ;-)

We looked at some "arts and crafts" for sale, but the work was shoddy, expensive and nothing I could ever imagine owning. As we were walking back to the canoa, we heard someone yell "wati wati!" (meaning: sex! -one of the many Hoarani words and phrases we had been taught during our trip) and Andres came running with a handicraft gift for each of us... Max got a woven basket and Silje and I got palm-fibre necklaces decorated with red seeds and a 10cm long wild boar`s fang as centrepiece. Perhaps by accepting the gifts we are now legally Andres` women, and perhaps we will be held up in customs for bringing in the boar fangs, but nevermind. I will always treasure the necklace that reminds me of my young husband from the jungle.