My Jungle Memoirs 4. Amazonian Lifestyle

I choose our tour operator in the jungle because it was owned by local families and because it remains in good relationships with communities living I the forest. I was hoping to visit some of them. When I mentioned my wish to our guide, he reluctantly accepted. The next morning we went to visit two families living not far away from our camp.

In the Amazon Basin, at least in Bolivia, people usually don't construct villages; they live in one or two-family households scattered in the forest, always close to a water source. After a short boat ride we arrived at the first household. Now, one thing has to be told about our guide. He is absolutely incredible in the forest, spotting wildlife, imitating animal voices, knowing about all kinds of plants. But he severely lacks communication skills outside the forest. Interactions with other human beings seemed to be kind of a punishment for him. When we arrived at the first house there was only one lady present. I discovered that our visit was not organized in any way. We just "dropped by" at her household. Our guide encouraged us to talk to the lady and then he sat down on a bench and focused on contemplating the view.

We started talking to the lady and she was nice enough and fortunately spoke Spanish, but she limited herself to politely answering our questions without venturing any questions or providing additional explanations on her own. At least she didn't seem bothered by our presence. After some fifteen minutes we ran out of questions. Our guide asked us if we wanted to walk further to meet another family. He seemed very disappointed when we enthusiastically agreed...

In the second households our experience was quite different. We were lucky to find quite a few members of the family at home, including a lot of children running around. The guy who was the head of the family proved to be extremely enthusiastic about living in the jungle. We had a great long conversation with him, he showed us around the household, where every single plant served some purpose. He told us how different plants help to prevent illnesses or heal diseases, he showed us a natural mosquito repellent (palm tree heart smoking slowly inside an abandoned termite nest). We talked a lot with the whole family about lifestyles in the city and in the forest and about daily occupations in their household. Then they decided to let us try peeling the rice and as a goodbye gift I received some grass and leaves that would make an excellent herbal drink.

Ironically, the fact that our visit was completely unstaged (and, lets be honest, completely unprepared) made it such an exceptional experience. I didn't feel that I was intruding on anybody; it was simply the exchange of information for the benefit of people who were very interested about life in the jungle. So I suppose that I should be grateful to our guide after all: if he had prepared and organized our visit better, I would not have gotten such an authentic and exciting experience!