The field trip to the jungle was a great one. We will probably write a couple of blog entries about this trip. We will concentrate on the historical or "old ways" of doing things in this posting.

Cooking fresh fish and a look at the old hollowed out canoes used on the river for centuries were both a fascination.
On the way to our "camp" located about an hour out of Puyo, we stop near the camp site at a fish farm. The man working there threw a net into the water and brought back about six fish per throw. One of the teachers, who worked as a tour guide at one time, cut large green leaves from a plant on the banks of the pond. Pictures on this page show how the fish are finally wrapped in the leaves and placed over a low fire. It takes about an hour for the fish to be steamed (water coming from the leaves). The fish was absolutely delicious. Just wished the head and tail had been removed first. The insides were removed prior to cooking.

I am not sure about the kind of wood the canoes are made of. I had imagined canoes as we know them which are made of plastic. As the pictures indicate, these canoes are huge. They easily carry ten people and additional cargo beside. One of the hazzards of these canoes is that over time they tend to crack. Some of the picture indicate strips of tin or even plastic nailed over the cracks. Nothing like getting a few more years out of a canoe that must have taken considerable time to hand carve.
Wasn't hard to imagine the local indian tribes catching fish, cooking them from nature's frying pan and eating them. It would have been a much more pleasant task then poling that canoe back up against a very swift current!
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