Sloths
Amazon Rainforest, Brazil - Day 6
I love sloths. They're adorable and funny creatures that live at my pace. Our boat was actually on it's way to something else, when Ralf and Victor spotted a sloth way up a tree. I was again excited to see it, but bummed that it was so high up. It was near the top of one of the taller trees, probably at least 30 some feet off the water. To my surprise, Victor hopped out of the boat onto the tree and with bare feet climbed a nearly vertical tree with no branches. Ralf tied a rope in a loop for Victor and he put it around his ankles. This way he could use his feet to wrap around the front of the tree and the rope wrapped around the back. It was really amazing to watch. He got about eight feet away from the sloth and then pulled the branches closer to him. When the sloth was close enough he grabbed it by its back and climbed down as far as he could holding the sloth. Still about 15 feet above the water, Victor tied to rope to the sloth and lowered him down to Ralf. SHE WAS SO CUTE. Ralf told us to keep it facing away from us because even though sloths live most of their life in the slow lane, when they are really scared they can quickly slash their very sharp claws and do some damage. She was an older three toed sloth and kept slowly turning her head to look at whoever was holder her. I like to think she was smiling at me, but she was most likely trying to plan her escape. Ralf pointed out some algae growing on the sloths back and discussed the interesting three-way symbiotic relationship between the sloth, the algae, and a 'sloth moth'. When the sloth climbs down to the ground for it's weekly bathroom break, it gives a safe ride to the sloth moths that live in it's fur. These moths then lay eggs in the sloths droppings which create more moths that find other sloths to live with. When these moths die, they decompose and release chemicals that promote the growth of algae on the sloth. The sloth provides a home for the algae and the algae provides a snack and camouflage for the sloth. After a far too quick meet and greet, we said our goodbye and put the sloth back on a tree and she started her slow journey back to the treetop.
Soon we would run our boat ashore and visit a local household. The house we visited was the home of a small family of four. I believe they were in their early 20's and I'd guess their kids were one and four. They showed us how they make a certain kind of root flour (after eliminating the POISON), their vegetable garden, and how to make a sweet drink of sugar cane and lime juice, though we think this is mostly for the tourists. Through Ralph we asked the father of the family some questions. I asked him, "If you could teach us one life lesson, what would that be?" to which he replied, "You have to have shelter to survive." Very practical. In their house, we got to ask the mother some questions. She spends her days looking after the two kids and said she would prefer to live in the city. They only go into the city once a year and a boat comes to them about once a month that they can buy things from and sell things to. After saying goodbye we made our way to a grade school. There were three groups of kids, two of them were a mix of grades of older kids, and the third was a group of kindergartners. There's a boat that picks up each child and takes them to and from school every day. Once they reach high school age, they are still taught in the jungle, but via satellite from a school in Manaus.
Brazilian Superstitions:
A large anaconda doesn't hunt, it sits and waits for food to walk past and then it "hypnotizes" the food and the food willingly "goes to die". If you are lost and find yourself in the same spot 3 times, it is thought that something has hypnotized you and that you need to flip your shirt inside out to break the spell.
It was said that coffee and pineapple were poisonous together. This was a lie to keep the slaves from eating the fruit. Many natives in the jungle still wont eat them together.
Some people make amulets for babies to protect them from "dead eye". They wear them till they are two. It is thought that whens someone looks at the baby, they can die within 24 hours if they don't have an amulet. This can also happen to animals. Ralf's daughter always hides her pet from visitors so it wont be killed
They sometimes eat raw iguana eggs to prevent breaking your bones. This is because iguanas frequently fall but never appear to break anything. Ralf's grandfather used to make him and his brother eat them. He says they are gross.
Back from our excursion, Lady (the fully sized Woolly monkey) was waiting for us at our door. She hung around for a bit for some snuggling and pats before taking off. We decided to go to Juma's pool to stick our feet in. The pool has a metal net that keeps out anything we wouldn't want to be swimming with. On our way back we met the last monkey that makes Juma Lodge it's home. It was a small Howler Monkey that we named 'Old Man'. He loved being held and moved really slowly. The meeting time for our next excursion was coming up so we had to say goodbye, but it was hard. He really didn't want me to put him down and he slowly chased us. Poor guy.
For our final adventure in the Amazon, we once again boarded a small boat and were on our way to see some huge lily pads. These were two meters in diameter and so cool. Ralf told us how when they have flowers they change colors overnight after a bug takes pollen from one plant to another. They go from white to pink. On our way back we enjoyed a pod of pink dolphins. Oh yeah, by the way there are also dolphins in the Amazon.
