Today was awesome! We started the day with an early morning canoe down the river before breakfast. We saw a few more monkeys and lots of birds again. After breakfast we got in the motorized canoe and went to visit the shaman of the Siona community who live down the river. Unfortunately the shaman wasn’t around today so we weren’t able to learn about the tradition medicine and healing that they do. BUT the shamans mother made up for it by advising our guide that she had seen an anaconda on their property earlier in the day. Sure enough, we followed her directions and there was a massive anaconda just hanging out inside a huge hollow log. We had to use a flashlight to see it, but I was fine with viewing it from a bit of a distance! We spent quite a bit of time taking turns with the flashlight and viewing it from both ends of the log.

After we finished viewing the anaconda we got back in the boat to go to the Siona community to learn how to make a traditional bread out of yucca root. We did everything from pulling the root out of the ground, peeling it, cleaning it, grating it,and squeezing the water out to make it like the texture of flour. Then the woman used a hot clay plate over a fire to cook the bread in a way that looks like a giant tortilla. They don’t add a single ingredient to the bread and it tastes delicious! It was a fun experience, but the community we were in of only 8 families on that plot of late was dead quiet because we found out they were celebrating Christmas with some other families down the river!

On our boat ride there and back we also saw more wildlife. We saw some turtles, another species of monkey called the pocket monkey that is apparently the smallest in the world. We saw quite a few more birds as well. The visit to the community took most of the day, so after we had a short siesta before heading out to do a night walk. We went to the laguna to watch the sunset, and then put our headlamps on to go for a walk in the dark to look for insects, frogs and spiders. We found lots, much to my disappointment because I don’t like bugs and creepy crawly things! We saw a tarantula, lots of amazon tree frogs, and a huge warf (wolf?) spider that was the size of the my hand and apparently quite dangerous because they have a very painful bite.

After the walk we went back to the lodge and were lucky enough to see another caiman up close. We didn’t last long after dinner again and are ready for bed safely under the bug net!