Saturday July 10

The composition of the group shifted slightly with the Brits and Argentinians departing and a Canadian couple and a young  female from L.A. traveling alone arriving. This day my languages were English and French.

We explored the rain forest via a hike ( easy) and then went Piranha fishing. On the hike we learned how to make roofs of the houses found here: one takes a very young, yet unopened palm frond, opens it up by bending each frond strip and putting it tightly in place. The roofs are then made by placing frond stem below stem on the roof, about 6 cm apart. This way there is significant overlap of the leaves. A small house will use up to 800 such fronds and the roof may last between 6 to 10 years. It also helps keeping mosquitoes away.

Rosewood trees were harvested in the past for the perfume industry, there are Rosewood plantations now.

The Brazil nut industry uses the nuts from wild trees collected by locals. They get very little money for their findings whereas the middlemen get plenty. For international use there are now Brazilnut Tree plantations; however, it takes about15 years for the trees to grow. So, this is an investment in time. 

The fishing expedition was rather successful, 6 White Piranhas were caught. I was not a lucky fisherwoman but enjoyed the scenery tremendously. The fish were then eaten for dinner.