This was our day exploring local villages, to see something of how the indigenous people go about their daily life, an hour's boat ride downriver. En route we saw some river dolphins, unphotographably fast but wonderful to see, plus many more animals whose names we were told and instantly forgot, like this, er, bird... (pic)
...and this, er, monkey (pic).
Ah, but I know this one! It's a toucan (pic). They should sell Guinness in the lodge bar - they'd make a fortune from the Pavlovian reaction.
We arrived at the community of San Antonio (pic), a collection of huts by the river. A simple village of perhaps 80-odd people, but with all the necessities for a good life, such as a football pitch.
Oh, and its own food supply, of course. Not only fish from the river, but also coffee beans (pic)...
...cocoa beans, to make chocolate... (pic). 
...and yucca (also called manioc). This is a big root vegetable, a bit like potato. The women of the village are very handy with machetes to replant them, dig them up and chop them (pic). The men here go hunting and are very strong and tough, but they don't argue with the women of the village.
When the yucca has been chopped, dried (by wringing it out in an ingenious twisty wicker bag) and sieved into a powder, it's then toasted on a hot plate (pic) into a sort of pancake they call cassava. They only put in the powder – no need to add water or eggs or anything.
We had it with tuna and some village sauce that was very spicy. It was delicious, but sadly they don't have the tradition of flipping them here, so there was no chance for a pancake race.
There was, however, the chance of a football match on the local pitch. Ecuador (consisting mainly of the guides, a villager or two, and some Dutch tourists signed on loan) beat the Rest of the World (consisting of tourists, including me) 6-2. I was unlucky to miss out on a hat-trick, falling just three goals short.
Finally we visited a shaman, Tomas (pic). He's the local wise man for the villages, an expert in prescribing natural medicines when people are ill. (He sends them to a western hospital if it's something better treated there, but that's four hours away by boat and road, and usually he can make them better with things he makes from local plants.) He drinks a special potion that puts him in into a trance so he an ask his ancestors for advice. We didn't get to try the potion of course. We had to make do with Pilsener lager from the lodge bar later on. Not even Guinness.
It takes 25 years to learn how to be a shaman, including a year spent living alone in the jungle, learning how to survive. Tomas gave us a demonstration of a healing ceremony, and I was the volunteer subject. I know I look haggard and exhausted, but the football was even more tiring than when I play with Joe and Brendan. I looked even worse before the healing ceremony.
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