After breakfast we took the canoe to the river trail and walked the boardwalk to the Napo River. From there we took a small motorized canoe to Isla Sani, which is the main residence of the local Sani people. There are about 600 people who live on the island. The lodge we are staying at is run by the community and staffed by the community, and the proceeds go to the community.
We stopped at some places to look at a few birds, and then went to the main community area centered on the island shore. This has a school, a soccer field, a few other buildings, and a craft area/store run by the women of the community. The served Dad and I quite a spread of food. We were told by Trompito, our local guide, that we might get to try some maiato (my-toh), but they went overboard.
First they spread a piece of banana leaf of the floor. Then brought us each a large maiato. Maiato is the name of a kind of large leaf there on the island. They put fish in the leaves, stuff the fish with some ingredients and a bit of salt, and then wrap it all up in the leaves and roast it on the fire. In our case, it was a delicious serving of catfish with heart of palm.
So Dad and I are sitting there on the floor and they hand us these folded leaves the size of large ears of corn right off of the fire. Very hot. As we're trying to figure out what to do with them, they bring us roasted bananas and plantains with a salsa to dip them in made of fruits and spices. Then they brought us two bows of juice, one made of crushed palm fruits and sugar, the other made of yucca. THEN they brought us two skewers of local delicacies. We'd had them before, but they were poorly explained to us. Now we had them again with a proper translator. The white ones are the insides of a white cacao fruit. It's not used to make any kind of chocolate, but when the seed is roasted it's very tasty indeed.
The other was roasted caterpillars on a stick.
Our previous guide Andrew didn't understand what Jorge was telling him before when he said "palm larva", so he told us they must just be the young shoots of palm fruit. And we each ate one. This time our guide Pablo s very clear, even used the word "caterpillar", and they'd brought us six. Also, the heads we're much bigger on these.
And that's when Dad ate his second caterpillar on the trip. He wouldn't eat any cooked carrots, but he ate two caterpillars. Please feel free to remind him the next time you see him. Oh, and when my niece found out, she asked my mom if "Grandad would turn into a butterfly now." Ha!
Everything else was really delicious though. And the caterpillars weren't bad. I had two. We pawned the rest off on the maiato was really very good. We sat there on the floor and ate with our fingers. It was a great experience.
After that, it was back to the lodge for lunch (we were stuffed). Then siesta until 3, then back in the canoe for one last paddle around the lake. We only saw one new bird, the cocoi heron, but it took off as soon as we w it and we couldn't get a photo of it. We did get some good ones of a striated neon, an adolescent tiger heron, and an osprey. Although for the last one, I'd been shooting at the shore where it was darker, and the light was going, so even though they were great moments that I caught, my ISO was too hi, and everything turned out very noisy/grainy. Such is photography in the Amazon. Very frustrating.
Finally, we had our last dinner at Sani, had a few beers at the bar, and went back to the cabin to pack and sort everything out.
Again beautiful shots, we'll need a slide show when you return. The anthropology deserves more conversation also upon your return to this tiny spot in the middle of the Pacific. Drum Bun!
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