One of my favourite places so far on this trip was our time in the Amazon. We spent 6 days in a jungle hut and we had great adventures everyday. The pictures of the animals we saw are on my parents' blog tab.

I am writing about a special part of our Amazon adventure on my blog because it is exactly what we are covering in my Social Studies unit at school and I want my friends at school to read it.

We spent one full day visiting some of the little villages along the river. These people have very different lives than what we do! In the first village we went to, we learned about their culture and traditions and the food that they eat everyday. These people are hunters and gatherers and farmers, they are not nomadic.

They do not grow wheat and so they do not eat bread like we have at home but they do make something that tastes a lot like bread from a yucca plant. We went out to the garden and pulled up a yucca tree and then found the yucca vegetable under the soil like our potatoes. It is important to peel the skin off the yucca carefully because under the outside skin is another protective skin layer with cyanide in it, this keeps the insects from eating the yucca.

We grated the vegetable using a sheet of metal with holes poked through it and then the village girl showed us how she squeezes all the juice out of the vegetable so the pulp that is left is dry. We then sifted it over a screen and it became just like flour. Then she cooked the flour on a fire and it turned into a big thing that looked like a pizza crust.

When it was all cooked we could put tuna fish or jam on it to have as our lunch.

A traditional hunting method we learned about was how the Amazon villagers shot blow darts out of a blow pipe. The darts had poison on the ends that the villagers would get from a small frog called the Poison Dart Frog. They captured the frogs and would keep them near a fire and the frogs would start to sweat out the poison on their backs and the villagers would carefully collect this poison to dip the darts in. The frogs are really small but 1 frog can make enough poison to easily kill 5 Cayman (alligators) and even people. We did not see one of these frogs though.

We got to practice using a blow dart gun. It was pretty heavy and hard to hold up to aim properly but the darts would shoot out a long way. We used coconuts and bananas for our targets.

We left the first village and took the river boat to another village community. Here we were able to meet a real live Shaman who is like the doctor or spiritual leader of the community. He could not speak English so our guide translated what he said.

There is a Shaman in every village community and it takes them 15 years to study to become a Shaman. They mostly learn about all the medicinal plants in the jungle and then they become experts in hallucinogens. It was strange to us that it would be so respected in a community to have a leader that regularly boiled tree saps to see visions but this is a very important and respected role here. (This was not seen as an addiction or substance abuse.) Children are introduced to hallucinogens when they are 10 years old.

The Shaman could identify sicknesses in the people of his village through his visions and then he would identify the plants in the jungle that would help them get better.

The Shaman we met had 8 children and he had 25 students that he was teaching about the Shaman ways. Only one of his students will become a Shaman one day but all the others will learn about the history and value of this role.

The Shaman do not use any books and they do not have anything written down. He teaches his students through story telling.

Lake Titicaca: A High Altitude Lake Adventure

Hi Class!
There were two special things we did around Lake Titicaca that I want to tell you about. First we did a great hike around Isle del Sol which was on the Bolivia side. There were cool pre-Inca ruins to explore and beautiful views. We were really out of breath because it was lots of climbing and there was not much oxygen in the air.







The second cool thing we did around Lake Titicaca was a reed island home stay on the Peru side.

We stayed with a family on a floating island made of reeds. This is a picture of them.



Families have been living in these man made reed islands for hundreds and hundreds of years on Lake Titicaca. There were about 85 islands all pretty close together and each island had a few families living on it. Once a family has children that turn around 8 years old, they cut off part of the floating island and then start their own little island by building it out of reeds. These families make everything out of the reeds. Because they rely on the reeds so much, they respect the reeds. When they cut the reeds down they do not cut them from the very bottom of the plant so that they grow back.

The houses were made of reeds, they made their boats out of reeds (it takes 3 men 1 and a half months to build a reed boat and these boats last 1 and a half years), they make crafts out of reeds, our beds were made of reeds, they use the reeds for food and for fuel.

Each week the families would add brand new reeds across the island. It felt like walking on a soft squishy bed everywhere we went.

Lots of people do not brush their teeth on these islands because they can chew on the peeled reeds and it is a natural way to clean their teeth.




During the rainy season, the lake raises 1 meter and that is when you can really feel the islands floating around.

There were so many little children on these islands and my family was worried about these children falling in the water and drowning. We asked the parents about this and they told us that all the kids on these islands learn to swim when they are 4 years old.

All the children in these islands used to go to school in Puno, which is the closest city to the islands on the shore. The kids used to paddle to the school all by themselves. A little while ago, these island communities started their own island schools and they now have a preschool, 2 kindergardens, and 1 school. We saw parents taking turns picking up kids in their boats and taking them to school in the morning.



At night the island was pretty cold. The family we stayed with would bring us all hot water bottles to snuggle up with in bed. They did not have any heaters in their homes but they did use solar panels for some power.

One of my favourite things to do is fish. We went out with the family to check their fishing nets. I helped the husband. In 10 minutes we caught about 40 small fish called Kingfish. 

When we stay with families we need to eat what they give us to eat. The family served us Trout one night. I had never eaten Trout before but I really liked it.

Isn't it amazing how these people live? I can't imagine living like this but was really fun to have the chance to try it out for a while.

If you have any questions, you can sent them to me through my Mom's email address at lanaburnstad@gmail.com

See you in January! I heard that you guys just got lots of snow!

Levi

Back in Argentina

We just left Paraguay and are spending a week in Northern Argentina before going into Bolivia. 

We had an awesome day today. We rented a car so that we could get to Quilmes. Quilmes is this indiginous Andean fortress that is Argentina´s most extensive preserved ruin. It dates from 1000 AD and there were 5000 people who lived there. We spent a full day hiking up in the scorching hot heat. I did not even have a drop of water. We saw a bunch of old houses built on the side of the mountain that were made of a bunch of piled up rocks. It was amazing that people could live like that because there was no river there and the nearest one we could find was about 20 kilometers away. There must have been some water source for them there 1000 years ago but we could not find it. Look at these awesome pictures.

 

  

The other crazy thing that we saw this week was a museum called Museo de Argueologia de Alta Montana. This museum was all about 3 mummies that were found by archeologists a couple of years ago. These were children that were sacrificed for the gods by their families and community. I think it was supposed to be special to be chosen to be sacrificed. One was 15,one was10 and one was 6. They were dressed in ceremonial clothes and their hair was done fancy. They were given corn alcohol to fall asleep and then they were buried alive at the top of this volcano. The climate of the volcano kept their bodies and their clothes perfectly preserved. We could see their hair and their skin and even their eyelashes. I wish I could show you pictures that we took, but we were not allowed to take any. We found these ones to show you on the internet though.

By the way, did you know that there is no ´W´ in the Spanish language?

Send me some questions if you have any. I miss everyone back home.

Levi

Animals

Hey Guys!

My friend Kale asked me what my favourite animals in Argentina have been. We actually just left a place called Esteros del Ibera, a really important wetland nature reserve in Argentina.

It was a little crazy trying to get to this reserve. First we took an overnight bus for 12 hours and then we got to this little town called Mercedes where we needed to catch a different bus but it was on a Sunday so everything was completely closed. We met a nice couple from France who also wanted to go to the nature reserve. We were standing on the street trying to figure out what to do when a nice local man from Mercedes walked by and we stopped him to try to get directions. Pretty soon this man introduced us to his whole family (the D'Angelo family) and they called some of their friends and then before we knew it a man came and picked us up in a 4-wheel drive pick up truck and drove us all the way to the reserve. I was in the back of the truck with my Dad and my sister and the French couple. It was a very bumpy 3 hour ride but it was fun. When we had to stop to go to the washroom the driver warned us that there can be snakes in the ditch on one side of the road and there can be alligators in the water on the other side of the road. I never heard that before in Canada. We went to the washroom quickly.

We finally got to the wildlife reserve and we stayed there a couple of days. My family went on an awesome boat ride with the French couple. On the floating marshland islands we saw hundreds of capybaras, they look just like giant guinea pigs. They are as big as you. Even their poop looked like giant guinea pig poop. These are the largest rodents in the world. We saw about 40 alligators on our boat ride too. We would drive the little boat along the floating wetland islands and we were only about 1 meter away from the animals. When our boat pulled up beside the first alligator I thought our boat driver was going to kill it but fortunately he didn't. Then we started to see all kinds of alligators, they were everywhere! Sometimes the alligators went into the water when our boat got close. This was really creepy because we didn't know where they were in the water. Sometimes we could see just their eyes floating above the water.

There were hundreds and hundreds of birds. Over 350 species in the park. We saw an alligator trying to eat a crane but the crane got away.

At the little hotel we stayed at we saw a dead snake and a bunch of huge frogs the size of small pumpkins just outside our door.

We also went on a tiring night walk there with a guide from the Park who had a flashlight and we saw all kinds of other animals in the forest. We saw bats, coates (tiny raccoon-like creatures), armadillos, lizards, swamp deer, and a small cat from the jaguar family. We really wanted to see the howler monkeys. They are officially the loudest animals on earth. We heard them but we didn't see any.

Our guide told us about the emus there. They look just like ostriches. Apparently they mate for life. So if one of the birds in the couple dies, the other bird will just stop eating and then it dies too.

So I have seen lots of interesting animals here in South America Kale but I think my favourite one is the capybara.

See you later alligator!

Please send me any questions.

Levi

DANIEL SCOTT: LA GRAN HAZANA ( The Great Feat )

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

He wasn't just a shop keeper, he was also a famous swimmer. He swam from Uruguay to Argentina two times. He swam 104 km in total. The first time it was 1983 and the second time it was 2008. 

He even has his own plaque at the ferry terminal.

His swim was two times further than the channel between England and France. I was so surprised the night when I met him in his tiny shop that has been in his family for four generations. 

Here is a video of Mr. Scott. >> video

That's it for now from Levi's blog. And next it's Tuby and Binno on tree house.

;)

Surf and Saddle

Our tiny hostel on the beach.

Hey guys we just got to a hotel on the beach that has no electricity. 
The shower was heated by a little metal bowl under the water. You have to light a fire under the bowl so the metal gets burning hot. Then the water runs through it, gets hot, then falls on you.

My Dad and I went on a long walk down the beach and found four dead seals and three dead penguins. Then we walked towards the lighthouse and saw a lot if sea lions on a huge rock. The sea lions ride giant waves up to the rocks where they lay in the sun.

We also walked to some giant sand dunes in a little desert. We climbed a giant hill and rode down on sand boards. They look just like snowboards.

Dulce de Leche

Filing a hoof with Santi.

After the beach we went to a horse ranch where we stayed for two days. We learned how to ride horses. My horse's name was Dulce de la Leche. She was the oldest and best trained horse on the farm. I really enjoyed the horses more than I expected.

Around the farm we saw giant hawks, lots of smaller birds and a really nice wild skunk.       

Today we are on a bus for 8 hours. We are going to Colonia Del Sacramento. We stay here two nights before taking a ferry to Beunos Aries in Argentina. 

Our windswept Inukshuk.

Hey Class, I made it to Uruguay!

Colby, Quinn and Levi hiking the coast of Uruguay.

We got out of Montivideo. Now we are going to Punta del Diablo. We have been on a bus for four hours 1 more to go. We have seen lots of cows, they really creap me out. Oooohhh oooooohhhh my gosh this is amazing you will not believe this, I just saw another cow. 

Did you know that more people drink tea (called Mate) here more than coffee. We have only seen 2 people that speak English they all speak Spanish but I have not heard any songs that where Spanish they were all English. 

At our hostel there is a pair of owls. Most owls are nocturanal but not these ones. They sit on a railing in the sun. When it is not sunny they stay in their den in a hole in the ground. When you get really close they don´t attack or fly away. They just stay on their perch and stare back at you.

After a long hike yesterday a guy came over and said he saw whales. We had a look and saw some whales playing in the waves. 

Please write me comments or questions.

See you later. Oops. You can´t see me so I will write you later.