I woke up several times at night since it was so uncomfortable sleeping on a tree root. But anyway I didn’t wanted to sleep! I wanted to see some big cats going for my bait. But the night stayed calm except the rooster fall from his tree and unbelievable it didn’t crow in the morning – how unusual. I guess that was the only time when I wanted a rooster to crow. Short after waking up we packed and left back for the village. I learned a few things about healing plants of the amazon and I ask for seeing the Uña de Gato vine what helps to cure several ailments and also supposedly helps against cancer. I saw butterflies and tiny frogs and later being back in the community we saw wild wooley monkey. The same monkeys I had seen in the ‘Reserva de mono’ but in the wild. They came as close that the guide was feeding them with a couple bananas. For luch they prepared one of the village chicken since the villagers wanted to keep our lazy rooster to breed with their chicken. The food was delicious and after eating everybody came together and showed us their handicraft things to sell, how to make a fire without matches or lighter. They painted us with paint what will become dark blue over night. First it was transparent. Stories were told about one of the last uncontacted people the Tagaeri which try to resist the contact with civilisation. When they come in contact with people not of their own kind it is very common for them to kill them. So nobody can make contact to them. I was wondering how the Huaorani avoid crossing their territory by accident and they told me that funny but true fact: When they read the footprints Tagaeri ofter have six toes. That’s probably caused by inbreeding. So if they see a print with six toes they leave as fast as possible the area. Also Tagaeri avoid water. So their only way of crossing river is on fallen trees. They don’t use boats in contrast to the Huaorani. Later at dusk we were not allowed to leave far without guidance and flashlight since there supposedly so many venomous snakes and bugs in the jungle. At least we saw one snake what someone found close to the toilet. It was immediately killed because this community had lost a few children already to snakebite accidents.
The night was wonderful. It was close to full moon and the sound of the jungle is unique and you will never forget.
