Today we started by going into the jungle for a nature walk. After getting past our fears of spiders and anacondas, we followed Jesus and his brothers deep into the rainforest, where the trees and plants were so dense to that if we got too far behind on the trail we couldn’t see the rest of the group. This trail was forged by Jesus and his brothers and we couldn’t help but thinking about how scary it would be to get lost in there. The best part was learning more about creation and how God created trees that store water, you can use for communication, natural medicines and more. We also were surrounded by sounds of the birds, insects, and frogs of the rainforest. The only negative was being swarmed by mosquitos! We came back to the boat for lunch, then we went to Jesus’ family’s property. There are 15 kids in the family and all of them have a plot of land, creating their own village. This is how many of the villages worked along our trip, where the whole population might be 100 people and most are related. Juscelino (Jesus’ brother who was with us the whole trip) first took us to his wife’s store, where she makes natural soaps, exfoliants, and essential oils from the trees and flowers of the rainforest! It was really cool because she not only taught us about some of the oils and fruits, but let the boys and girls each make their own exfoliant to take home. Both smelled great! We then went over to Jesus’ house to learn about the Mandioch root and how it is used to make farinha and tapioca - both very commonly used ingredients in Portuguese cooking that we enjoyed a lot on this trip. We ended our time at their house with some tree climbing, which was insane and kind of dangerous, but so fun. Almost all of our kids tried it out and gained an appreciation for how the Brazilians retrieve the açaí berries for us to enjoy in our smoothies. It’s a lot of work! After dinner we ended the day by going out hunting for sloths. Jesus and Juscelino were once again our hero’s when they not only spotted the sloth, but jumped out of the boat, climbed SO high in a tree, and brought it back to us. You could pay thousands of dollars to go on an Amazon River adventure to see all of the wildlife we’re seeing, but I don’t think any company would have guides so willing to jump in and climb up to retrieve animals for us to look at up close. They are incredible.
JUNGLE WALK
“We began Friday morning with a walk in the Amazon rainforest. Along the way, we made many discoveries such as trees that were used for communication, trees used as a water source, resources for shelter, and more! It was fun getting to learn about the different parts of the jungle and how they work together.” - Giana
VISITING JESUS’ FAMILY
“We got to visit the sister of Jesus, who created a small business of making soaps and lotions and other similar things all out of natural ingredients. We got to even make our own samples out of a fruit called cupuaçu, mixed with salt, sugar, a moisturizing oil and our chosen scent. After that, we got to visit more of the family who demonstrated how they produce fahrina, a yellow sort of flour that Brazilians eat as a filler with their meals. It is created out of a something called mandioch, which goes through a process of skinning, grinding, juicing, and, and then cooking on a massive pan over a fire. They let us try some it freshly made, as well as some tasty tapioca and juices. While we were there we also got to try our hand at climbing trees the way they do to harvest açaí berries and look at and even purchase some hand made jewelry decorated with those berries.” - Melody
SLOTH HUNTING
“On Friday, we had the joy of getting in a boat in darkness and hunting for supposedly very cute animals called sloths. We started our journey out by separating on to two smaller boats and heading down into the vast darkness. One boat decided to be the “quiet boat” listening to the different and enchanting jungle sounds. The other was told to be quiet several times due to the amount of screaming “KILL THE SPIDER RIGHT THERE”(I was on that one). Before I tell you what we witnessed, you need to understand that these men are shining lights into large trees and attempting to find a very small grey dot, the sloth. Once the men spotted them, our boats slowly began going closer and closer to the trees surrounded by tall grass and (of course) spiders. We all started ooing and awing at the animal about three stories higher than us, until one of the men decided to take off his shirt and start scaling the tree. He immediately yelled at us in Portuguese to throw up some bug spray because the tree was infested with biting ants. When he gets half way, he proceeds to start vigorously shaking the tree until the sloth falls about two stories from where he was originally at. This fall was followed by the same screams that were directed at the spiders before. Then, the animal catches himself and the man grabs it by its back (because it’s claws are too sharp to just pick up normally). The man then climbs between the boats and shows us the slow moving creature and puts it back into the tree. It was a crazy experience.” - Juliette
JUNGLE WALK
“We began Friday morning with a walk in the Amazon rainforest. Along the way, we made many discoveries such as trees that were used for communication, trees used as a water source, resources for shelter, and more! It was fun getting to learn about the different parts of the jungle and how they work together.” - Giana
VISITING JESUS’ FAMILY
“We got to visit the sister of Jesus, who created a small business of making soaps and lotions and other similar things all out of natural ingredients. We got to even make our own samples out of a fruit called cupuaçu, mixed with salt, sugar, a moisturizing oil and our chosen scent. After that, we got to visit more of the family who demonstrated how they produce fahrina, a yellow sort of flour that Brazilians eat as a filler with their meals. It is created out of a something called mandioch, which goes through a process of skinning, grinding, juicing, and, and then cooking on a massive pan over a fire. They let us try some it freshly made, as well as some tasty tapioca and juices. While we were there we also got to try our hand at climbing trees the way they do to harvest açaí berries and look at and even purchase some hand made jewelry decorated with those berries.” - Melody
SLOTH HUNTING
“On Friday, we had the joy of getting in a boat in darkness and hunting for supposedly very cute animals called sloths. We started our journey out by separating on to two smaller boats and heading down into the vast darkness. One boat decided to be the “quiet boat” listening to the different and enchanting jungle sounds. The other was told to be quiet several times due to the amount of screaming “KILL THE SPIDER RIGHT THERE”(I was on that one). Before I tell you what we witnessed, you need to understand that these men are shining lights into large trees and attempting to find a very small grey dot, the sloth. Once the men spotted them, our boats slowly began going closer and closer to the trees surrounded by tall grass and (of course) spiders. We all started ooing and awing at the animal about three stories higher than us, until one of the men decided to take off his shirt and start scaling the tree. He immediately yelled at us in Portuguese to throw up some bug spray because the tree was infested with biting ants. When he gets half way, he proceeds to start vigorously shaking the tree until the sloth falls about two stories from where he was originally at. This fall was followed by the same screams that were directed at the spiders before. Then, the animal catches himself and the man grabs it by its back (because it’s claws are too sharp to just pick up normally). The man then climbs between the boats and shows us the slow moving creature and puts it back into the tree. It was a crazy experience.” - Juliette