River Travel: Day 2

We got up around 5:30 Sunday morning. Our first successful camping night! We packed up quickly, ate some breafast and were off again. It was another terribly hot day with not a cloud in the sky. People were getting cranky at this point with little sleep, rationed water, and hot hot sun. One of the people in my tent was not feeling well that night with a fever. The wife of one of our native rowers rode our boat. She cooked and washed dishes for the entire group. She was clearly a mother because she let the girl sleep and held an umbrella over her the entire boat ride for shade. Camping in the Amazon is much different than camping in the states. You are constantly dirty; there is sand, mud, clay, grit, dirt...always. It is quite the experience. The final destination was for that day was Canton, I believe. It was a very remote and small tribe that had tons and tons of kids. They hardly ever see "gringos" so we were like caged animals at a zoo. No matter what you did, you were being watched. Sleeping, eating, going the bathroom...no privacy. I literally sat in my tent for half an hour, doing next to nothing, and I had three young kids who watched through the screen the entire time.

One of the locals built an "outhouse" for us. It was a hole in the ground with 2 planks of wood to squat over. Lovely! We were even more gross that night since showering was not an option. I made do with wet wipes. I brought a rope, and we tried to teach some kids how to jump rope. It was semi-successful. With little to do, we went to bed early and woke up early the next morning, still with kids watching us through the screen.