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My time in the amazon was easily the most extraordinary time of my life. nothing that i have ever done can compare to that time in adventure, uniqueness, and pure incredibleness . . . i imagine that this is what travel was like 100 years ago. there were many times that i felt like a national geographic explorer truly discovering the ways of the ecuadorian amazon.

La Amazonía: The Village of Wachimak

Andy Wunder
2007-04-19 22:35:13

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by a group of the villagers. they were standing outside of my hut dangling a dead armadillo by the tail. i was told that it was caught last night in one of those jungle traps where the animal steps into a rope and is violently thrown into the air. the animal dangles until someone comes to get it. they showed me the armadillo and we headed into the jungle for a hike. little did i know, i was in for a shock. when we arrived back for lunch there was an armadillo leg sticking out of my banana soup. yummy. an armadillo has very thick and tough skin and, unfortunately for me, the villagers eat every part of an animal. you see, while i was in the amazon, i watched them drag my food
out of the jungle. a jungle where, only minutes before, my "food" had been hunting food for its offspring. i gained this amazing connection with my food, a connection that i think we, as a capitalist, non subsistence, urban society have lost. i saw my food not as a piece of meat but as an armadillo that gave up its life for my nourishment. as a result, i could not put anything to waste. so, after i finished the meat i took a look at the remaining skin and requested a bigger knife. i dug in and sat there for an hour after everybody had left. i chewed away at the half inch thick pieces of armadillo skin until i wanted to throw it all back up.

that same night came another unusual meal. we had some left over armadillo meat with some yuca and rice. for desert they brought out a bowl of 20 little things that looked like large boiled seeds or huge larva. i wasn't quite sure. i kept asking my family what they had given me and the best i could do with my shoty spanish was palm tree seeds. finally i realized after seeing a head that they were indeed boiled larva about the size of an adult thumb. determined to try everything (and not to insult my family) i grabbed a small one and took a bite. the little guy actually tasted savory ... however, the texture and thought of eating over sized ...