Our boat comes upon a sandy clearing at the base of the cliff, our guide shouts out greetings to the people taking their morning baths in the water. Shampooing their hair, wrapping themselves in brightly colored towels. We walk with them up the path and into the village, where we are informed by the shaman of the tribe that if we wish, he and some of the others can don tribal costumes and put on a performance of traditional songs and dances.

Both of us have travelled in the past, and both of us have been duped and extorted on the tourist trail before. We are immediately suspicious of the Indians´motives. Will they ask for an obscene amount of money when they finish, spoiling the experience of their performance with an unpleasant haggling situation?

The guide assures us that whatever we want to give will be acceptable. Luckily, we come bearing gifts: packages of candy, pencils for the children, cigarettes for the shaman, and MIMA rubber bracelets for all.               

We wait for the troupe of performers in a traditional lodge built of straw and bamboo. They arrive after some while, and their transformation is astonishing: the same people we have jsut seen shampooing their hair, wearing t-shirts and dresses, all appear before us in traditional costume and body paint. The women wear grass skirts and nothing else. Their faces and bellies are painted with some tribal design. The men wear loin cloths, but for shame wear speedos underneath. They are, however, able to partly obscure their speedos by sticking big feathers in them, creating some kind of camouflauge. An orange speedo, nonetheless, is an orange speedo. The shaman and the rest of the men wear  headresses. A young pregant woman in her third trimester is part of the troupe. As is a little two year old girl. She wears a purple straw skirt of her own. Her mother holds her on her hip for the duration of the performance.

The Shaman explains each of the three dances before they are performed. They are for welcomes, weddings, and goodbyes. The music is played on pan pipes and is repititious. The scale they use is some kind of melodic scale dictated by the lengths of the ten reeds in the pan pipes the men play.

The dancing isn´t any more complex. Men and women stepping in unison; in circles or in lines moving back and forth. Music and dance that hasn´t evolved or changed much from it´s pre-historic beginnings.

The troupe is thrilled to receive the gifts we bring. A young man distributes the pencils to the children who stand in front of him with outstretched hands, the candy is evenly divided among all, as are the MIMA bracelets. Christoph tells them it is my birthday (it is - my twenty fourth) and they heap beautiful necklaces and bracelets upon me. The kind they sell to tourists for income. A woman comes forward and sings me a song in their native language - wishing me health and good fortune.

As we walk back down the to boat, we are somewhat overcome with feeling. The experience of sharing with these people has warmed my heart to its very core. Can´t speak for Christoph, but we venture out onto the river again feeling very positive about the whole experience.

Now, the jungle itself? It is a strange, scary, magical place. The guide takes us on a four hour hike through it. It´s a veritable pharmacy in there. He scrapes vicks vapor rub off of trees, rubber, the stuff bubble gum is made of, the stuff aspirin is made of - and when I ask about Ayahúasca, the most powerful hallucinogen on earth, he takes us ten minutes off the trail and walks us straight up to the stuff. Did we want to try, he asks? No, we reply. We aren´t quite up tonight for a revelation of the universe.

Anyhow…