Things I saw in the Amazon:
-caimans
-three species of monkeys
-cocroaches and giant millipedes
-blue morpho and other butterflies
-lots of birds, including toucans, a hawk, brilliantly colored songbirds, and of course, turkey vultures
-leaf cutter ants
-Army ants and bullet ants (so called because their bite feels like a bullet)
-a variety of tree frogs
-bromeliads and bird of paradise plants
-a tree that, instead of growing from the ground up, starts in the upper canopy in the branches of some other tree, and eventually envelopes and kills the other tree
Things I ate in the Amazon:
-Lemon ants
-pirhana
-an alcoholic beverage made from yuca that tasted like raw bread dough
Kichwa words I learned in the Amazon (estimated spelling):
-Pagarachu- Thank you
-Alituti- Good night
-Alichichi- Good afternoon
-Alijunta- Good morning
-Achachay- Brrr
-Pacha- Earth
-Conguil- popcorn
Words that don´t exist:
-In Kichwa, there are words for the way an animal moves, the way a bird flies, and many more detailed color words. But there is no word for "table". Why? Because up until the Catholic missionaries forged their way into the rainforest in the 1950s, tables didn´t exist in the Amazon. Instead, they used banana leaves.
-There is no spanish word for "Awkward".
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You ate ANTS!!! Wow...I think you now take the cake for eating the wierdest thing I have ever heard of. How was the pirhana?
ReplyDeleteI love you so much!
There's no word for awkward? That's.... awkward.
ReplyDeleteThink of how much we use that word here. Awkward turtle. "I fell down the stairs in front of everyone. I'm so awkward!" "That was the most awkward conversation ever."
Love reading your blog! I hope you are viewing everything through the lense of a camera, because I want to see pictures!!
You couldn't force feed me ants or pirhana.
ReplyDeleteHi Em! I just read all of your blogs! It is so fun to get a taste of what you are experiencing there. I am envious of your adventures in the Amazon! Sounds amazing (except for the millipedes...they creep me out. I will check in periodically, now that I have caught up...
ReplyDeleteLove you,
Aunt Joanie
Like I've always said, it's better to eat a pirhana than the other way around. I prefer the chocolate ants to the lemon ones, but I think we'd all appreciate it if you would post the recipe for lemon ants.
ReplyDeleteOh man, I have a lot to look forward to in the Amazon...! I hope I come out of it with as positive an attitude as yours. I dunno how much I'm gonna like the humidity. But seeing those birds will be magnifico!
ReplyDeleteI love that you included Quechua/Kichwa words, because I'm in the middle of my Quechua course now. We've learned a lot, yet strangely never learned how to say those things you listed, so thanks--er, pagarachu. ;) And I´m guessing your spelling is correct, because it's a pretty phonetic language. As far as nonexistant words, one thing I've learned is that whenever Quechua lacks a word, it adopts the Spanish one and just tacks on its own endings. So this morning when I went to a mass in Quechua, they kept talking about 'Jesusllay' and 'angelpa' and stuff like that. Neat!!