San Francisco Village, The Amazon & Yarapa Canio
The smell of cacao from last night made me think about home and childhood. I used to spend many weekends on my family’s farm where the main production was Theobroma cacao. I took it for granted then. Today I enjoy every possible encounter with the tiny pink cauliflowers, the reddish leaves, and the odd looking fruits growing directly on the trunk of this Amazon plant.
We not only saw it, but also tasted it, together with some of its cousins, the sapote and the macambo, all in the Malvaceae family.
Cacao’s big brother is the Macambo (Theobrama bicolor). Just as the cacao, it grows both in the wild and in plantations in the western part of the Amazon basin all the way from Peru to Colombia. Its fruits can be recognized by its corrugated veins, which protrude from its skin, contrasting with the cacao berries, which have a relatively smooth skin. The main reason why people harvest these fruits is for its flat and round seeds, which are eaten toasted.
Juan Luis made us try them all, speaking about their benefits and particularities.
The Sapote (Matisia cordata) tastes a bit like mango, of a bright orange pulp, an indicator of its richness in vitamin A.
We also learned about medicinal plants from Reni, and were taught to prepare our own pisco sours to celebrate the official arrival to the Amazon River.
On land and on skiffs and kayaks we discovered unique birds, mammals, and learned about the people who inhabit this part of the world.
Right after sunrise, skiff rides allowed us to enjoy tanagers, puff birds, hawks, and woodpeckers, while fog rose up from the Maranion River. After breakfast we walked through a secondary forest, saw many of the palms and crops people use for their daily lives, and ended up in San Francisco school, for the delight of their kids, who were happy to sing for us, and hear our songs. In the afternoon kayakers and skiff riders went to Yarapa, and encountered more species to check off the list, the favorite one being the night monkey (Aotus sp.), the only monkey with huge eyes and nocturnal activities.
Called Musmuqui in Peru (Tutamono in Ecuador), they are monogamous creatures, and it is the father who often carries the young, a behavior I find amusing.
But I still keep the cacao of my dreams of sweets and family fresh in my heart. It was a day as good as chocolate!
