A full day

Jim King

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This is a bit off theme but I thought it might be interesting to you Northerners and dont know where else to post it.

Yesterday we carried out 900 cants from 3 to 4.5 miles in. This is logging Amazonian style. Each cant has a number on it so we can get permission to transport them to town. For anyone who would like to loose a few pounds this will do it and if you get malaria that is good for another 10 pound loss.
 

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Mules

Frank: We in the majority of Amazonas are still in the hunter -gatherer time period of development. People here have not yet come to the point where they can manage animals. The Govt and many other groups have given breeding stock of pigs, goats, chickens etc. to the comunities and they eat the breeding stock. This is one of the few places left in the world where the people still do not know how or why till the soil.

These are photos of a typical dwelling in the jungle. The slash and burn part with the stumps and trees laying everywhere is called farming here. Every once in a while they will poke a hole in the ground between the fallen trees and drop a seed in it and hope for the best.
 

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Very interesting Jim. What mind of wood is stacked up there and is there any particular reason it is stacked standing up? I have read there is a lot of illegal logging going on there, do you ever run into people doing this?
 
Cant etc.

Jim : Yes a cant is to us a squared or rectangular block of wood cut out of a log to a managable size for carrying a few miles to a road or river.

Steve : We get the wood to our shop and cut it into 3/4 , 1" or 1 1/4 inch boards for drying and processing. We made a wooden saw of scrap Bloodwood wood and Purpleheart with what we think is a 30 HP motor and it has cut tens and tens of thousands of bf with no problem. Photo attached.

Alex: As for the illegal logging the estimates range as high as 100% in some areas. This is not that the people are doing anything bad but that the WWF and other tear jerker groups have convinced the world that the end is near and the US government pays the way in these countries to get laws passed that are impossible to comply with. If there were laws in North America as stupid as the laws passed here there would be a revoloution up there and you would not be able to prune your apple tree legally. It is easy to blame some loggers in the Amazon for the supposed problems of the world.

Everyone should remember one thing and keep it in perspective. The Amazon covers many countries and is in total a bit larger than the US. The total annual timber production of the Amazon is 2.4 times the annual average of Oregon. Enough said ?¿
 

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That is amazing Jim, need any help? and is the pay any good?

Language wouldnt be a problem and I need work, lol
 
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Pay

Julio: The pay is great for here but dont think you would like the pay or the food. This photo is a typical meal for the crew. Boiled fish and yucca. The only thing they like from town is canned sardines and rice.

The after dinner drink is Masato, this is smashed yucca that all the ladies in the village chew and spit it into a hollow log or canoe. In a few days you have a very powerful alcholic drink. The enzymes in thier mouth chewed into the starchy yuca makes it ferment.

http://rollyvaldivia.blogspot.com/2006/07/brindar-con-masato.html

Eso sí, trate de pensar que la bebida se preparó como se ve en la imagen y no en la manera antigua y tradicional que consistía en masticar la yuca y luego escupirla, para que esta se fermente. ¿Delicioso, verdad?

As you can see the web site above explains the process.
 
An auto translation by Google:

It is not a hint, the expression of a guarded desire to either continue with the festejos by the first anniversary of Exploring Peru. In fact it is pure coincidence, one of those chances of the life that never lack to the one that makes me publish this post, with the photography of a woman asháninka of the community of Coriteni Tarzo (province of Satipo, Junín), in the heat of task of preparation of the traditional masato, the infaltable drink in the amazonian verdor. To pure punche and with concerted effort, ollón with several kilos of yucca and sancochado sweet potato is ground, crushed, turned doughy mass with “a disguised” oar of bucket. The procedure is than exhausting more and the lady makes it in silence, totally concentrated and without watching at peculiar that they teem by his very small community, lost one in the exuberente foliage that upholsters the borders of the river Inn. In the masatea forest by day and at night, when there is celebration or it is warm, when a visitor arrives or the teachers of the school go away. He takes himself always suavecito or fermented. If sometimes they invite it, he accepts without chistar, drinks although he is just a little bit, because in many communities its rejection is interpreted like a terrible rudeness. That yes, tries to think that the drink was prepared as it is seen in the image and not in the old and traditional way that consisted of chewing the yucca and soon to escupir it, so that this is fermented. Delicious, truth? If you ask to him the settlers how the masato becomes, it is very probable that they respond to him with an enigmatic smile, sometimes accomplice. Beyond the fears and the secrets of selváticos preparation of “barmans”, the yucca drink is let take and, after a few sorbos, it could seem to him excellent… in short, things of the drink, insondables mysteries of the art to raise the elbow.
 
Maybe I can pack a lunch.

When I was little I used to live on my grandfathers farm in the moutains of Colombia so I am not new to yuccas or boiled fish but the massato I dont think I could do.

Still, would be an interesting few years harvesting that lumber in the Amazon. Kinda remainds me of Howard Roark and his days in the marble quarry.
 
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