06 July 2008
InkaTerra
It's not often that I get the chance to walk through the jungle with a man yielding a machete. Well, in fact, how often do I really ever walk though the jungle. But I must say that Elias was truly a sweet gentle man. Pay no attention to that machete. He was an excellent guide and a patient man... you might almost call him "sweet" but then he probably would not like that label. He dispensed to us numerous facts, local myths, and stories of how various fauna and flora came to be. His knowledge of biology and the local ecology was excellent. However, I think I stole his punch line too many times. He would ask questions of the group.... and I always seemed to know the answer... or could identify the organisms, or could explain the concept of symbiosis to the group in English... I guess I have been teaching too long, but it really felt like a "live biology class," very exciting. After the first few hours of "questions and answers" as we hiked he began to refer to me as professor. He an I had a quicker gait than most of the rest of the group of six. That gave us time to talk... he was a 
married dad with one son. They lived in Puerto Mondenero, that closest town (see photo insert) to our camp. It was a 45 minute boat ride upstream to Puerto Mondenero. He worked about 30 days straight, then went home for about 4 days. He loved his son and spoke about how his birth had changed his world. He asked me questions about biology and human physiology...
