a monkey drinks from a left over drinks carton

We visited a small town right on the edge of the Amazon Basin the other day, called Misahoualli.  As we walked around looking for somewhere to stop and eat we noticed lots of very small monkeys right in the middle of a pavement.  Lots of tourists were taking photos and we took some photos too.

We really liked being able to see the little monkeys up so close but we were really sad to see them eating left over food people had thrown away.

They had been really clever in learning how to get at some of the food and drinks.  We even watched one monkey deliberately smash and break a glass bottle to find out if anything was inside.

Then we watched the monkeys go back into the forest.  They climbed up a pole and onto some power cables and used the cables to travel across a big open space and back into the trees.

What do you think?

That made us think a bit.  This is what we replied.  We like to eat the local foods whenever we can, so we have eaten lots of different foods in all the countries we have visited.  Here are a few of them:

Here's Helen eating some dried fish in Ukraine - we bought this at a stall by the roadside

Ukraine – Fresh water fish, smoked and sold by the roadside in a wooden hut. Wild Strawberries bought from roadside sellers who had picked them in the woods
Russia – Fried eggs and mashed potato for breakfast.
Kazakhstan – Sweet donuts filled with meat and onions, not jam
Mongolia – Lamb cut up and boiled, with the arteries and bones still in it.  Yaks cheese, which is very very hard, and tastes like smelly socks; and tea made with warm horse milk and hardly any tea. Both horrid!!
USA – Biscuits and gravy, and german pancakes with sugar and maple syrup – yummie!
Mexico – Coconut straight from the tree – Drinking the milk from the inside first, then chopping it open to eat the white coconut flesh. Frijoles, which are red beans boiled and then refried – sometimes served mashed into a paste.
Belize – Mixed ‘Rice and Beans’ served with fried chicken, and deep fried banana.
Guatamala – Fresh Pineapple cut up for us by a man in a truck on the street.
El Salvador – Papusa – small, round, very flat pastry, folded around a filling of meat, cheese, or vegetables, and then flattened and cooked on a heated iron plate.
Honduras – Plantain fritters, which are a type of hard banana, mashed up and flattened into fritters and deep fried until crispy.
Nicaragua - chocolate omelette (not a local dish but one we loved)
Costa Rica – Deep fried maize – which explodes like popcporn and goes all crispy on the outside, served for breakfast with raw onion, potato, and sausage.
Panama – Home made pizza – lovely!!
Colombia – Chicken with its head still on! Chorizo sausage, which is very spicy and has a lot of fat and gristle in it.
Ecuador – Pumpkin soup, currried hamburger (:-/) and grilled guineapig. Sugared sweets made from spices, fresh milk and sugar. Sweets made from chocolate, marmalade and milk mixed into a paste and chilled.

Argentina is famous for really lovely steaks, so we are looking forward to getting there.

There are no Christmas cards.  The people don’t eat a special Christmas Dinner – many had roast guinea pig but that’s a typcial Sunday dinner here.  Christmas Day seemed just the same as any other day of the week.  Lots of people were out working in their gardens, and the local cafe was open as usual.  There weren’t even many presents!  Most of the children received some biscuits and sweets.

arriving at church for Nativity celebration

The last day of school was on Thursday (3 days before Christmas).  In the morning the children gathered together.  Some children got dressed up as Mary and Joseph, and shepherds and wise men from the Christian Christmas Nativity story.  They all then walked through the village to the big Catholic Church.  The girl dressed as Mary was riding on a donkey, just like in the Christmas story.  There was a musician and singers.  Right at the back was a llama with some Christmas paper tied to him.

Everyone then sat in church while the rosary was read.  This took about an hour.  Then everyone walked back to school.  Including the donkey and the llama.

Back at school the children went into their own classrooms and got changed into special outfits.  Each class performed some kind of dance that showed a different part of Ecuador’s history, culture and traditions.  Some acted out a bull fight.  Others dressed up and did the dances of some of the native indian tribes that still live in Ecuador.

The following Friday (after Christmas Day) a small fair was set up in the church car park – a small merry go round, table football, a trampoline and someone selling toffee apples.  In the evening there was an all night disco with dancing in the community hall.  All weekend there was lots of music and dancing and fireworks being let off.

On Saturday (New Year’s Eve) something really different happened.  We were a bit shocked.  Let me tell you what happened and then you can decide what you think of it.

On Saturday morning there was a cock fight!!  Men (and some teenagers) breed cockerels just to make them fight each other.  This used to happen in England many many years ago but it has been illegal in our country for a long time now.

cockfight

Two cockerels are put in a ring together and allowed to fight.  Their owners stand close by and a referee is in the ring as well.  If one bird it getting really hurt or looks like it doesn’t want to fight any more the referee blows his whistle and the owners of the birds separate them and check if they are alright and still want to fight.  The fights are divided up into rounds so the birds only get to fight for a certain amount of time before the fight ends.  Eventually the referee decides which bird is the winner based on a ‘points’ system – which bird did not surrender or which bird fought the best.  The rules seemed a bit like boxing.

Some of the birds got really badly hurt and will need a lot of care by their owners to help them get better again.  Do you think it right to make animals fight and hurt each other just so people can have fun watching them and betting on the result?  Does it matter that cockerels naturally fight each other?  Fighting is how they protect their hens from other cockerels taking them away.  This is quite normal in the animal world.

This woman tackles a young bull during the ladies bull fight

On Saturday and Sunday afternoons there were “bull fights”.  A young bull was let loose in a ring with at least two or three people (mostly men in their 20′s, 30′s and 40′s).  The men waved cloaks or just ran about in front of the bull until the bull charged at them.  Then they dodged the bull so they didn’t get hurt.  There was one event for children aged around 9-12.  They ‘fought’ a young bull that was aged about 6 months.  This very young bull hadn’t grown any horns yet but you could still get very hurt if he hit you with his head and knocked you over.  If that happens the bull will then try and head butt you some more and maybe stand on you and you can get really badly hurt.  The women took a turn in the ring with an older bull.  That one had horns.  Then the older men had a turn in the ring with one of the bigger bulls – he had horns too.  A few times someone got knocked over by a bull. Then the young men would dash around and distract the bull until it charged away from the person who had fallen down.

These bull fights were a ‘family’ version of the more famous Spanish bull fights were a bull fighter (almost always a young man) fights the bull in the ring until one of them dies (the bull always gets killed though).  The bull fights we saw were not like that.  Some people suffered from bruises when the bull hit them but no-one got really badly hurt.  And none of the bulls got hurt.

What do you think though?  Do you think it’s right to tease an animal for fun?  Does it make any difference that most of these people are farmers and this is a ‘safe’ way for children and teenagers learning not to be afraid of the animals and learning how to handle the animals so they can be more confident farmers when they grow up?

typical go-kart and riders

One more thing happened over the weekend that wouldn’t happen in England.  Several of the men and teenagers have been building go-karts over the last few weeks.  These are just flat wooden boards with small wheels in each corner.  To stop the cart you pull on a lever and make a piece of wood rub against the wheels.  They then rode on these carts in pairs, down a steep mountain road with seven ‘hairpin’ bends.  These are bends in the road where the road doubles back on itself.  If they had gone round any of the bends a bit too fast they would have hit trees or bushes.  On some bends they might have gone right over the edge and down the side of the mountain.

hairpin bends on the mountain road

Some people might say this was too dangerous and try to stop other people doing this.  What do you think?  Should people be allowed to take risks like this if they want to?  What if they get hurt?  Do you think taking risks like this helps people to learn about their own limits and how to keep safe from danger?

Do you think these things are adventures?  What is the difference between enjoying adventure and taking silly risks?  What about if other people or animals get hurt?  What difference does that make to what you think?  What if you get hurt?  Whose responsibility is it then?

We’d like to know your thoughts – let us know by using the ‘ask a question’ button to send us a message.

On the last day we climbed a steep path part of the way up the side of the mountain.  The air gets very thin as you climb higher and higher up a mountain.  That meant there was not as much oxygen to breathe and it was very hard work and tiring.

Later we explored more of the Cotopaxi National Park.  We learned that the people who look after the park have noticed that in the last ten years there is less snow on the mountains.  They have also noticed that there is less water in the two big lakes in the park.  They think this is happening because of global warming.  They are working very hard to make the best use of the rain water that falls to stop the lakes from drying up.  If the lakes dry up there will be nowhere for the fish to live and the birds that feed on the fish will have to find somewhere else to live.

Helen demonstrates some Equator magic

We are in Ecuador.  Just after we crossed the border into Ecuador we arrived at the Equator.  The equator is the bit of the earth that divides the north of the world from the south of the world.

It’s like magic at the equator.  We went to a special museum there today and found out we can balance an egg on its end right on top of the head of a nail.

At the equator water goes straight down the plughole – check it out at home, water normally swirls round and round as it goes down the plughole.

The ancient tribes who lived in this area over two thousand years ago recognised this part of the world as special.  They noticed that there was hardly any wind.  They noticed that the sun always rises at 6.00 in the morning and sets at 6.00 in the evening.  They worked out that this place is at the middle of the earth and they named it Quito.  Quito means ‘middle earth’.  Quito is still the name of the capital city of Ecuador.

The descendents of those tribes still live in the forests in these areas.  They still hunt and fish for their food.  And some of them still practice the art of shrinking heads!!  

Panama separates the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.  Joining Panama and Columbia is a very deep forest.  But there is no road between the two countries and it is not possible to drive between them.  This area has a special name.  It’s called the Darien Gap.

It’s only a short journey even for Landy.  We both left on Sunday 23rd October.  We were not allowed to travel on the ship with Landy so we had to fly from Panama to Columbia.  Landy’s ship will land in port on Monday but it will be a couple of days before he is able to leave the port (it takes time to unload a big ship and check everything’s OK).  We will stay in the port town of Cartegena for a couple of days while this happens.

Here's Paul - he's just got off the plane in Cartegena in Columbia

Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal - you can see the high water on one side of the gates

Do you know what a canal is?  It’s somewhere boats can travel where there isn’t normally a river or other water.   A really big trench is dug and lined with something like concrete and then filled with water.  The first canals were built a long time ago, nearly 300 years.  Canals meant that ships could carry coal, food and other goods around the country quicker and cheaper than by road.  This was long before trains and lorries were invented.

Well, in the case of the Panama Canal it meant that ships could cross between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, right through the middle of the big piece of land called the Americas.  This made it much quicker and easier to move goods around the world.  The Panama Canal first opened in 1914.

Sometimes, where there are hills or mountains that the canals cross they use a system of locks to carry the ship up and down.  Locks are created by putting in pairs of gates across the canal that stop the water moving up and down the canal.  This means that the level of the water inside the lock can be changed to the same level as the water either side of the gates.  This is how ships can travel uphill and downhill.  Unlike a road you can’t have a sloping hill of water!

The ship steers into the lock and a gate closes behind it.  In front of the ship is another gate trapping the ship and the water in between the gates.  To go uphill water is pumped into the area inside the lock until the water is level with the water the other side of the gate in front of the ship.  To go downhill water is let out of the area inside the lock.  Once the water inside the lock is the same level as the next area of water where the ship is going, it is safe to open the gate in front of the ship and let the ship sail out again.

What is called the Panama Canal is actually three sets of locks, a small lake and a very big lake.  We went to see the locks nearest the Pacific Ocean, called the Miraflores Locks.  We saw a big ship that was travelling from the Pacific Ocean pass through the Miraflores Locks.  Then it was going to pass through a small lake and another lock, called Pedro Miguel Locks.  Then the ship will sail through a much bigger lake called Gatun Lake.  Lake Gatun is much higher than the oceans either side of the land here so the ship then has to pass through another set of locks called Gatun Locks.  These lower the water level the ship is sailing into so it can sail out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Canals and locks are very clever ways of letting boats go uphill and downhill.

The front of a really big ship just as it is about to pass right in front of us as it travels through the locks at Panama Canal

And today we went to see one of those big ships travel up the canal.  These are the same locks as in the above picture.  But the water has been levelled and the lock gates opened.  Now the ship is passing through the lock.  That strange looking silver machine is called a ‘mule’.  It is one of four mules that were being used to steer this big ship through the lock.

A group of cows enjoy a wallow in the mud

Have you ever heard of wallowing cows before?  I’ve always thought it was only hippos that wallowed in mud.  Paul had heard about wallowing cows before but had never seen them.

Then we got to Panama.  Right beside the road we saw them.  A small group of cows wallowing in the mud.  The mud must have been pretty deep.

Paul got out of the car to take some photos and a little bit of video.  A couple of the cows started to look pretty angry.  I guess you might be upset if you were in your bath and someone stopped to stare at you.

The Ambassador and his wife pose with Landy

Do you know what an Ambassador is?

An Ambassador is someone who lives in a foreign country as a representative of his (or her) own country.

Today we met the Ambassador from Britain who lives in Costa Rica.  If anyone who is British has a problem they can’t sort out they can go to the Ambassador’s office and ask for help.  The Ambassador then tries to help the person solve the problem.

We didn’t have a problem but the Ambassador was very interested in Landy and wanted to meet us.

this is what Landy looks like underneath

Landy’s been really great, taking us bravely over rough roads and smoothly on nice tarmac roads.  But sometimes he needs a bit of loving care and attention.  So today we took him to see the mechanic at the Land Rover garage in San Jose (we are in Costa Rica still).  They gave him some new oils and some new parts and helped us get on the road again.