Amazing Amazonia

The    Amazonia exists of almost 7 million square kilometres. Hard to grasp. It covers more than eight countries. The Amazon river is the longest in the world being more than six thousand kilometres long. What I wasn’t aware of is that the river has several different names. Here I am thinking I am travelling along the Amazon, but it is called Solimoes. It isn’t until after Manaus that the river becomes the Amazon!! There you go, learning something new every day! Since then I learned that that this name changes only here in Brasilia! For English speakers the whole rivers is called the Amazon! Phew! So glad to hear this!! Which WHY it is the longest river in the world, which is disputed by Egypt, which thinks it is the Nile!

On my last day in Leticia, I got up very early in the morning. I needed to find a cable for the camera, as it is no longer recharging. It is either the cable or the battery! Also I wanted to watch the comings and goings at the market. I wanted to visit the a Ethnological museum, which is housed in the library, it is free and opens at 8.30 am. It was an amazing museum.

I took lots of photos, but barely any notes, which I regret now! There are many different tribes in the Amazonian region. One of the tribes locks young girls away from the community when she first menstruates. While locked away, she learns all about being a woman. After a few months, all her hair gets plucked out, strand by strand until she is completely bald. Then covered in feathers, bald and painted she is welcomed back as a woman into the tribe. The party can last for days or weeks. What a way to celebrate becoming a woman!

There were dress up clothes as well, which I understood to be for funerals. Although the museum was extensive, the translation into English was rather thin. Three boards of extensive Spanish writing was translated into one paragraph. The Spanish made the assumption that all indigenous peoples were cannibals. So they tortured, slaughtered and dismissed the First Nation people.

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Amazing Amazonian Adventure II

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3 Comments

  1. Janet

    Still enjoying your blobs but you keep my desire to get to South America…makes me restless xxx

  2. Janet

    I meant you ….keep FUELLING my desire …missed out the fuelling

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