We were fortunate to be able to pay a visit to the Yaguas Indian tribe, deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Our guide said that the Yaguas gave the Amazon its name. When the earliest European discoverers went up the river, to this area, they said that they saw “huge women on the banks”. That reminded them of Greek mythology and they used the connection to name the river the “Amazon”. In truth, our guide said that they probably saw huge men dressed in their customary grass (actually palm fiber) skirts. He surmises that the explorers were not that close to the river's bank to avoid getting hit with poison darts from the Indians. So from where they were out in the river, the explorers saw large people with long hair wearing grass skirts and they thought that they were women. Our guide said that he and his friends have been looking for huge women their whole lives but still have not found any.

This area was indeed a deep section of the Amazon jungle. These trees were on the way to the tribe’s village. We saw hibiscus, poinsettia, ginger, alamanda, ficus, palms, and thick jungle. They get over 200 days of rain here a year. Our guide said this was the Yanamono area of the Amazon.

This was a large sleeping hut where the Yaguas demonstrated some singing and dancing for us. It was stifling hot in their hut. I felt fine going in but was woozy on the way out.

This was a demonstration by the tribe's elders shooting blow-guns with non-poisonous darts. They were extremely accurate with their darts from a distance of perhaps thirty feet.

One of my big disappointments in the Amazon was being offered to shoot a blow-gun and having to turn it down. I was struck by the Amazon fever by that point in time and could barely stand up. I would really have loved to fire off a couple of shots with a blow-gun.