"LUXURY HOTEL" DAY TWO

We awoke early this morning and went for breakfast at 7:00 AM. At 8:30 AM boarded another river boat and went across the Amazon to a rubber museum. The Portuguese had control of Brazil in the 1800’s and they tricked the natives into becoming slaves as rubber collectors. They would tell them to come and work for them and they would become rich. The young men (some as young at 12 - 13 years old) would be given a lantern to wear on their head and the tools to cut the tree and collect the “milk” in a cup. They had to go out into the jungle at 2:00 AM to start collecting the milk from 150 trees. After they collected the milk they had to cook it over the fire to make it into rubber balls. If they did not collect enough weight they would not be fed. Some of them tried to run away and the Portuguese would recapture them and not let them go. Sometimes they would give them liquor and they would get into fights with other slaves. If they ended up killing one of the others, they thought they would be sent to prison, so to avoid being forced to continue as slaves they willingly killed one another. Then they would go to the Portuguese and tell them they had killed someone, and the Portuguese would give them a shovel and tell them to go bury that person. Then they would tell the slave that the person he killed owed them $3000 and so now the slave that committed murder owes the $3000 plus what he already owes for being fed etc. We toured a house that one of the Portuguese families lived in. It was decorated with all European style furniture. This family had children with at least one daughter. They built a separate shower for her and it was guarded while she was bathing so that no one could watch her. They sent their clothing to Portugal to be washed as they thought the Amazon water would discolor her clothes and she wore mostly white. Just 50 years ago this slave rubber labor was going on. The head Portuguese man that lived in this house was not liked at all by the slaves and while his family was away visiting in Portugal the slaves captured him and burned him to death. This pretty much put an end to slave rubber labor in this country.

It was interesting that the village that we visited yesterday was not under the slave rubber labor and the one we visited today was.

We returned to the resort for lunch. There is a macaw living there that lost it’s mate to a boa constrictor last year and because they normally mate for life, he is one angry bird. He hangs out in the reception and eating area which is an open air pavilion and intimidates the customers. After lunch there was a jungle walk that we also skipped as it involved a strenuous hike and it was very hot and humid as usual.

Our guide was named Washington and his story was interesting. He is on his fifth marriage and never said what happened to the first four wives. He is the oldest of 7 children and he had one year of school and then he had to stay home and take care of the younger children, while his mother was out selling her homemade items and produce. He was born in British Guyana and speaks English. At age 15 his parents told him it was time for him to get married and move out of their house. They arranged for him to marry a 14 year old girl. He has some marks on his chin and forehead, which indicates what tribe he is from and they can tell from the marks if they are related or not. They do not want to marry someone with the same marks as that would be too much inbreeding and the cause of birth defects. I asked him how many children he has and he said he has two that he knows about. He will be 53 years old next month and said he had malaria 22 times but now he is cured. (I did not know that was possible.) He seems to be a very resourceful and knowledgeable guy. He knows what roots to boil up and drink when he gets sick. He said he could retire but does not want to as he likes to keep on moving. I wonder how many wives he will have had by the end of his life.

We returned to the ship for dinner and it was good to get “home.”