Early to bed and early to rise this morning. Especially because mother nature picked the noisiest bird of her bunch to bellow in the tree right beside the cabin! Sounded kind of like a monkey. Anyway, I got up and had coffee and cuscus. It was a bit tasteless, but good with a bit of butter. It wasn't long before we were working again. The main job of this morning was patching up areas of the cabin that were broken/rotting. I was a bit more helpful now that I know all of the names of the tools, but grandpa (Luis), still tended to spearhead most of the work. Despite being an old man, this guy was agile and strong, moving around like a young man! I'll say it again, they build their old people well here - or at least in this family. After patching up some of the lower areas of the cabin, it was time to patch up the roof. I was designated the job of securing the ladder. Easy enough, but I was worried for him, being on this old wood ladder, secured on a couple planks of plywood over the water below. He seemed to know what he was doing though. We finished in the kitchen and moved onto the front of the cabin. Here again, I held the ladder as he stood above. Although, here's where things went a bit wrong. There was a moment when I looked up at his feet and saw the ladder wrung he was on bowing a little bit. It didn't look too threatening, but I thought for a moment how I would tell him in portuguese. Then without warning, "snap"! The wrung broke and he went free falling into the water below. I nearly had a heart attack, and was prepared to jump in after him, but immediately, he surfaced and started laughing! I take the young man comment back, he's more like a little kid. He climbed out of the water and had not an injury more than a little cut on his gums. Well, that little event put us out of the roofing business. And it wasn't too much longer before Jeffson and the others showed up. The family with them was from Switzerland, and had a teenage older brother and younger sister; step siblings apparently. They spoke both portuguese, english as well as several other languages apparently. Either way, it seemed as if most of the conversations here would be in portuguese. But, I actually prefer it now - this bit of a portuguese immersion has been a great way to get me out of my shell and start talking more in portuguese, rather than continually speaking in my english comfort zone. Jeffson did notice something though when he arrived; everyone here was calling me a different name. I had noticed that Luis seemed to be calling me "Fred", but I hadn't noticed the others. Among the others, I had "Trevo", "Trevie", and my personal favorite "Kelvie"! We all had a good laugh over them all - a testament to how uncommon my name is around the world. Anyway, we all settled in, had a good chicken lunch and spend the rest of the day talking and hanging out. The guys did put a fish net across part of the water near our tent, so maybe tomorrow, we'll have another fish feast. Among the variety of things I did today, one of which was introducing Brazil to duct tape - one of my favourite travel companions. We have yet to find an equivalent tape here, and with it, I fixed a tear in the upholstery of his boat, as well as made part of the plumbing for the new sink. They were amazing by this genius invention - as is everyone! They really gotta get on making duct tape a household name here! Anyway, I also did some swimming today - found Luis' hat that dropped in the water when he fell. I'm officially the designated diver of team jaguar here. Later on in the night, a bunch of them got together to go out fishing. Actually, before they even left, one of the men here caught a cayman and brought it up here to show everyone. I had touched one before in Peru, but it was still cool. Having woken up early this morning and knowing how late into the night they would be fishing, I opted to stay back for this one. I didn't miss out however - staying close to camp, I took my own canoe and tried my luck at the spear fishing. I found some little fish, however I still have something missing in my technique. At least I was screwing up on my own and not getting in anyone's way. Once I had my fill of missing, I rowed myself in and called it for the night - and here I am. Tomorrow, we start our trek into the jungle.
A panorama shot from the cabin
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