Second day on the Fitzcarrald Pass. Exhausted from carrying this pack, slogging through the water, and trying to keep up with the two Yura, who are hardly carrying anything at all. Plus, they know the area so well that one minute, they are walking thigh-deep in the river, and the next they have cut into the jungle and are crossing over to another bend of the river. How they know all of these bends and shortcuts is beyond me. What they consider paths can scarcely be discerned by the outsider.

I tried to explain to them that I don't know the way, but it just doesn't seem to register. They seem to think that all of these shortcuts are as obvious as streets in a town or city. At one point in the afternoon, I was lagging quite a ways behind, following them as best I could through the jungle on a shortcut (no obvious trail). I came out of the jungle, onto the small tributary again, and I stopped and listened, hoping to hear them talking. I didn't hear a sound. Then I began to walk up and down the river, looking for a footprint. I found none. Finally, I took a chance and headed left, and about a half an hour later, I saw a footprint. I found them around a bend; they were threading fish that they had just got done killing in a pool with a machete, and looked at me as if it were the most natural thing in the world that I should show up. Makes you wonder what would happen if you got lost around here. It would probably take a week to hike out again before hitting the Mishagua River, and then you'd have to make a raft and float another week downriver.

Funny thing about these Yura. As tough as they are and as fierce and deserved a reputation as they have, if they have the slightest splinter in their foot or an ingrown toe nail, they'll come up to you, and then, in a stereotypically whiny voice, say, "Eeseeneekee eechapa kowaye" ("It really hurts"). Then they'll point at this tiny thorn or splinter that they have picked up. And then you must say (or risk being very impolite), "Uh huh, mee eesseeneekee eechapa mun?" ("It really hurts you, doesn't it?") in the most sympathetic fashion possible. This from these tough, well-muscled warriors who used to skewer woodcutters through the neck with their six-foot-long paspis! I understand that you can cut the foot off of an Amahuaca Indian (another tribe in the area) and they'll scarcely bat an eye.

Had a good dinner of boca chico fish, roasted yuca (manioc root), peppers and small bananas. The Yura shot a howler monkey this morning and roasted it on a wooden spit, burning off all of the hairs until it looked like a small human. I passed, and stuck to the fish. Jose and the two Yura polished off the monkey and Jose said it was quite good. I don't like to eat howler.