Last days at Surama

Here we are being taken down the river and peering into the jungle looking for birds and animals. We saw the most amazing kingfishers oneof which we saw collect a little piranha fish from the river as he flew ahead of us and perched on an overhanging branch to devour his catch.
Some groups come here to do Survival courses and are taught by the local people how to do so then they are left there for a few days to see how they do. We did not volunteer for that activity choosing instead to walk in the forest and climb the mountain.




Lisa who I think I told you is from the Makkushi
tribe knows so much about the forest flora. Here she is showing us the seeds of the curry tree which when opened produce an orange curry live powder which heals ring worm and skin conditions. She was full of such knowledge.



The view is from the top of Surama mountain which we climbed one morning. It was a lovely day but inside the forest it was humid and we

were very pleased to reach the top after an energetic climb and get such a wonderful view over the village and surrounding area. it was while we were here that we saw the red faced spider monkeys in the trees. Our guide was calling them with monkey sounds and they for sure where looking to see where we were. They really have the longest arms you can imagine and they are not the prettiest of monkeys with their black black fur and red red faces. As they move around they certainly do look like big black furry spiders. You can see here that the villge is siuated on the edge of the forest in the savannah area and the elders say that the forest is encrouching on the savannah in this area, as there used to be more savannah in their childhood.