Being Alien: An Essay in Progress

Today, while doing my morning exercises, I clicked through Netflix and ended up watching “First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon.” It’s a fascinating documentary about an anthropologist’s first interaction with one of the isolated tribes of the region. But my interest wasn’t only intellectual. I was curious about how the tribe Daniel and I had once met might have fared. (To read a bit about our experience in the Amazon, please go to a lighthearted piece I did for Lawrence Schoen’s Eating Authors.)

According to “First Contact,” an Amazon region of about 30,000 square miles (spread across the border between Brazil and Peru) is home to the majority of “uncontacted” people in the planet. Uncontacted means that we have no records of any interaction between them and the outside modern world. However, many (if not most) have been watching us for a long time. Read More

Dining with a Newly Discovered Amazon Jungle Clan

 

Lawrence M. Schoen
Lawrence M. Schoen

 

When Lawrence Schoen asked me to write about my most memorable meal for his Eating Authors feature on his blog, I could have chosen any number of spectacular culinary experiences I’ve had. That’s because one of the things that I share with Lawrence’s fictional character the Amazing Conroy is a love of experiencing new, wondrous foods wherever I travel. (Okay, Conroy’s travels are intergalactic; mine have been limited — so far — to our small birth world, Earth.)

Daniel and I have traveled on assignment for various glossy magazine and other clients to all seven continents (including Antarctica three times) and many exotic islands (such as Papua New Guinea). Along the way, our research always included discovering the local delicacies and great chefs. So, in answer to Lawrence’s question, I could have written about the finest vegetarian meal I ever had in at a Buddhist monastery on a Hong Kong out-island, or the Kobe beef dinner with a couple of drunk Toyko business executives, or maybe the 6-star midnight catered supper in Paris. But they all pale in my memories to a weekend that Daniel and I spent in the Amazon Jungle. (We titled the resulting story , which was syndicated to numerous regional/city magazines and newspapers, A Weekend in the Stone Age.)

To read the story of my most memorable meal with a newly discovered Amazon Indian clan, click here.