Later the couple was to realize that they were fortunate the Indians had assumed Jed and Jenny were man and wife. In a direct contradiction to an impression created by the unashamed exposure of the female breast, the Choco´ were rather straight-laced people. If they had realized that Jenny was a maiden, she would have been invited to sleep in the virgin's bohio, protected by a carved figure of a devil dog. To spend any time together Jenny would have had to wait until Jed was by himself, run passed, slap his hand, and hope that he followed to the privacy of the jungle.

Women, other than Jenny, it appeared, were expected to perform the tasks of preparing the evening meal, but not the cooking, then disappear. Artillio was their chef, and dinner was delicious. They purposely refrained from questioning the main course until after it was safely tucked away. Artillio's answer was kept from Jed because Jenny laughed so hard she couldn't get a breath to spare.

"What's so damn funny. What the hell did we eat?" he wanted to know.

"Iguana. Somewhere our guide has picked up enough Americanese to call it Chicken of the Tree."

This humorous remark led to an impromptu rap session where the majority of the males of the village gathered to hear about the strange sights of Alaska. Apparently the village only saw, on the average, one outsider a year; usually a government health officer concerned with mosquitoes. Hearing "frio" in the conservation Jed questioned Jenny how she was explaining ice and snow to a people who had never experienced a temperature difference of more than 30 degrees in their whole life.

"Ask me a difficult question, would you please," Jenny replied irritably, "like how in the hell are we supposed to sleep in this heat, in front of this crowd. Or, what are the magic words that will let us pass 'GO', climb the mountain, win this game?"

"I'm working on that," Jed answered as he lit their portable propane lantern. A new acquisition, the miniaturized lamp, which operated for hours on a pressurized can of fuel, delighted Jed almost as much as it amazed the Indians.

There were so many 'new' things for both peoples to observe. The Choco´ had found a Bic lighter bewitching. Vice versa, Jed had been dazzled by how fast an equatorial sun set. There was no evening, no long days in summer, short in winter. Year-around, as soon as the sun disappeared into a tropical jungle with a nearly audible click, the lights went out.

Jed broke into Jenny's after dinner conversation with a village elder squatting before the lamp, to mention the different characteristics of an Alaskan evening, when she laughed.

"What's funny?" he wanted to know, for the umpteenth time.