The statues' heads served as covers. The urns represent men and women seated on benches, which may mean that both sexes served as chiefs or shamans.
Vegetation climbs to vertiginous heights and gives off an intoxicating odor of orchids and earth.
He looks for machete notches he's left on tree trunks during his last trip this way. But he doesn't get us lost. He was aware of the urns' scientific value and alerted her soon after he found them. For the moment, the difficulty rests in our navigating two miles of a black mud lagoon, stepping from palm trunk to palm trunk, balancing like tightrope walkers.