Around the dinner table, the nuns who are lodging us tell us about the twins brought to their health center that week, 1 year old but weighing just 4 and a half pounds.
In the absence of a machine lodged between us, the traditional doctor-patient relationship is restored.
The contracts made between local FOP associations or "lodges" and US cities date back to 2006.
Vicente Labate, a sinewy 28-year-old hiking guide, met us at La Aldea, a local lodge, and helped us pare down our belongings to the absolute minimum.
"I'll give you an 80% discount over the regular room rates if you stay with us," a tourist lodge owner pleaded with us in Guptakashi.
Stays in a budget hostel and then a smart riverside lodge had taken us close to three of Aisén's postcard sights.
On evening game drives a waterhole close to the lodge practically guaranteed us a sighting of lions - a pride of eight adults stretched out in the setting sun.
"Some of the lodge owners gave us a really hard time," says Nicky. "It is illegal to have child workers, but these people are rich and they just don't respect others.
The lodge has lent us a pair of bodyboards so we paddle out to catch the odd wave, scouring the trees for sloths as we're whisked into shore.
He told a contest official he'd be back soon, led us to his immense red pickup, drove out the lane from the parking lot, turned east on the highway, crossed the Ocmulgee River, took another main road, maneuvered down a narrow gravel road, stopped in front of his hunting lodge, and led us inside.
