Amazon Jungle

SHARLA: Okay, this could quite possibly be a very long blog because it will cover four days in the Amazon Jungle. I'll try not to be too wordy, but I want to be able to remember everything when I reread it. I love writing for my friends and family, and I know that I will be able to relive the experiences when I read this back. So, here goes.

On Tuesday, the van was supposed to pick us up at 9:30am. We started walking the streets of Lago Agrio looking for some tank tops to take with us. We decided at the last minute that we needed something cooler to wear. We went to several clothing stores and the only tank tops we found were about a size 0 or 2, so we passed...thank you very much! The people here are short, but not small! And, they wear these shirts...hmmmmm. We bought some pastries for the ride and went back to the hotel where we were to be picked up. Once we got there, we were told that we had to wait on one of the passengers to fly in from Quito and he wouldn't arrive until 10:30am. We sat with a young couple, Gabriela and Andres, from Quito who were on their second trip to the Amazon. This time, though, they were studying to become a guide. If they are able, they will have to move to Lago Agrio. It will be the first job for both of them. Gabriela speaks very good English and was able to help us understand what was happening and when. She told us we didn't need tank tops because of the insects and scratches from the branches on the trees. We mentioned the tiny sizes, and she said yes, people here like to "show off" what they've got. I guess so!

We finally drove to the airport and picked up Hugo, who is from Barcelona, Spain. Lydia, the sixth person in our group, is also from Barcelona, and we found out later that she is a doctor who just finished her specialty, hematology, and is taking a year off to travel all of South America before she settles down. She has been here four months already and has eight to go! Since, she and Hugo are both from Barcelona, you can imagine that they had a lot to talk about...and TALK they did. For the WHOLE trip. Lydia decided that she had to make a phone call, so we stopped in a little village that had a cabina (pay phone) and she called her mom and talked to her for 15 minutes! While we all waited in a very hot van. We never did understand why she didn't use the hour and a half that we were waiting on Hugo to make her phone call. Anyway, we got to the tiny village where we were to get on the canoe. We had lunch there in a small restaurant and while we were eating, they drove the van down to the river and unloaded our luggage. I had my small backpack in the seat of the fan and not the back, so I asked Pablo, our guide, if they were getting EVERYTHING off the van. He assured me that they were very good and would get everything off. My instinct was to get it off myself as soon as I got off the van. And, as it turns out, I was right. Marsha and I walked down to the water to get our bags and put on sunscreen. Guess what? My backpack was not with the others. EVERYTHING of importance was in my backpack...my passport, my camera, my credit card! We walked back up the hill and told Pablo. He said....don't worry, it is there covered up and we walked back down. Nope, no backpack! He raced back up the hill...luckily, there was a cabina and he called the office. They were going to try to get in touch with the driver when they thought he would have service, and we kept waiting for them to call back. At this time it is 2:30. Around 3:00, Pablo says I have two choices. He can get in a car and go to catch them when the office gets in touch with them, or I can wait until Thursday to get it when another tour group comes to the jungle. He even offered to buy me some clothes and sunscreen, etc. at the little store there. I explained to him that my camera, and everything else important was in there. He just nodded and started running up the road. Running!! I guess he ran until he was able to flag down a ride.

After about 30 minutes, another man approached our group and said they had put my backpack on a bus headed back this way and that it should be here at 4:00. So, Pablo was headed back toward Lago Agrio, and my backpack was headed back toward us. We were just hoping he would stop and call the office and get informed! 4:00 is about the time that we should have been arriving at our lodging in the Amazon, and we still had a 3-hour canoe ride. It gets dark here around 6:15. We walked around the village a little bit, and right next to the restaurant we heard some macaws in the trees. There was a beautiful blue and yellow male, and sitting right next to him was a gorgeous green female. He kept squawking at us and she just batted her eyes. They must have been pets, because they were not afraid of us. Then, we heard another loud squawk behind us, and walked around the building. There, right in front of us, was a huge red, blue and yellow macaw and as soon as we saw him, he said, "Hola" (hello in Spanish). He said it several times and we couldn't believe our ears! What a wonderful experience! Of course, my camera was....where? Yep, in my backpack on the bus. But, Marsha got some great shots of them all. Finally, my bag, and Pablo arrived around 4:15 and we were ready to begin our journey down the Aguarico River and then to the Cuyabeno River. I felt bad that Pablo had to go get my backpack and he felt bad that they hadn't unloaded it. But, once we were on the river, all of that was a distant memory, because the beauty began.

The canoe had cushioned seats, which was very nice, and we had a very good driver. As we got deeper into the jungle, the trees grew bigger and more dense and we began to see less people and more birds flying. Pablo told us that where we were going, we are the only tourists in the area, because their company is the only one that has permission to go into the Cuyabeno National Park. How cool is that? We saw a beautiful sunset over the river, and then it was dark. Very dark. Our driver grew up here, and he did a FANTASTIC job of maneuvering through the river. The river is low now, because the rainy season isn't due to start for a few more months, and he knew where every stick and tree limb and sand bar and low spot was. I was very impressed. We saw hundreds of fireflies all along the riverbed, and it took me back to my childhood.

Once we arrived at the lodge, I felt as if I had entered the Garden of Eden. There was a wooden walkway from the canoe to the cabanas, which looked exactly as I had imagined they would. Made mostly of bamboo and other trees from the jungle, they all had thatched roofs and were on stilts. Each cabana had two separate rooms, and each had a single candle lit inside, and one at the top of the stairs leading to the rooms. It was all very romantic. We were shown to our rooms and then told to come to the main room for dinner. All of the cabanas and the main room are just open to the elements. No windows, just screens all around. Gorgeous. Our dinner consisted of soup, lasagna and a chocolate crepe. Can you beat that?

After dinner, we went for a night walk for about 45 minutes. We saw many species of grasshoppers, crickets and spiders. We even saw a white cockroach. He said there are many species of cockroaches here. Thank goodness, we didn't see many. We also found a huge tarantula on a tree. They call it a tarantula tree. It is really a type of palm tree, but it has bark that is all broken up and has many places for tarantulas to hide. Pablo said he know of three tarantulas that live on that particular tree. The one we saw was nearly six inches long and three or four inches wide. We also saw walking sticks, which I hadn't seen since I was a small child. And several varieties of frogs and toads. There is a lagoon behind the main room, and Marsha and I sat on the steps and shined our lights down there. We saw the eyes of the Caiman that live there. We saw around 5 or 6 that night and they seemed curious because they came toward our flashlights. Most were really small, but one looked like it might be about 5 feet long.

We were tired from a long day, so we tucked our mosquito nets under our mattresses and called it a night!

Second day in the jungle, I woke up at 5:00am to the loud singing of numerous birds, and many frogs. What a fabulous alarm clock! We were supposed to take a canoe ride to the salt lick to see the parrots and parakeets, but it started raining too hard, and Pablo decided we should just walk in the jungle. The trees act as an umbrella and even if it is raining hard, you are really protected in the jungle. We were fitted for our rubber boots and we began our trek. It was a nice cool morning and we saw some beautiful trees and plants and spiders, etc. We came back to the cabanas and ate a breakfast of a fried egg and what looked and tasted like a potato patty, but was made out of a root they call yuca. After breakfast, we went for another trek in the jungle. This one turned out to be 4 hours long! We saw so many varieties of trees, and plants and spiders, and other bugs my head was spinning! Many different species of ants as well, including the dreaded fire ant, and lemon ants, which only live on a certain part of a branch of a certain tree. Pablo broke that part open and, sure enough, there were ants inside. He told us to lick our fingers and pick up some ants and eat them. We did! And, they tasted like lemons!! I couldn't believe it!

Pablo asked us if we knew which direction the lodge was in. We all guessed wrong. He said that it is very, very easy to lose your bearings in the jungle because it is hard to tell where the sun is in the sky. He told us a couple of his friends were experienced guides, and got lost while they were guiding, one for two days and one for three. That would be scary. And then, not ten minutes later, Marsha and I decided we were lost because Pablo got off the trail. We were climbing some pretty difficult ravines and he kept telling us to wait and he would go off to a small clearing as if he were trying to get his bearings. He never let on that he was lost, but I'm pretty sure he was. By the time we got back, it was extremely hot and there was not a stitch of dry clothing on any of us. We took about a 30 minute swim in the river to cool off. Pablo told us the caiman only stay in the lagoon, so we felt safe. Only later did we find out that they are actually in the river, along with piranha. We thought we felt something nipping at our toes!

Time for lunch! Soup made from quinoa and then chicken, asparagus and tomatoes, and cauliflower and carrots. They feed us very well here! There are eight hammocks hanging in the main room, so Marsha staked ours out and had about an hour's nap. It began to rain very hard, and it was so nice. We got a late start to go to the birdwatching tower. Pablo said we didn't need our flashlights, but we took ours anyway. Normally, you can take the canoe right up to the tower, but the river is so low, that we had to walk for about an hour to get to it after a 15 minute canoe ride. It was almost sunset by the time we reached the tower. It is built around a huge tree and is 70 meters high. The steps were very far apart and very skinny and it was a little bit difficult for me to climb, but I made it! The view from the top was breathtaking. We got there a bit late to see many birds, and the sounds of the jungle would have been fantastic. If there hadn't been so much talking! I don't understand why you would take a trip to the jungle where you would be able to hear so many unique and wonderful sounds and then just talk, loudly, the whole time. But, I guess that's just me! We watched the sunset, and luckily since we had brought our flashlights, we could find our way back through the jungle to the canoe. It was really dark by the time we reached it. Pablo got hit in the mouth with a really thorny stick and was bleeding. Ouch! He told us to shine our flashlights at the river's edge to look for caiman, but I really think he needed the light to navigate the river. In fact, a few times, we ran into some limbs even with the lights on! At one point the motor died, and I thought, oh great, here we are in the middle of the jungle at night, on a canoe, with no lifejackets. But, it was so awesome, I really didn't care! Got the motor started and made it back in time for a great dinner.

We went to watch for caiman again, but only saw a couple this time. However, a bat flew into Marsha's eye, which was pretty exciting! We went into our bathroom and there was a HUGE frog in our toilet. Every time we tried to get it out, it just went down deeper. We could still see it, but we couldn't grab it. Pablo's lip was hurting, so another guide, Jacob took us for our night walk. He coaxed a tarantula out it's hole with a stick, which was really awesome. It wasn't as big as the one we saw last night, but it was more colorful. We also walked through an area infested with bats. There were so many and they were flying all around our heads. It was pretty great! By the time we returned, the toilet frog was gone. What a great day in the Amazon!

Woke up to the great sounds of the jungle again. There is a bird here that is big and black but has a bright yellow tail, and the noise it makes sounds like huge drops of water falling into a pond. There are some blue birds here that live together in the hundreds and are very territorial. If you get to close to them, they all start making this weird noise that sounds like water boiling. I can't even begin to imagine all of the different species of animals, birds and insects that there are here. We left early in the canoe for the salt lick, but there were no parrots or parakeets there. We saw some up in the trees, but Pablo says sometimes they won't come down if there is a predator nearby. On our way back to the lodge, however, our canoe driver spotted some monkeys and we were able to watch them for several minutes. They were so high up, we could really only see the outlines of them, but we could definitely tell they were monkeys and they were jumping so far from tree to tree. It was really exciting to see them out in the wild like that!

Breakfast was a bread like substance with raisins which was wrapped and cooked in a leaf and a boiled egg and naranjilla juice which was delicious. We dozed in our hammocks for about a half hour and then got ready for our trek. Pablo told us that he was going to have to leave us because his lip was really hurting and he needed to get it checked out. We were sad to see him go. Jacob was going to take over for him. We were going to take the canoe to a different part of the jungle for our walk, but when we got down to the river, the driver was walking up with the pull handle from the motor in his hands. It had broken, so there was going to be no canoe ride for us today! Instead, an older gentleman and Jacob took us through the jungle near the lodge and it was very interesting. Jacob doesn't speak as much English as Pablo, and the older man didn't speak any English, so Marsha and I missed out on a lot. Everyone else in our group spoke Spanish and Lydia and Gabriela helped translate things for us, too.

The older man carried a huge machete with him and sort of blazed the trail as we went. He scraped some wood off of a tree and gave each of us a piece. He told us to wait and eat it all at the same time. It was disgusting! Very bitter.....sort of like chewing up an aspirin. He got quite a kick out of watching our faces. There was a plant in the jungle that smelled just like garlic. We tried it, too, and it tasted a little bit like garlic as well. He also cut open a tagua nut and there were some holes filled with liquid that we drank, much like you would out of a coconut. It really wasn't bad! They also use a lot of Tagua nuts to make jewelry and carvings because it is really hard. We passed many Tagua groves on the drive out here. The elderly many showed us how to build a simple trap to catch small animals and birds. It was one of the most interesting things we saw today. He just walked through this small area and chopped down some leaves and branches and before you know it, he had built a trap. He demonstrated how it worked and then re-set it and let Marsha try it. Pretty awesome how they use what's on hand to live their lives every day.

Came back from our walk and took showers and rinsed out our stinky clothes. We only brought one pair of pants and they were rank! Hung them on the clothes line and ate lunch in our pajamas. Haha....bunch of backpackers don't care what we look like. Love it! Took another nap in our hammocks....beginning to love these hammocks....think I need one just like this at home, but it probably wouldn't be the same because the ambience is quite different!

We went out on the canoe to go piranha fishing. Yep, that's right, I said piranha fishing! And guess who out of the whole group caught the first and only piranha? Yours truly! It was a white piranha...guess there are several species of piranha, too. It wasn't very big, maybe 6 or 7 inches long, but it still had very big teeth! Marsha and I had quite a few more bites, but no luck catching any more. Oh, and our fishing poles were sticks with string tied to the end and a hook with red meat as bait. How awesome is that? It began to pour down rain, and we continued to fish in the rain. No one seemed to be having any luck. Jacob caught what looked like to us a small catfish, and the canoe driver caught something else. We moved to a different spot and everyone started getting little nibbles, but they were only tiny little fish teasing us! When we ran out of bait, we started back toward the lodge. We stopped along the way, and walked up to a small lagoon. Jacob said that during the wet season, we wouldn't be able to walk here because it would be under water. We saw the tracks of a tapir, and the largest rodent in the world (whose name escapes me at this moment).

Jacob led us to a tree and pointed out two wasp nests. He said he was going to count to three and then we were to all yell "HEY" at the same time. We had no idea what he was talking about, but we did it and then we listened very quietly. All of a sudden, we heard what sounded like an army marching up in that tree. Seriously! An army! Jacob explained that the wasps build their nests and then the marching ants move in and co-habitate with them. The wasps provide the home, and the ants provide the protection. The marching we heard was the ants getting ready to go to battle. If we had continued to make noise, they would have come out and attacked us! It was truly one of the most unique things I have ever heard!

We made it back safe and sound, had dinner and went to bed early around 10:00 because we have to leave this beautiful place tomorrow! We are sad :(

I woke up at 5am this morning to very hard rain, but by the time breakfast was ready at 7:30, it had cleared off nicely. We were supposed to leave at 8:00, but we have learned that in Ecuador, that really means more like 8:30 or 8:45. In this case, it was 9:00. We still weren't able to see the parrots and parakeets at the salt lick this morning, and we never got to see the pink and the grey dolphins. Two of the other groups both said they saw them. I think maybe because their groups were more quiet???? Just saying. We stopped at a Kichwa Indian community and walked around for about 15 minutes. Saw the kids in school and not much else.

The canoe ride back was very uncomfortable. I think that I got so used to walking so much the last few days that it was just impossible to get comfortable for such a long ride. We made it back to land and had lunch, which Marsha and I fed mostly to the dogs that were gathered around us. We got on the van....I made sure my backpack got on with us, and started back toward Lago Agrio. We had three extra people from another group, plus the driver and his wife, so there were 11 of us crammed into a small van for the two-hour ride. I tried to sleep some, but I was sitting in the middle and the roads are so curvy that I kept falling into either Marsha or Hugo, so it wasn't exactly restful. Made it to the airport around 2pm and our flight was supposed to leave at 5:30. Turned out to be more like 6:00 because of weather. Arrived in Quito, and the ride downtown cost $10 instead of $6 because there was another protest going on. But, this time, it was a peaceful protest, unlike the one a couple of weeks ago. There were hundreds of people walking the streets with flags. They all seemed happy and were smiling, so we weren't scared or concerned. After we got checked back into the hotel, we walked to our favorite restaurant and had our favorite pasta and a Coke Light....yay!!! Marsha's pasta wasn't as good as usual, but mine was better. Yum! The restaurant is on the second floor. Two men sitting on the first floor kept motioning to us to come down there and sit with them. We kept trying to ignore them. We even took a picture of ourselves with the camera pointed in their direction just to see if they were still sitting there. We took forever eating and then went to the bathroom and wasted time in there. No luck...they were still there. We had to walk past them on our way out. I wouldn't look at them, but Marsha said they waved us over and she just waved back and shook her head no. We walked back to the hotel a totally different way, and just when we thought we were home free, we turned the last corner, and lo and behold, who do you think we ran into? Yep, you got it! So, finally, we had to actually talk to them. They were nice, but we made some excuse about having to get back to our hotel and scrambled away. Just our luck!

Our room tonight was really awesome. All of the rooms here are different and have their own personalities. The hotel is very old and is sort of like a maze. It has such an old colonial feel and is just beautiful. There is a courtyard outside our room and downstairs and you feel as if you are just in another world out there. Gorgeous!

Okay, finally....today, Saturday. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Camille, who will fly in tonight at 10:40. Marsha broke out into a rash all over her body last night. We both had bites on us yesterday from the walk through the Kichwa community, but these were different. It looks like she has chicken pox. After breakfast, we walked to a nearby pharmacy. They said that she should definitely see a doctor, so they directed us to a free clinic close by. There is a security guard that stands guard at the entrance, so we just had to stand outside and wait. We finally got in, even though the security guard didn't want to let me go in with her. Through our broken Spanish, we finally were able to tell them what was wrong. The doctor, who looked twelve, spoke pretty good English, and he examined her. When he found out we had swam in the river, he looked at us like we were crazy, asked us if we had had our vaccinations before we came and if we were on malaria meds. Yes to all of the above. He said she is just probably having an allergic reaction from the water, and wrote a prescription for pills and cream. At the pharmacy, she bought both prescriptions, a thermometer, some m&m's and some gum and it was less than $5. Try THAT in the United States! And a free doctor's visit!

Made a couple of phone calls, and went back to the hotel to switch rooms and to try and sort out all of our belongings. Quite an ordeal! Another great room, which I think Camille will like. Our train trip tomorrow may not happen, because after all the trouble I went through booking by email and paying for by deposit at a bank in Guayaquil, and scanning and emailing it to her, I came back to an email from the person I had been dealing with saying she had not received confirmation and if I didn't respond by Thursday at 3pm, we were losing our seats. Since we were in the jungle on Thursday and didn't get back until Friday night, that was not a pleasant surprise. We took a taxi to the train station, but the offices are only open from Monday through Friday, so that was no help. The taxi driver and the security guards there tried to help us as much as possible, but I guess we will find out tomorrow morning at 7am if we have seats or not. They are paid for, but I'm not sure that matters. This has been one of the hardest things to plan on this whole trip. $10 seats on a train shouldn't be that hard to reserve!!!

We went back to "our" restaurant, but actually tried something new this time. We ordered a fresh avocado which was covered with shrimp and what they called "golf" sauce. The sauce tasted like Thousand Island dressing, but all the flavors combined were great. We also had empanadas which are pastries filled with cheese, chicken, beef or vegetables. They were good, but weren't the best we've had since arriving in Ecuador. Came back to the hotel, and doctored up Marsha's spots again, and since then, probably for the last three hours I've been writing in this blog! I think I'll go rest a while now before we have to go to the airport to pick up Camille! See ya later! Oh yeah, and Marsha isn't writing this time. I think she believes that I have written enough for the both of us. HAHA.....she's right.