In this update, I will recount my amazing Amazon adventure! Our trip to the Amazon was slightly delayed. Nate is happy to say that we got three flights for the price of two. That would be great if the extra one went anywhere. Our first flight got all the way to Coca, but was unable to land due to rain, apparently torrential rain, and had to turn around and come back to Quito. We sat in Quito for about 20 minutes and then tried again. The second time worked better and the plane did land, we were collected, picked up some rubber boots and were off!
The lodge that we booked, called The Amazon Dolphin lodge is located 5 hours by moterized canoe down the Napo river. The first four hours or so were on a very wide part of the river, we passed a few other moterized canoes, a couple "houseboats" and a few rafts. There were some towns, collectives, and an oil factory. Then we turned down a narrow tributary called Napo River and things started to look very "Amazonian". The river narrowed to around 20 metres wide or less at times and the forest, instead of being separated from the river by a high water mark on the bank, reached down and touched the water. Because our plane was late the sun had already begun to set. The amazing light, dark sky and the still, dark water reflected the forest back on itself, it seemed that we were suspended in time, in an expanse of never ending green. By the time we did arrive, it was almost completely dark, our driver navigating by verbal instructions from someone in the front of the boat.
We managed to pull ourselves out of the canoe, scramble up the muddy slope and find our way to the brightly lit lodge. Where we were assigned rooms, nicely done up with a bed and bug nets!
The first night we had a nice chat with the one other couple, Kaitlin and Drew, who are staying here, Canadians, from Ottawa no less! It was just the five of us at the lodge this week. During our chat we had a small world moment where Drew, was able to name names of people in my graduating year of high school, because he played hockey with them! Go all the way to Ecuador, travel 5 hours in a moterized canoe into the jungle, and meet a first degree of separation at your jungle lodge!!!
We also got to know our guide Javier a bit, he will be with us the whole time we are here. The question came up of "what was the most surprising thing you have seen in the jungle?" We were all expecting a story about an anaconda eating a caiman or something along those lines, but his answer "my surprise" shocked us all. He told us a story of moving to the jungle from the city to work for a logging company when he was 16 years old. One day, he was taking his canoe down the river and the Woarani people he had grown close to called him over. They offered him breakfast, to which he accepted. They brought him monkey to eat, which he polietly declined. Instead the cheif's fourth wife made him eggs. During this time everyone from the tribe is gathering outside and starting to sing. They put him in a hammock with one of their daughters and ask him if he liked her? When he said yes, they proclaimed him and her to be married! He said he was afraid to say no because they had spears!! He said thank you, but his boss was expecting him down the river with the canoe! So they let him go that day but he went back to pick his bride up. They were married for 8 years and have two daughters. But, when Javier went away to learn English to work in the tourist industry, his wife got together with another man. Apparently this is acceptable in the Waorani culture, but Javier was not happy with that arrangement! Wow!
The first actual day we started with a 3 hour hike in the jungle. We saw a few birds, a tiny frog, and lots of bugs. We got to learn how to use lots of indigenous plants for various ailments, uses and even punishments. Javier picked a leaf that is used for pregnancy pain, fever and also for punishment of children and we took turns tapping each other gently with it, and the slightest touch raised a painful red welt. Why did we agree to do that? A few more minutes walking and we came to a big tree with lots of scars in it. Dragonblood tree. When Javier made a small cut in it, it dripped red sap which we rubbed on our welts and the pain went away almost right away. Magical stuff!
During our walk it rained off and on, but near the end it poured down and we were absolutely soaked while waiting for the canoe to come pick us up. Welcome to the RAINforest. The name is literal, I didn't realize that before..
Bee's nest!
In the afternoon we went for a canoe ride (paddle canoe this time). We saw many more things! Cappuchin monkeys, squirrel monkeys, even a brief glance at the howler monkeys! Various birds including the very chatty tucan!!
We were going in and out of trees and at one point went under a few branches that dropped dozens of biting ants onto us and into the boat! So we spent a few minutes slapping at them and each other.
Krys and her machete
There is a toucan in the tree, and a woodpecker is coming to join him!
After dinner Krystal and I went on a night hike to look for bugs and frogs. We found quite a few tree frogs and lots and lots of various creepy crawlies. The jungle is a different place after dark. Then we waded into shallow water and one of our guides, a 17 year old indigenous young man named Martin, taught us how to fish with a machete. We both sliced a fish - Krys got hers on her first try! Martin retrieved them, strung them on a stick, wrapped them in a leaf. The next day we used those fish to go piranha fishing. I was very kind to the piranhas, as they got a good meal from me. They kept eating my bait, but I never did hook one. The only person who did pull any up was the boat driver, and he got at least 5! Its because he keeps his fishing hooks in a bottle with dolphin teeth, and pink dolphin teeth are good luck! He was very kind and shared his catch with us for lunch the next day.
Martin prepping some beef for piranha fishing!
This looks like a good spot for piranha fishing!
We are trying to be patient, but it's boring when you don't catch anything...
Fortunately, the boat driver caught one. Insanely aggressive things
The lower jawbone of the piranha. Sharp as needles
Tree frog!
Creatures from the night hike... tree frog, snake and tarantula!
The next few days in the Amazon were likewise very similar with more hikes, more paddles and lots more rain. We did go for a night canoe in search of caiman and anaconda, and even though we kept our flashlight trained on the riverbank we never did see any red eyes being reflected back at us.
We have seen lots of monkeys, so I am happy with that, but the Amazon is certainly not the place you see in movies with animals around every bush, they are hard to spot! Which, makes the sightings all the more special. There are more than enough bugs though, every step you take you need to check your footfalls, and every where you turn we are dodging spider webs. Our theme song has become "shake shake shake it off", "you have an ant on your leg...", ..."spider on your shoulder...", "...don't step on the cockroach!", "...look at this bug that just landed on me...", "...is this the biting one?"
Dusky Titi
Found in our room
Attempting to dry them out.. and prevent houseguests
Piranha for lunch
Rain, rain all the time
"Don't move, I want to take a picture of the bug on your back!"
We are so impressed with this young man, our guide Martine, who is so sweet, gentle and has so many talents. In the past few days we have trusted this 17 year old to lead us through the jungle, with just a machete. We walk for hours and he always knows exactly where he is going. He has pulled a fish out of the river with his bare hands, he has found an inch long brown salamander on a brown leaf, on the brown ground, he has a sense out of which hole and which place to pull out the best bugs, and he chopped a 1 foot diameter tree down with his machete in about 20 seconds. He was even ready to climb to the rafters of the lodge to retrieve a tarantula so I could see it. Unfortunately he has earned the name "baby" from us, because Kate exclaimed the first day that " aww he's just a baby!" when we found out his age, and now all of the staff here are calling him that.
Attempting to shoot a blow dart gun.
I killed the banana!!!! No, I didn't Javier did
Our trip has been very memorable and I am so happy to have visited this amazing, wet, green, loud place! Even falling asleep was an adventure, listening to all of the sounds outside. Monkies, frogs and bugs dominated, but there were so many different ones! Crying baby, sick duck, lost cat, airplane, and we firmly believe that the beep beep of a traditional alarm clock was recorded here!
The time in the rainforest was an adventure, but so was departing from it! We got up super early and were in the moterized canoe by 6am. Travelling down river for 2 hours we arrived at a clay lick where a ton of green parakeets were hanging out collecting the minerals from the mud. From there we went for a short hike in a national park and climbed a very tall tower with a view above the trees. It was neat to see the river from above, and also the expanse of the jungle surrounding us. We saw a few more birds, and from this vantage point we got to actually see their colours, because they weren't backlight by the sky. After that we stopped in on a Kiwcha women's collective. This group of hard working women are working to bring in extra money while their husbands work, mostly for the oil company, far from home. At the same time they are working to preserve their traditional culture. We got to see and participate in a couple dances, and a lady took us through a traditional kitchen, and showed us all the ingenious ways the indigenous people used the jungle for everything from candles to cheese graters were made out of various plants. We also got to try some different drinks; traditional red bull, a tea with a lot of caffeine, used to wake children up when they had to get up and work at 3 in the morning, and chicha a milky fermented drink made of yucca and used in all ceremonies and social events.
Howler monkey!! The sounded like traffic on the highway all together
Parakeets at the clay lick!
River and jungle from above!
Krys is getting the hand of playing the turtle shell!
This was a great stop, but wasn't the adventure part. As we left there it became clear that the engine in our moterized canoe was stuggling a bit, sputtering and choking. It was entertaining to see once we hit a certain point on the river, just about all the staff who were on the boat travelling back with us, pull out their cell phones and start making calls. I guess they all knew exactly where the cell phone tower reached. At this point I just assumed they were calling home to say hi to family. Shortly after the cell phones started out we pulled off to a town on the side of the river. The last town that the land roads travel to! If you want to go further into the jungle, as we did, you have to use the river. Martin jumped off and started running, turns out we was setting off to find oil, we had run out of, to mix with the gasoline for the moter engine. He found none, so jumped back in the canoe and we went down the river a little farther where we stopped at someone's house who owned a moter canoe. "We help each other out" explained Javier, the same way you might stop if you see someone with a flat tire on the road. Well this guy didn't have oil either, so someone borrowed a bike and took off down the road to a store that might have it. They came back about half an hour empty handed.
At this point they decided to syphon some more gas? Or syphon some of the mixture out of the friend's canoe? I am not really sure which, using a plastic hose and their mouth. Cell phones are out again. This time they called up to another lodge up the river. That lodge sent out two staff in their own motorized canoes with some oil/gas mixture for us, which they tossed to us as we drove/floated by. Finally that engine was happy, but all of this stopping and running around had cost us some time. Our flight out of Coca to Quito was at 5:10, and at this point we still had about 45 more minutes of river to go and about 1.5 hours until our flight was supposed to lift off. I could see the staff still making phone calls, but I was completely oblivious as to why. I knew we would be close to our flight time, but the airport was a one room building with only one little landing strip. I knew that there would be only one flight out. What I didn't know was that if you don't check into your flight an hour before, they sell your ticket to standby. And our flight was the last one to Quito that day. We pulled into the dock with about 40 minutes to liftoff, and my backpack was already being tossed onto the dock before we were even tied up. No time to say "bye" to any of the staff who were so great to us this week. "Quickly quickly! Said the lady sweeping the sidewalk. To the front of the building, our bags are already in some trucks, no time to wait for a taxi, the lodge staff called ahead and had their friend's trucks waiting for us. We jump in and the drivers rumble off. No time to say "bye" to Martin as he stands back and waves. Weaving through traffic we make it to the airport in a few minutes, and once again run in! This time the staff called ahead to have someone at the airport in line convincing the ticket agents not to sell our seats to standby. We check in, bags tagged, and actually get to say "bye" and thank you to Javier. And then, I finally get to pee.
The literal, end of the road... the last road that goes into the Amazon jungle, and the end of it
Syphoning gas in an attempt to keep the motor going!
I am very much looking forward to the next leg of this trip which will take us to the Galapagos islands! Here, I hear the difference between the jungle and the islands are that in the jungle you have to search out the animals, and in the Galapagos they come to you! Cant wait!
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