THE AMAZON

So, Tuesday morning the 6 of us ( Me, Josh, Candi, Susan, Leah and Remco) set out to the amazon. We flew to a small town in the rainforest, then got a 2 hour bus journey even deeper into the rainforest, where the park enterance is and then a 2 and a half hour canoe ride down one of the rivers joining onto the Amazon river to our lodge. The reserve was called Cuyabeno and our lodge was called Semona Lodge. There was a group us and there was anoth group of people there already. The lodge was lovely, although very open into the wild, we were surrounded by rainforest and the huts we stayed in had big gaps to the outside allowing all sorts of creatures to come in! Our only protection was our mosquito nets! There was no electricty or anything, we did have a generator though to charge our cameras, fortunately.

So we then meet the guides, Gilberto and Jose Miguel who took us round for the next few days. That evening we went Pirranah fishing on the amazon and I was soooo angry...you know how competative I am, Josh was the only one who caught a Pirranah!

After dinner, btw they fed us soo well, lots of lovely food, we went on a night walk through the jungle! And OMG I actually though I was going to die. Well...slight exaggeration but still. I did get braver as we went on. But we only had our torches and the guides kept pointing out bugs on leaves and above us which we were then brushing past as we walked on deeper to the jungle. Especially as the wolf spiders were the size of my hand!! Josh and Susan I must say were alot more terrified than me. So Idid feel at leasdt one up on Josh! Candi was definitelt the Bear Gryills of the group though! NO FEAR! That night we al;so saw a Boa Constrictor on the roof of one of the huts and a taraantula. We were told that every hut had a tarantula in it...it was just a question of where ours was?! I'm not going to lie, that night was the scariest night I think...almost beats the mongoose in Kenya, I tucked my mosquito net in soo tightly and just had to accept the fact there was no light so all sorts of bugs could be around once the candle had burned out! FUN!

I survived the first night! We got up at 5.45am and went to the lagoon to watch the most spectacular sunrise, then we went Anaconda searching. Hvaing found an Anaconda nestled up in a whole, the are HUGE btw, went back to the lodge for breakfast.

After breakfast we set off on a day trip. First we got a canoe to a part of the junge. Then we walked in the junge for about 2 hours, it was sooo hot and humid! But we did see loads of animals! And we got filthy!

After the walk we had our lunch then went to visit a local community living within the jungle. Trying lots of the local food, fruit and plants.

Will finish later as run out of time.....

To carry on. After the commuitiy we went to the lagoon and went swimming in the Amazon. I can´t beieve I actually did that as i´m so petrified of things like that and there we anacondas and pirranah´s in there as well!

The next day we got a boat to the other side of tyhe lagon then got in Canoes and paddled our way through the amazon back tot he lodge Seriiously tiring and I also got a little burnt! Woops.

The rain is so wired here, one minute it is downpour monsoon then it is sunny and your frying! Anyway we then went pirranah fishing again that afternoon and I finally caught one. It was huge! Bigger than the one Josh caught, which obviously made me very happy! God damn my competativness!

Anyway, then next day we left to go back to Quito. I was so glad I flew, it was a 20 minute plane journey, whereas Josh got the bus and it took him over 8 hours!

Back at the hostel Candi and I got ready to get up early the next day, as we were going to Cotopaxi. Very big change in altitude!!