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After having such great succes with our thumbs all the way from Otavalo to Baños, we decided to keep on hitching across the country. The next journey was not our longest ride so far, but maybe the most comfortable and enjoyable one. We caught a ride on the trunk of a small pickup, driven by a middle-aged man and his daughter. They were Ecuadorian tourists one a roadtrip to experience the jungle together. Down what is popularly known as "the road with the seven waterfalls" we saw alot of the magnificent waterfalls, the same as we passed while cycling, and we caught a glimpse of the Amazon rainforest stretching for countless miles east. While driving, we were talking about what we want to do in Puyo. Our #1 one the what to do - list was to visit the animal rescue center a mile or two out of town. Again, luck showed us her beautiful face, and when we arrived in Puyo our driver asked if we wanted to join them to "see some monkeys". In other words, animal rescue-center. The center is driven by mostly volunteers, who take in animals who is either found injured in the jungle or retrieved from the blackmarket trades. A common denominator for all of them is that none are capable to live freely in the wild. This center is a good replacement though. Most of the animals walk freely and have the opportunity to enjoy themselves in trees, with the visitors and with each other. A great first encounter with amazonian animals.
After saying our goodbies with our new friends and checking in on a ok hostal we sat down to eat and startet talking with the owner of our hostel. Kind of randomly our conversation ended with him calling up his friend, the indigenous guide Patricio, and had him come over for a talk. And what do you know, a good hour later we booked a three day trip into the jungle of Ecuador.
On they one our guide was taing us to see a family living in the secondary jungle to brew and try the traditional herbal cleansing drink called "ayahuasca". We had heard a lot about it, and had made some friends who have tried it. It´s only cooked by certain shamans and it´s not easy to find a real version. We strolled around for a bit in the "garden" of the family we visited and cut off some roots and gathered some leafs. It then takes a lot of cooking and waiting to finish. The biggest challenge for us in this process was that we were not allowed to eat anything after 07.30. We spent the waiting time just walking around in the nearby forest, with Patricio talking about different medicines and animals. Seems like everything in the jungle is usable for something. When it was time for ayahuasca, our guide, the shaman, told us about the background and uses for the traditional indigenous ceremony. The indigenous in the amazon have for centuries used it for divine purposes. For healing, cleansing, seeing the future and to be able to seeing people who in reality is far away. . Our friends who tried it, ended up with laying on the ground vomiting a whole night. Luckily, we did not suffer the same faith. The whole experience was really bizarre. The ayahuasca has a different effect on everybody, but hallucination, dreaming and dizzyness are usual. Eirik hallucinated alot while Ludvig had alot of bizarre dreams. Even though really strange, thinking back on the things we saw, alot makes sence, and who knows, maby we saw the future? Eirik certainly met people who he knows isn´t in Ecuador. This might sound like a classical acid trip from a hollywood movie, but it was nothing like that. We were at all time 100% clear in the head and was always able to seperate reality from fiction. It´s hard to explain with words.
The next day we woke up for a freshly hunted breakfast, consisting of fresh papaya and "cochuchu", an armadillo-related animal from the rainforest. Don´t know how much of the good, clean feeling in our bodies that was from the experience the day before or what part was produced by our own minds expecting to be cleansed. Nevertheless we felt good. When the pouring rain stopped around 0900 o´clock we marched towards the primary rainforest. 3 hours later we encountered our place for the night. It wasn´t a nice hotel, but we just called it "The Leaf Hostal", see pictures. Our guide started to cook and we went down to the creek, see pictures. In the jungle we found some awesome jungle fruits called jungle pineapples. Deliciuous stuff, but our tongues were soar as hell after just a few bites, apparently you´re suposed to cook them first. After nightfall we went on a nightwalk with flashlights. Unfortunately the night was clear with a strong moonlight, so the nocturnal animals were not very active. But we walked in a creek killing small fishes with a machete and catching rivershrimps while the keechua guy was searching for caimans for breakfast. We got lots of food, but no caimans unfortunately. Went to sleep in our hostal with small mosquito nets protecting us from the insectarium of the forest.
At about 3-4 in the morning we woke up to a powerful thunderstorm hitting our surroundings. The rain was pooring down and we were praying for the jungle leaf roof to drain all the water away before it soaked us. Meanwhile the skies were flashing with lightnings and the sound of the rain was furious. We made ourselfes as small as possible to avoid getting wet and cold, and it worked and when the morning light came, the keeshua guys (guide and family father) had made a fire and cooked breakfast. Their secret of making a fire during a jungle thunderstorm remains a secret. The food was the stuff we had catched the night before; shrimps, small(!) fish and jungle pineapple, and of course some rice. GREAT stuff! Waited out the rain and went back to the place we had drunk ayahuasca the night before.
After eating a cochuchu lunch we got ourselves back to Puyo and hurried to get to the busstation, uploaded some stuff to the blog and jumped on a nightbus to Guayaquil. Our experience in the jungle close to Puyo was fantastic and our guide and shaman Patricio sure showed us a lot about what you can achieve in the jungle. Next time we will go deeper into the rainforest.
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Mary Osche Fascinating. . . Are you sure that wasn't an acid trip?