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As far as bus journeys go, it wasn't the most pleasant, not only did it start at 11pm, I also managed to sit next to one of the local snorers. The only option was to listen to my music full tit until drowsiness kicked in. I drifted in and out of sleep for most of the night and not seemingly getting into a proper sleep until we were only a half hour from our destination.
On arrival to Lago Agrip, I followed one of the tour guides down the road to where our meeting point would be - Hotel D'Marco. On the way there, an ATM stop was required, because I had a total of about 25 dollars on me and that was the entrance fee to the reserve and I'd be left with nothing for the rest of the trip. The stupid ATM was doing abnormal things and I had to try about five times over two machines - knowing my luck I've actually probably taken out 2,000 dollars of my account and had no actual money to show for it. I gave up and moved to another ATM.
After a breakfast at the hotel, we had to wait for several hours for the guides to collect other passengers from the airport. This then turned into us being picked up from the hotel and then waiting for another half an hour at the airport. After arriving in town at 6.30am, we were finally on our way just before 12pm. We had a two hour car trip to the river and reserve border, so I decided to catch up on some sleep.
Once we finished our boxed lunches and our guide had sorted out our entrance fees, we jumped in a motorised boat ready for the two-three hour journey down river to our lodge.
We did a bit of nature spotting on the way. We saw several bats, Amazonian Kingfishers, Tiger Herons, some Sacky (?) monkeys - although these monkeys did retreat fairly fast once they caught wind of us, so I didn't get to see them that clearly. We drove straight under a tree boa that was curled up having a wee afternoon nap. It was an interesting journey, the seclusion of the river and the tranquillity of it all was marvellous. You really felt like you were the only people on the planet.
The Siona Lodge is located on Lago Grande. The room is lovely, new bathroom, mosquito nets, a balcony with a couple of chairs and a hammock that overlooked the lake.
After a wee rest, we gathered our things and headed out onto the lake for a swim and to watch the sunset. Once again, my aquatic skills came into full force whilst I sat in the boat and watched the others go for a paddle - there's always tomorrow night to try it out! The sunset over the lake was lovely, with the boats from the various lodges all perched on the lake.
Next on the agenda was a night walk. I was really glad that I'd managed to leave my lovely expensive head torch in my bag in Quito - along with my malaria tablets - doh! I'd had to acquire a new cheapo torch in Lago Agrip.
The night walk was stacks of fun, although trying to co-ordinate yourself, your torch, not trip over any roots, or touch anything that might possibly have be alive and poison/bite you was a little bit much for my mind to cope with at times.
We got to see some lovely creatures that you really wouldn't want to come across in a dark alley by yourself - Wolf spiders, big hairy tarantulas, bullet ants, cockroaches (did you all realise that there are apparently nearly 4,000 different species of them in the world - now that's a lovely thought isn't it). Locusts, a toad, a poisonous caterpillar - which was quite cute, lots more different spiders - all of which were poisonous and all very disgusting. Our guide decided to go tarantula hunting a couple of times - the first time, although the spider didn't come out of it's hole, we could see these great big black legs, and I didn't not want to see what was on the other end of them. The second time, he coaxed a "baby" tarantula out of it's hole. This thing was about four inches in diameter and really hairy - baby my bum, I'd hate to have seen it's mother.
The walk lasted about an hour and then we were back at the lodge ready for dinner.
On the trip are eight of us, a family of four from California, a Nicaraguan woman and her son and his friend and then little ole me.
The Nicaraguan women, also called Deborah, works for the UN and is currently stationed in Quito, but prior to that was in Afghanistan for two years.
The lodge runs from solar energy and there's only lighting from six till ten pm, so this is actually being typed in the dark and I think I'm doing quite a good job of it.
Slept like a baby, but I guess that isn't surprising considering what a long day it had been.
Up at 7.30, ready for breakfast at 8, before we headed out on a boat trip to see a local community (Sequoias (?)).
On the way down the river, we saw lots of squirrel monkeys, a something or rather titty monkey (am particularly good at remembering names!!), a beautiful red headed woodpecker, some many banded toucans as well as a giant otter (apparently that's 500 points, because people never see them). We also saw a juvenile Tiger Heron and this is where they get their name - as youngsters, their feathers are stripy, yellow and blackish, like the tiger. As they get older, their feathers turn a beautiful deep red colour.
The weather crapped out on us so the ponchos came on. Unfortunately, the rain was coming directly into our faces so we had restricted viewing of the river banks.
On arrival at the community, we came across a woolly monkey, which was being kept as a pet by the locals. Having said that, apparently they taste quite nice as well and the locals do it them on occasion.
We had a local lady show us how to harvest yuca/manock/casava (whichever term tickles your fancy) and prepare it for cooking "jungle pizza" - essentially a flatbread of sorts - not bad tasting, but probably a lot better if it was doused with pepperoni, cheese and chilli oil.
After a bite to eat, we travelled further down the river to the local shaman's house - the shaman live separately from the community to help them concentrate on their medicines.
Although the Sharman wasn't at home, his son, who is training to be a shaman was available. He was in traditional dress (well, it took ten minutes before we saw him, so I'm assuming that he just put his kit on). He had parrot feathers in a crown upon his had and he wore a necklace of jaguar teeth around his neck - this necklace was over 163 years old and it had a lot of teeth!!
The sharman went through a shortened version of his ritual and then answered questions for us.
They use a special tonic made from a vine (Devil's Vine) to induce hallucinations to show them the other person's illnesses - in these visions, they also have other ancient sharman telling them how to cure the problems.
For ten dollars each, we bought some of this magical tonic - the hallucinations are supposed to last for a couple of hours and you see all sorts of animals, snakes, people and the like - you need to be able to control yourself so you don't flip out and start screaming - it's going to be fun!!! We've decided to leave this excitement for the last evening.
As part of this, the sharman blessed us all and the drink we were going to have. Afterwards, we decided that we'd leave the drinking till our last night, so we could do our night activities today.
The sun had decided to come out for our return trip, which was lovely and I got my pasty whites out to celebrate.
On the way back up, we saw capuchins and more squirrel monkeys. There were then some stirrings in the water and we got to see the pink dolphin, although we didn't get to see too much of it, just the odd dorsal fin and a nose.
Once we got back onto the Lago Grande, we saw more pink dolphins. These ones were a lot more precocious, jumping more out of the water than those we saw on the river. You could really see the pink colour on their bodies.
We took a short break before heading back out on the lake to go for a swim and watch the sunset. This time round I made the plunge and the water wasn't so bad - obviously deeper than I would have liked (mmmmmm, not sure how I'm going to cope with the Pacific Ocean when I go to the Galapagos!!). Once we'd piled back into the boat to go check out the sunset, we noticed a water snake so went to investigate, like the other five boats that were on the lake.
The poor snake was horrified, completely surrounded by boats and no real way of getting away, so it decided the best option was to head for the nearest boat. Screams were heard from all over the place. Our daring guide jumped into the water to save the snake (and people on the boat) but the snake managed to wriggle away - onto another boat. This was all very amusing until it somehow ended up on our boat. At the time I thought someone had said that it was very dangerous, so I get a little panicky as it made it's way along the length of the boat towards me. It ended up perched on our outboard motor. Eventually after several boat changes, our guide managed to capture the snake and take it to safety in a nearby tree.
After all that, everyone completely missed the sunset.
Back to the lodge for soup and spag bol for dinner.
The evening entertainment was searching for the night creatures, mainly caimans, some owls and night monkeys (coatis (?)). At the start we managed to see a pair of eyes looking out at us from the depths of the mangrove. We then saw a bird (although not nocturnal) and that was the extent of our adventure. Admittedly the stars looked amazing. It was a clear night and the milky way streamed through the sky and down in the corner was my favourite constellation, the Southern Cross, lighting the sky in all it's glory.
The evening was rounded off with a few hands of cards.
Wednesday morning we all jumped into the boat for a quick cross the lake to another area where we could go for a wildlife wander.
The walk was fairly uneventful wildlife wise, although we did learn a lot about various plants, how to use them - not that I think I'd cope out in the wild myself. We learnt how to call if we're lost by banging on a particular type of tree root, which vine to get water from, which ones were poisonous (flat ones!!), How some fungus clean trees, how some lemon ants help the tree they live on.
We also discovered the real reason we needed the gumboots/Wellingtons. The walk took us through some pantenal areas (swamp lands). So we were wading in calf deep, sometimes knee deep (if you took a wrong turn) mud. This wouldn't be too much of an issue in the likes of New Zealand where you could just use the various trees around you for support as you crossed logs etc, but in the Amazon where every second tree either has spikes to protect itself, or poisonous insects hiding on them, touching the trees was out of the question.
The compulsory downpour also happened whilst we were out walking. Am getting used to the rain now, it's not so much an issue for me, but trying to keep the camera dry is always a fun mission.
The walk lasted about three hours and in 98% humidity we all had sweats on by the end of it, so it was nice to get back and change into some dry loose clothing.
Whilst in the jungle, or possibly back at the lodge, some little critter has had a lovely feast of "blood 'o Deb" and my legs are covered in bites. I am officially an insect magnet.
After our last supper (we can't eat tonight because of the jungle juice we're going to drink), it's time for a little snooze before we go fishing.
The fishing trip isn't as successful as we'd all hoped, luckily the chef wasn't expecting a pile of piranhas to cook up. It was definitely more like fish feeding than fish catching and I think I was the worst culprit for the feeding.
A couple of them did catch itsy bitsy piranhas and after a few photographs we initiated the catch and release programme.
Back at the lodge we all psyched ourselves up for the psychedelic experience.
It wasn't the most pleasant tasting drink and we had to down it in one - it was the equivalent of about 200mls.
Afterwards, our tour guide told us to go and get settled into rooms because we'd need to concentrate on the visions.
Lying there, waiting for the clock to tick over, I started to wonder if it really worked or if it was all hoxis poxis and I'd just wasted 10 bucks on a feral tasting drink.
A half hour in, a buzzing started in my head - I was expecting it to be like a mosquito when they'd told us we'd hear it, but this was totally in the back of my brain not an outside noise at all.
That was the first stage, next, whilst I was staring at the thatched roof, I thought I was seeing things (ha ha?!?!) but the thatch started to move like it was in a dance of soldiers, back and forth, the outskirts of my vision started to go fuzzy, like when you used to watched 70s & 80s films where they showed people remembering past events. I then felt like I was on a mattress on a river and I was floating down it.
The thatched roof then began to change colour, from a straw colour to a pale greeny/purplish colour. It was all a bit bizarre, in that it was hard for me to figure out if it was my just putting the images into my own head, or if it was actually hallucinations. Next a body stone kicked in, and it took all effort to lift my hand to my face to scratch it.
In the background I could hear one of the girls throwing up, I wanted to help her, but I didn't want to move and she had her sister there to help her. Then it was one of the guys' turn to throw up.
I carried on watching the roof dance for a bit then decided to close my eyes to try and see if that had any impact. That's when I saw the cartoon images - monkeys, demons and the like - none of them realistic, but strange. All the colours were fluorescent purples, greens, yellows and blues - just like neon lights running together.
While lying there, I wanted to sleep but my mind just wouldn't let me, so I had to involuntarily watch these random images - the worst was the devil (cartoon) that looked something cross between a transformer and something out of the Krull). At that moment I got a sudden urge to throw up - this was an hour and half into the experience, whilst all the others threw up within 20-30 mins.
Rushing to the toilet (harder said that done, because a strange feeling came over me as soon as I tried to sit up, let alone stand), I realised that the toilet lid was down because I'd had a shower - with all my good intentions, it was not a direct hit into the toilet.
The stuff definitely did not taste very nice second time around. Whilst I was standing there, the whole world seemed to melt into the toilet bowl - similar to Dali's clock paintings or Munch's The Scream. It was an effort to concentrate but the feeling of melting was overwhelming.
The fuzzy - retro dreaming moments then returned and the whole bathroom was swirling like a dream.
After making it back to my bed, I tried to sort my blanket out - I was freezing, although the temperature outside was close to the mid-twenties, my blanket seemed to be a never ending piece of cloth that I couldn't seem to find an edge to be able to flap it out - I gave up in the end.
They said that it was supposed to last about two hours, my session went on for at least three, and even then the buzzing continued and I had insomnia and managed all of two hours sleep max. Even when I woke at 5.30am, the buzzing was still there and didn't leave until close to 8am.
It was an experience that although I wouldn't do it again, nor necessarily recommend to people, it had it's moments, but it's best if you make up your own mind to do it if you're ever out this way.
That morning, we went on our last boat trip around to see the early morning birds rising. The boys never made it.
Mariah and Morgan weren't impressed with their experiences, or lack thereof and when I finally spoke to Diego and Lucas, Lucas had seen absolutely nothing and thrown up - in his words it cost him 10 bucks to throw up.
It was a shame that the trip was over, I'd had a brilliant time in the jungle - everything was so much easier to do with only 8 people as opposed to the 16-20 I'd been with previously.
We had a two hour journey back on the river to meet the van. After dropping everyone off at the airport, I was taken to a hotel, where I spent a very non-eventful night, mostly watching Spanish television.
On the Friday, I caught a day bus back to Quito - the scenery was brilliant, deep forest valleys, with waterfalls and the like, I'm glad I'd made the decision to stay overnight rather than get a night bus back.
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