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Ok so we met a new guide, his name was lirio and our (me, shona, emily and carla´s) favorite and left Lago Agrio (or so we thought) in a little minibus which was so uncomfortable as i had a seat which had been adjusted properly and spent the 4 hours leaning forward! anyways we left without our guides which was sooooo not funny and everyone was worrying! only to find out we needed to get petrol...well diseal and does wanywhere in lago agrio sell diseal...i belive only one place!! after that nightmare bus journey which involved a lot of hangman we arrived at the nature reserve, paid our entrance and hopped on the motor canoe (a necessity in the jungle unless u want to wander around unexplored land with a machete!! this is where we met wilson our third guide of the week!! he was by far th emost knowlegable he could spot camoflauged animals a mile off and knew every plant in the amazon and all their uses!! so during our canoe ride we saw snakes, monkeys, pink dolphins and birds!! we arrived at the cabins which we awesome, didnt have hammocks tho which was the only downside!! we discovered samuels talent...cooking. it was amazing!! stayed up that night and played soooo many drinking games with ´jungle juice´which is nasty stuff i promise!! we tried to play roxanne but no1 had the proper version on their ipods so jamie suggested shes so lovely...one team drinks for shes so lovely and the other for i think that AND i dont know. that was a total killer!! cant listen to that song without memories of wanting to heave now!!
i think im on wednesday now...anyway the next day we went to another indigenous village and ate loads of random fruit and made pan de yuka (yuka bread to those english fellows!!) it tastes almost like chipates and def filled a hole. everyone helped the indigenous lady make the bread . In the afternoon we went for a swim in one of the lagoons, little did we know anacondas use the same lagoon as a swimming pool!! a few of the crew went climbing trees and all got bitten by ant things. carl decided to use the branch as a trampoline and him and lirio had competetions as to who could walk the furthest along the branch. That night we did a night jungle trek which was scarey and annoyingly painful as there are so many roots to stub your toe on! we saw scorpian spiders and a trarantula along with a lot of bugs like grasshoppers...yuck yuck yuck!!
thursday was the 5 hour trek, i have never sweated so much in my life, the rainforest is actually boiling!! everyones clothes were absolutely drenched! we did not look hot at all!! the trek involved a lot of walking, or balancing of logs in the middle of swamps (jamie discovered his balance talent here!!) you had to make it across aswell coz there are little bugs that eat ur skin if u get them in your wellies so falling isnt an option!! i managed to walk into a wasp nest (led by wilson i might add) that hurt so much and then we stopped so he could put something on th bite and carl managed to stop right in the wasps nest aswell...oops!! didnt see all that many animals but the slightly more unpleasant ones are worth mentioning, namely the corte pelo bees (hair cutting bees) they fly into your hair and sting you whilst cutting chunks of your hair out (carla encounted these). and jamie thought he was taking a photo of a swarm of flies around him only to find out that they were actually bees. not the brightest decision!! We managed to find the rarest type of any...the bullet ant which when it bites you it feels like you have been shot...ooh the excitement was uncontrolable!! oh and these random ants which you rub into your skin and apparently scares off tigers (no chance of that happening!!) i spen most of this trek singing dont stop me now with rachel and emily, not sure if it was the mcfly or queen version (to be fair you prob couldnt even tell what song it was!!), i left the high parts to emily as she can actually sing.
Later that day we went anaconda hunting carl was the only one that went swimming to start with and thought it was really funny to splash us all when we were all in dry clothes. eventually me and carla had enough and dived in. we hadnt realise the boat was filling with water coz of the splashing and as we were tryin to get back in our canoe we managed to tip it over the edge and it sank lol trying to get the water out of that when it surfaced was a bit of a b**** to say the least and it didnt help that we couldnt stop laughing!! carla lost her sunglasses but saved my shorts that i bought on my last day in england!!
everyone went to bed early that night bar the guides, me, carl and carla (who has now been nicnamed scooby...long story!!) we all stayed up played cards and stuff. whilst enjoying our chilaxed night a caimen (which is the largest specie of crocodile) wandered on into the kitchen. lirio sent poor little samuel in to get rid of it lol luckily it had already gone by this point. oh and then we heard an anaconda come crashing out a tree right by the cabins. so for some reason we decided it would be a good idea to go out on a late night canoe ride. to be fair we didnt encounter any problems and just did a bit of fishing (caught nada!!)
we woke up friday to find our beautiful sunny weather had gone and in its place was terenchal (cant spell to save my life!!) rain but the guides said we were still going on a whole day fishing. in our boat was me, shona, emily, carla and lirio, we sang a range of disney songs (just around the river bend was top of my list but i only know the chorus :(), row row row your boat and a few spanish songs (mainly to bring out the sun...it didnt work!! sol solicita calientame un pocquito hoy y manana y todo la semana :)) anyways we went to this area know for piranas to fish. i think lirio saw how cold and bored we were so said we could go back, only when it came to crossing the lagoon to get to the cabins we couldnt, the waves were far too big and we would have almost immediately capsized so we stopped at some deserted cabins owned by rich oil people. lirio tried to make us a fire but that didnt work and then he looked out to the lake to find our canoe had floated away as we hadnt tried it to the anything (ooops) but he couldnt get in the water as its not save there with electric eels etc etc. it was not a good moment for us as we wernt sure whether anyone knew where were! the conversation became rather morbid and we agreed that we could eat each other, it even got as far as deciding what parts would be the tastiest!! we also were worrying in case the others saw our empty boat. somehow during the conversation lirio managed to rescue our boat and we rowed to safety. the had caught 3 piranas between then and i have to say that is one tasty fish!!
everyone chilled that afternoon, i had a bit of a siesta (napa style oinky!) jess and carl went back out fishing but didnt catch anything. everyone has got tattoos on then with this random paint stuff which doesnt come off for 10 days (unlucky for jess who has it all over her face!!) not much else happened friday everone went to bed early as we had to be up at 5 am to go bird watching (yawn i wish i stayed in bed) the only highlight for me was going to be the sun rise but it cloudy so i missed that!! devooo!! back to camp for breakfast and then a 8 am departure. was so sad leaving the cabins (bit like leaving efi...heartbreaking!!) by this point carl had decided he was moving down to tena with lirio to live in th jungle (as hes finished his placement in quito) so he leaves tomorrow night which will be real sad as we all got all so well with him.
anyways we got back to quito after a 14 hour journey, which involved a maniac bus driver, carl trying to piss out the window coz the driver wouldnt stop and shona getting the conductors number!! we all went back to shonas to shower etc and then everyone crashed bar me, shona, xavi and david who stayed up all night...went and got burgers and chips at 6 am and then watched the man u liverpool game at 8 am!! i was dead after that but kept going (was in bed by 7 last night...suprised?!)
just in an internet cafe now so must be off!!
hope everythins all good back home, i hear its snowing?! pig get ur ass out here i wana see you!!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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