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Hola,
Well it has been about 3 weeks since my last update, so I think I will start off by telling you about the Jungle. I went to Tena on the Friday afternoon as soon as I broke up from work (the volunteer project). We spent Friday & Saturday night in Tena where we swam in the river, went out with Claire´s friends and generally had little wonder around. It was the Water Festival that weekend so there were lots of water throwing and foam spraying going on luckily the main water throwing was on the Sunday so I managed to escape most it!On the Sunday we arrived at Shangrila Cabins which was to be our Jungle Lodge for 2 nights. The View of the Jungle from Shangrila was beautiful! I have downloaded the pictures but the photos don´t really do it justice. After settling in we then told to put on our Wellies and wear long sleeved tops & trousers ready for our first day trek. I soon found out just why we had to dress like this.. the first couple of hours walking in the Jungle I thought “oh this is easy enough, don´t know what the other people were talking about when they said it was hard work”….then after passing bats, frogs, different plants, walking through narrow rocks where I could barely fit through we approached a small Cave. I thought “well this is a dead end no where to go from here”, oh how wrong I was! Jose our guide then proceeded to show us how to climb up the cave leaning with our bum & the back of our hands on one side of the cave and with our feet on the other side.. I was ready to turn back right then! Obviously I´m here to tell the tale so I did make it up the cave though there were a few times when I thought my legs were going to give in and I would fall down the 40 feet drop! That was not the end of it… there were other narrow ledges to walk across though this time we were allowed a rope to hold onto and another couple of climbs but not in caves to do. I was very happy once we came out of the jungle and I could sit down and have my much deserved lunch overlooking the Amazon. In the afternoon we floated in a rubber ring down the river and then relaxed in the hammocks in the evening, a lovely finish to the day. The next day we didn´t have as much strensious activity..we did a hike through the forest and stopped and looked at different medicine plants and then visited an indigenous community who live in the Jungle. The house is in the pictures, but it was basically a simple wooden shack and all the food they eat is picked from the forest like Yucca & Plantain. It’s amazing what simple lives they live but they seemed very happy. We then visited their school which is in the pictures. The evening again was spent relaxing in the hammocks and appreciating our surroundings. On the last day the worst was to come, we were driven to a different lodge where we left our stuff and then set off to walk through the rainforest again hoping to see the waterfalls not realizing that we physically had to climb up the waterfalls! The Waterfalls were only small but it still was hard work, we had a rope to help us and the guide instructed us where to put our feet as we climbed up, all this why the water was gushing down on our faces! We finally made it and as you can see from the pictures we all went straight into the last waterfall to cool off. This was our final day and after that it was time to return to Tena to get our bus back to Quito. All in all it was a fantastic weekend and I would definitely return to the Jungle if I get a chance.
I haven´t been away since the Jungle and have spent 2 weekends in Quito, relaxing, looking around the Old Town and meeting up with friends. I am still really enjoying volunteering in CENIT so much so that I have decided to stay in Ecuador until the end of April instead of leaving in March as originally planned. Last Friday we made musical Maracas with the children out of plastic bottles and beans & lentils, they decorated the bottles with stickers, paper & Ribbon. They really enjoyed this activity. Today we took them to the Library which they also love but I think that is mainly for the toys rather than the books and it is difficult to get them to read, especially the younger ones they have a very low concentration span. We also have a new girl in my group as Danny the volunteer who started at the same time as me as finished now and Martina the secretary of our group is leaving at the end of March. This is the thing that is a bit sad in CENIT, so many volunteers only stay for 2 months or so, so just as the children are getting used to someone a new person starts. But I think the children just enjoy people to give them attention and play different games with them even if they are only going to be here for a short time. I have to move out of my home stay on Monday as this is when the contract terminates so I am going to move into a hostel which is near CENIT and near the centre too. This weekend I am returning to Tena as there is going to be a big indigenous community get together on the beach were they will sing quichua (their language) & dance, etc. We will camp out in tents for the night on the beach and bring our food etc. I´m looking forward to it so I will let you know how it goes!
Hope everyone is well and make sure you email me with all your news!
J x
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