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Helloooooo from the amazon jungle......................
We are getting close to the end of our trip with less than a month to go now but still lots of adventures on the cards. Our latest trip was to the amazon jungle in ecudor and as you can see from the photos we had some interesting experiences with jungle creepy crawlies. Steve even managed to get to know a tick quite well!! He has thankfully shaved off the jungle Jim beared though as people kept thinking he was 40 years old!!
We set off for the Jungle last Friday evening catching a hellish bus from Quito to a bridge in the jungle where we were met by our guide Washington, a typical ecuadorian name!! He took us by boat (which was made from one single tree trunk) for two more hours into the jungle to our lodge. Throughout the boat trip we felt like we had enetered a David Attenborough wildlife programme. The rivers werer narrow and we had to constantly duck underneath roots and branches that hung down from the trees. Monkeys jumped around in the trees above us and brightly coloured birds and butterflys swooped around us. Even in the water we spotted Cayman eyeing us up and crazy fish jumping out of the water.
Our lodge was set amongst the forest with individual huts to accomodate 30 people and a dinning area connected by walkways, all of it supported several meters above the ground. Everything was open to the elements including our shower and loo which had a great view of the jungle!
We spent the next few days walking in the forest, taking boat trips, visiting local villages (who had a pet baby woolly monkey as they`d eaten his parents) and fishing for piranah. One of the best experiences was visiting the local Shaman or witch doctor. He was dressed in traditional dress with a feather through his nose. Everytime the local people would visit him he would drink a hallucinogenic potion which would allow him to see what illness the person had by the colours they emitted, red for blood, black for brain etc. He could then select the correct jungle plants to cure them. Often he would have 20-30 people a day so this guy spent most of his time high!
Another memorable experience was the night jungle walk which was definately not for the feint hearted. This is the time of day when all the spiders come out to hunt, especially the really big hairy ones. All you had was a torch and everytime you shone it down, the ground moved with spiders. There were tarantulas, scorpion spiders and wolf tarantulas which could could make you rather ill. Along with them there were also lots of big creeps crawlies all over the place that seemed to jump out at you. Every time a bit of branch touched you it made you jump and scream and poor Steve almost scared himself to death. The picture of me and the spider was from the delightful jungle walk but I wasn`t as brave as one guy who had it on his face!!
After our Jungle experience we headed to Tena to go white water rafting but unfortunatley it got cancelled this morning due to lack of numbers so`we`re heading back to Quito tomorrow for some drinking and shopping before our flight to columbia on Sunday. I can`t wait for some Caribbean sun, a hammock and some cocktails!!
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