Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hi,
The Jungle was AMAZING!!! We stayed for 5 days at the Cyabeno National Park. We went from Banos to Lago Agrio, then a 2 hour bus ride from Lago Agrio to where we met our guide. Our guide was called Mama Arora, and was a machete wielding, 82 year old great grandma with 3 teeth!
We travelled 3 hours down the Rio Aguarico to a lodge with no name. We had tea, then was given a night tour of the jungle by Santiago, Mama Arora's 14 year old grandson. It was pitch black, we had little torches, and at night the jungle is so loud! The 4 of us were pretty scared (Steve, Sam, Frank, Heidi) to say the least. We saw bats, HUGE spiders, a tarantula which was massive (but apparantly only a baby!), rather large stick insects, a big fat toad, termites, and big cricket-type thing...all sorts. We all brush passed a tiny yellow spider, which when we pointed it out to Santiago, he shouted 'mucho venomous!!' We heard this quite alot throughout the trip.
We stayed in wooden huts, which were basic. They had a bed and a toilet, and we 'showered' in the river.
The next day we went on a 4 hour hike through the jungle with Mama Arora and her machete. This was so she could explain to us about the plants and trees and how they use them. It was amazing to see that they had a remedy for everything using the leaves/flowers/stems of plants.
The first thing we tried were lemon ants, so called because they live on the lemon tree. If you eat them, they taste of lemon! Very tasty.
Throughout the walk M.A was looking for little coca shells. eventually she found the ones she was looking for, and when she cracked them open they had big fat witchety grubs inside. A delicacy aparantly! You twist the head off and suchk the insides out...so that's what we did. None of us were particular fans of this one!!
M.A went on to show us cures for stomach aches, head aches, herbs and spices, teeth cleaners and all the other things they use the jungle for.
We travelled by boat to a sort of plantation, where M.A showed us how to make Euca bread. We used the roots of the euca tree, and with no other ingrediants made a thin, bread/tortilla which was yummy. We also added banana to it which was even better.
The mosquitos were there in their thousands throughout our trip, and we all got bitten...a lot. After the first day, Stevie counted 96 bites on the back of my legs alone :(
We had another walking tour through the jungle on day 3, where we were super lucky and saw a black jaguar, and almost stepped on a snake. The snake was between us and M.A, and was right across our path. She assured us it wasn't venomous, and shoo-ed it away by wiggling her arms and waggling her tongue at it.
After our walk, we were taken by boat to the Laguna Grande, we were were able to swim, then do a spot of piranha fishing. I was very proad of myself catching 2 piranhas, Nobody else caught any, except M.A, who caught loads!
The next day we were taken to see The Shaman of the local community. He explained the process he went thorugh to become a Shaman which involved taking a lot of halluciagenic plant juices. We had already heard stories of this 'drug', about the visions it could cause and how it expanded on your fears...and we could buy some for $10. Frank bought some, and had prepared by not eating for the whole day as it can make you throw up quite a bit.
We had a chance to look arounf the local community and they had a pet monkey called Nacho. They had acquired him as a baby as he was injured, and they hoped to release him into the wild when he got older.
In the evening, we took a canoe down the river to see Toucans. 4 of us (Steve, me, Heidi and Santiago) in one canoe, and Frank in his own. We were paddling up river to start with which was tough on the arms, but we managed to get a rhythm going. There were points in the river that were partially blocked by trees/branches, but our canoe managed to pass these in one piece. Frank on the other hand, did not have enough speed to get over the branches and managed too wedge himself so that he was stuck! As he called to us for help, we turned to see his canoe filling with water. It was the funniest thing to see his canoe capsize! It all worked out in hte end though, and we managed to see the toucans and a sleeping sloth.
The final day was the boat ride back to the mouth of the river, then the bus rides back to Banos.
We had a truly amazing experience in the jungle. It was strange that all the big things were fine, and all the little creatures were the really venomous ones!
Unfortunately, our camera had a tantrum on the trip so we don't have that many pictures!
All our love
Stevie & Sam
- comments