Ecuadorian Amazon

It’s only been about two weeks, but so much has happened since I last posted a blog! We are currently in Buenos Aires Argentina, where we came from Quito, Ecuador, but Kirk and I started off the New Year in Banos, Ecuador where (after the big celebration I already posted about) we did some hiking and a spa day. We also had a two day setback because I got sick again – this time with some kind of sinus thing and a fever. (Seriously, in all my other travels, I never got sick like this!) We didn’t do much of anything those two days, but after I got better we boarded a bus and headed to Lago Agrio where we boarded another bus to Cuyabeno Reserve. There, we loaded our things onto a motorized canoe and set off down the river for a two hour journey to the Caiman Lodge in the middle of the amazon. The amazon is our topic for today.

If you’ve ever asked me if I have any regrets in life, I would have said that I tend to not regret much, but one of my biggest regrets was not going to the Peruvian Amazon when I was already in Peru and had the opportunity. Being a college student at the time, an extra $300 journey didn’t seem that appealing to me until people came back with pictures and I realized what I had missed! Well, this was my opportunity to make up for that (and for cheaper!), and the experience definitely lived up to the hype!

We were in the amazon for four days and three nights. There was no internet and we only had power from 6-10 pm (they ran generators so that we could charge our camera), but it was really nice to be away! This will be a long post, but continue on to hear how we spent our days and to see some pics of what we saw and did. (Apologies for grainy pictures! We only have our phones and a water camera and many of these were taken on a moving boat!)

Day one:

Two hour boat ride to the lodge. It poured down rain on us almost the entire ride, but somewhere in the middle of the downpours we spotted squirrel monkeys (which travel in groups of 100-200), a baby caiman (like, a crocodile), and lots of colorful birds! The scenery itself was amazing – lush greens, palms, and huge trees covered in vines/root systems from plants living on them. The small plants growing on the trees had roots that grew and grew until they reached the river below! It was beautiful!

In the rain, on the boat, in our provided ponchos

Cool vine tree!

After arriving at the lodge we rested and then got back on the boat to see the sunset in the nearby lagoon, where we also swam. This lagoon is also where pink river dolphins search for food. We didn’t see any this night but did later in our trip!

Here are some photos:

Our building- that’s kirk in the hammock on the bottom right.

Our fellow tourists and the lodge lookout tower

Our room with our mosquito nets (though there weren’t many mosquitoes – I let it down in hope of keeping out the tarantulas 😳 and it did 🙂 )

Swimming in the lagoon at sunset—

—

Day 2:

We began the day with a nature walk – our tour guide, Washington, (who we later found out was the owner of the lodge) was amazing! He and another local named Luis toured a group of 23 of us around the jungle (which actually turned out to not be too many of us). I thought this might be some kind of hokey thing where they have animals planted somewhere (or they know the animal’s home) and we would just walk to them, but that was not the case. These guys would hear a noise and make everyone get silent and start searching. They spotted animals that I often had trouble seeing even when they were pointing at them! They could identify all the animals/birds by sound, and easily spotted insects on trees and leaves. We went off the beaten path for quite a while – crossing rivers when we found small fallen trees and treading through mud and swamp areas. (They provided boots, thankfully!). It was quite an adventure!

Monkeys we saw! They moved so fast it was hard to get a picture!

Mitad Del Mundo (Middle of the world- the equator) in the Amazon

They called these prehistoric stinky birds. Apparently these guys have two stomachs and the way in which they digest food makes them smelly enough to ward off predators. They are pretty big and can’t fly far.

We saw many colorful parrots, but this is the only one we got a picture of that you could actually see the color! He’s green, so he blends in, but he’s in the middle of the trunk if you have trouble finding him!

We saw many trails of leaf cutter ants. This is a terrible picture, but under each of those leaf pieces is a tiny ant carrying it! There’s a video on insta/facebook that gives a better look.

After the jungle walk we began our search for an anaconda. We’d heard one of the locals say the night before that there was an anaconda that was currently easy to get to because it’s shedding. I thought this might mean that you follow the skin to find it, but it actually means something quite different. Apparently, when anacondas shed they are very vulnerable. Their skin becomes sensitive, so they sort of hide out to protect themselves. So…we went to the anaconda’s hiding spot – in the middle of vine like trees, growing in knee deep muddy waters.

We didn’t walk for long before I gave up and let the water flood my boots. We waded for several minutes before one of the fellow tourists spotted it. The snake was just hanging out in the water, part of him wrapped around a branch with his head barely out of the water. We gathered around it like we were at the zoo – Kirk and I both within five feet of the head of this at least 13 foot long wild snake (the one they’d found the day before was over 20 feet!) One girl took a picture with her hand about 3 inches from this thing’s middle section. It just sat there – vulnerable. I’m still shocked you can get that close.

Can you see it?

Here’s some help if you are having trouble

This helps show how close we were…though it was bigger than it looks here.

That evening we went out on the boat looking for caimans. They feed at night and when you shine a light into the water near the banks, their eyes shine bright. We don’t have pictures, but it was a cool experience!

Day 3:

This was the most touristy day. We visited a nearby village where they painted our face with tribal designs and taught us how to make yucca bread. As a group we harvested, grated, and baked the bread. Really, the best part of the morning was our conversation with Washington. While the group was working on the bread we asked our guide about where he was from. While he is not Huaorani, it turns out that Washington’s father is the Godfather of the son of the man who killed Jim Elliot (End of the Spear). He said that half the Huaorani are now peaceful people while the other half split off and kill anyone who comes into their territory. It was fascinating hearing about the history of the tribe and how people there view this story that’s now famous in American Christian circles. He said that they don’t want to kill anyone, they just want to be left alone, and killing is one of the only ways they’ve been able to get their message across. Violence is a universal language. That half of the Huaorani people are now one of the only tribes of what is considered uncontacted/isolated peoples in Ecuador. They have no contact with the developed world and according to our guide, the reason is because of negative experiences with oil companies. And all judgements aside, it’s pretty fascinating that this group of people are the some of the only ones who have been able to hold back the all consuming influence of the modern world, even if it’s been through violence.

The “paint” is fruit!

—

This is our guide, Luis, with the woman who taught us to make the bread. The plants near her are yucca plants and the part you eat is the root (seen in the next picture)

It pretty much tastes like potatoes.

After eating we headed to the Shawman, or healer of the community. He showed us some of his medicine tricks and Kirk volunteered for a demonstration. The shawman sang while hitting him in the back with a prickly plant (pictured below)

—This is the prickly plant!This is a picture of Kirks back after the demonstration (the guy sitting next to him volunteered too!) It looks painful, but they said it’s supposed to relax you. We don’t know what was in that plant, but by evening Kirk was saying he definitely felt more relaxed and he slept great that night.

After this we tested our luck with a blow dart. We both came close to the target!

——

This is a swarm of butterflies we saw by the village.

After leaving the village we went with our guide to see if we could catch a piranha…he did…

Look at those teeth!

After watching the sunset again in the lagoon, we went on a night walk – a walk through the jungle to look for night creatures (i.e. creepy things). We saw tarantulas, giant wolf spiders, scorpion spiders, scorpions, and a leaf bug. Take a look at a few…

TarantulaLeaf (top) next to a bug that looks like a leaf. (How our guide spotted all these in the dark still baffles me)

That is a scorpion spider on my face. I volunteered when they said they aren’t dangerous, mostly because it reminded me of something out of Harry Potter😂. It started on top of my head, which seems a little less creepy, ha.