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Published: October 10th 2011
Friday 7th October
I cant help but wonder how you all are as I lay here in my hammock, listening to the birds and feeling the faint cool breeze sweep across our verandah, deep here in the Amazon jungle.
Shane on the other hand is on the throne doing a sudoku puzzle. LOL
Its been a bit of a mixed bag. When we arrived in Lago Agrio on Tuesday morning, we were hit with a wall of heat. I said "oh my god its so hot and humid!", to which Shane replied "Just remember whose idea it was to do this." And he continues to remind me to this day.
We drove for about 2 hrs from the airport at extremely high speed around extremely tight corners, and just as I thought we couldnt take any more, we pulled in for lunch at a little hut at The Bridge, from where we would also leave in our motorboat for Siona lodge.
Starting the journey from the highway, once you have reached The Bridge, the total trip to the end of Puerto Bolivar is by motor canoe about another 2hrs away.
Siona Lodge in Cuyabeno has 5 cabins
with each one housing 4 people, and is just what we expected - wooden huts with thatched roofs, and mosquito nets over the beds. The mossies here late in the evening arent too bad, but we are lathered in Bushmans from morning until night just to be sure. I cant imagine what it does to your body. I took my thongs off and the plastic was almost glued to the tops of my feet as though from some chemical reaction. There are no giant cochroaches in our room that I can see so for that I am relieved.
Our guide Miguel, tooks us out Caiman spotting and Pirahna fishing not long after we arrived. Not only did I catch my first fish ever but I caught the first Piranha of the night!! And with a simple bamboo pole no less. Unfortunately Sixto wasnt as lucky, which as I'm sure you can imagine, meant he wasnt going to leave here without catching more than me.
Shane says: She was on fire. Ripping this piece of tree branch with a hook in and out of the water with real flare. Nearly caught me a couple of times also.
The following
Siona Village
Shane grating Yukka for bread.morning we set out to the village of the Siona tribe, around another 2 hours in the boat. Its extremely humid this morning.
The first thing that you see as you enter the community is a vast football field and the school. The people of the community do not wear any special clothes however the older townsfolk who have not forgotten the traditions and teachings from the old days, wear special clothing.
We have picked Yukka, peeled it, grated it and squeezed all the juice from it to make a delicious bread on a scalding hotplate over an open fire, and watched the local children beat and throw around the little puppies. It was awful to watch them really. The grown dogs are already malnourished so there isnt much hope for the puppies once they stop feeding from their mothers.
After visiting the village we head about 20 mins upstream to visit Thomas Grefa, the local Sharman. His father Alberto used to be the sharman but he passed away about a month ago. The Sharman is the spiritual and physical healer of the community. People come to him for poltices to allay all sorts of ailments, as well as to
Cuyabeno
River view seek clarity for spiritual matters. When called upon for the latter, he takes a drink made from a special plant which supposedly gives him the ability to receive the answers. Basically, the drink is an hallucinogen, because thats what it makes him do, but if he focuses during the hallucinations, the answers come. Apparently we are able to try the drink under supervision because, as Luis warns, if we dont know what we are doing, we may end up "doing the runny shits all in the bed sheets". LOL I think I'll pass.
His father had over 600 recipes for various ailments which he has passed along to Thomas.
Thomas's ceremonial ensemble is made up of accessories and decorative details however he has his own unique amulet: A necklace made of Jaguars teeth.
He has a kind face and is very quietly spoken man.
Sixto has volunteered me for a demostration, so I dont know what sort of voodoo has occurred. Perhaps I will have the ability to make my husband do whatever I want him to!!! lol
It rained overnight and we have a trek in the jungle after breakfast the following morning. We are provided
with gumboots and rain ponchos and its starts raining again. Miguel has returned to Quito and we are left with the other guide Luis. He has a sharp eye. The only animal we saw was a ruby backed poisonous frog about the size of my small finger nail, but he saw it!
My poncho leaked because it was so big so I was drenched through about half an hour in, and we continued on like that for 3 hrs! I cant say it was any fun at all. Luis kept storming on through the jungle, leaving people behind and only explaining things to those who could keep up. At that point I didnt give a rats. The only things stupid enough to be walking around the jungle was us.
After a break for lunch Luis thought it would be a great idea to go and track down another anaconda and do a bit of pirahna fishing. The lake is really low here so we cant take the canoe and we don our gumboots once again to walk through the bog. Luis has stormed off ahead once more, and the rest of us struggle through bog up to our knees trying
to keep up. Some spots are worse than others and if you stand in the same place for too long and push of with the other foot you sink even deeper. I imagine its like quicksand. Shane is nowhere to be seen. He is way to eager to get a head start on the fishing. He cheats to win you know!
Shane says: Not true. I ended up catching five. Yes sinco piranha. One more than Sharl's, also a white piranha (rare to catch these days). Haha
The only anaconda we find is the skeletal remains of a small anaconda eaten by a large one a few days before.
Sixto has landed the first Pirahna of the day! Its not as big as mine so I'm still the winner as far as i'm concerned. The fish are really biting in the lake and everyone is catching them except Margaret, a gorgeous Scottish lady travelling with her husband Gordon. They have been living in Uganda for the past 25 years! If anyone gets bogged or falls into the lake its always poor Margaret. She isnt having the greatest afternoon.
The fish tally is Sixto 5, Sharls 4, however I
caught a Dog fish so I figure we are even. The bag of bait finally empty, we are waiting for Shane to finish. I discover today that he hid some bait away when he saw the bag was nearly empty so that he could fish long after the rest of us so as to beat everyone! Very unsportsman like and as such I have officially disqualified him.
Shane says: I'm the WINNER.Lol
Sharls says: Its as I said, he likes to cheat to win. He is disqualified!!!
We have to walk from here to the motor boat so we can go Caiman spotting again. Luis heads off as usual and we see him walking waist deep in freaking water and mud. I can just see myself falling face first at some point, camera in my hand, so I said " Do you expect me to do that?". Luis replies " Yes, come on". To which I added, "I dont think so. You could have warned us and asked us if we were prepared to do that. I'm not getting the camera wet just to go Caiman watching again." So Luis comes back through the water, takes the camera and says he'll help me, so I feel compelled to follow through. Shane is really annoyed because he was ready to double back and open a beer and now he feels he has to come too which means he isnt cracking a beer until about 8pm LOL. To top it off we had to abandon the boat due to lack of water again on the way home so we had to trudge back through the bog, knee deep in water for about half an hour in the dark. The only consolation was that as Luis said " See me? I am following by the channel", and then he fell into a water hole about 4 ft deep. Just about wet ourselves laughing.
Quite a challenge , but Shane got to the shore first, the taste of beer already on his lips.
Shane says: Also first to shower and to the beer.
Yesterday while the new arrivals went to visit the village, we went canoing for a few hours with our chef, Miguel. The motor boat has towed us out on its way to return Aja and Paul to Lago Agrio.
We disembark at the mouth of a lake as we cant canoe in, and we find Sloth footprints in the mud so we head off across the reeds, precariously perched on the muddy shores. Our search is abandoned when Shane falls thigh deep through the reeds. Its way to soft to go any further.
We've had a relaxing afternoon at the lodge waiting for the others to return. We have moved to Aja and Pauls old room today. I told Luis that our beds are damp (which has been the case for the last 3 days) and no-one elses seem to be, so he has moved us thank goodness.
The food here has been exceptional! A cooked breakfast,lunch and dinner and lots of fruit and veg with every meal.
We were told last night that we are getting up at 5.30am to watch the sunrise and go for a walk in the jungle to look for more animals. I think not! I tell Luis that I dont think there are any animals in this jungle as I havent set eyes on anything but frogs, birds butterflies and mosquitos. I also tell him I think he killed all the interesting animals with his poisoned darts as a child! That is why I should go he retorts, so that I can see that there are animals. Pfffttt.
As luck would have it, it begins raining at 5.20am so noone has to go LOL. In fact its a huge thunderstorm that sees our lake and the surrounding rivers rise by over a metre in a few hours. By the time we are set to leave, we can get on the motor boat almost at the door!
We bid our new friends goodbye, don our ponchos and we are off again!
Shane says: The night before while we were all sitting around having a drink and chatting, after the mud walk, I made up a new name for Sharl's 'Princess of the Amazon' which caught on really well. Getting a lot of laughs as most of you can imagine. Then comes the boat ride back to The Bridge and out pops a red and black Parisian parasol that the 'Princess' has unveiled, so as not to get a drop of water on her as it was raining 'Cats and Dogs'. Well thought out I must say. But can you imagine, we are in the Jungle with rain pouring down and this flash as Michael Jackson umbrella appears. Katherine Hepburn in the 'African Queen' eat your heart out.
Sharls says: I didnt hear him complain while his big head was underneath it!
Sunday 9th October
We are back in Quito now for 3 days before we head to Iguazu Falls. We are staying in the downtown Quito in the new city. Its quite a contrast here to the Old town. There are lots of nice restaurants and parks and artisan stalls, which we have browsed and shopped at today.
On the seeder side there are lots of negros walking around off their scones and its not safe here after dark.
We were approached only this morning by a negro guy who claimed he used to live in the UK before he was sentenced to 8 yrs for trafficking 2 kg of heroin. He was asking us for cash to try an get back to his family in the Esmeraldas. He has a backpack in one hand and a crack pipe in the other. There is a constant security and police prescence here, but they seem to turn a blind eye.
Ciao for now xxxx
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Valerie Besselink
non-member comment
hey ct
Hi, very entertaining write ups, must say I am very impressed Sharls, boots, mud and F**K its hot, not a good combo.......... I certainly dont ever see myself wading in mud and fishing for pirhanna.......mmmmm What about the poisionous frog I had to laugh, it was in good company CT... Shane whats going on with the facial hair,' Distinguished', you might call it. I call it, 'cant be bothered'.... bye for now Valerie