The Jungle

First of all - apologies for not writing sooner - first time I´ve had for ages to get to a computer. Will try to get up to date.

Spent a lovely couple of days in Cotacocha Lodge and the Ecuadorian jungle. It wasn't exactly what I expected as the jungle wasn't quite as wild as I would have hoped. It was still pretty humid and the temperature made a change from Quito - it was actually warm! The sun shone for most of the time we were there too which was great.

We had a 5.5 hour bus journey to get to the lodge. A private bus from the hotel to the bus station; then a local bus for 5 hours to a little place called Tena. The bus journey was fantastic - some spectacular scenery and some very dodgy roads. Quite bumpy for part of the journey and you could see a number of mud slides, potholes, dirt tracks, roads collapsing, driving through clouds meaning visibility was horrendous - quite exciting! The weather was incredibly changeable - we left Quito in the cool slightly wet weather to arrive in the jungle to warm, humid sunshine.

We then went to a local village and were shown how they made their pottery and a strange local drink that was fermented for quite some time from the yuca plant - it was quite a strange taste - a bit like yeast and also a slight lemon taste. Very strange. Not something I'll chose to drink a lot.

We were also taught how to use a blow gun that they use to shoot birds and also how to pan for gold.

The lodge didn't have any electricity so the rooms were lit by kerosene lamps and were pretty much bug proof although I did find a spider in there (not a big one though so it was ok!). The first night we spent there a few horrible bugs flew into me including a particularly large cockroach (well that's what it looked like anyway!)

The next day we had a bit of an action packed day. We collected gum boots (as they call them) and life jackets and headed to the river bank of the Napa River. We were taken by motorised canoe about 10 minutes upstream. We arrived at our destination, left our life jackets on board and headed off for an hour long walk to see a beautiful waterfall. It was a walk through the jungle. On the way we saw a TARANTULA! Yup - a real one! It was pretty big and amazingly I didn´t freak out - think it was probably because it was so big. I´m hopefully going to be able to upload some photos here but the computers aren´t that great so not sure I´ll be able to this time. But I did see it - honest! Also saw some beautiful butterflies and also had our faces painted with a natural fruit before heading into jungle. Apparently all native indians use it and paint their faces before going hunting and use it as hair dye! We also saw stick insects, cacao trees, coffee trees etc.

After that strenuous walk to and from the waterfall we got back to the river bank and went tubing down the river. Inner tyres for those that don´t know. Very relaxing floating down the river back to the lodge.

Then back to the lodge for lunch before heading out on our jungle walk for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Again we saw lots of random plants and insects. The jungle was only secondary jungle so not massive canopies and not very overgrown but it was great.

I was made queen of the jungle by our guide and given a hat to wear that he´d made. Massive ants - called congas - if you get bitten you have a fever for a few days - nasty.

The guide also gave Jess and Renae a present - very funny. It was the root of the penis tree so no guesses what it looked like!

We got back to the lodge and went straight to the bar for another pina colada - just what we needed - and then spent the rest of the evening listening to the torrential downpour outside - well it wouldn´t be the rainforest without any rain!

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