Advertisement
Published: November 30th 2006
Edit Blog Post
In the jungle
In the jungle After the dry and barren coast of Peru, which permanently smelt of rotten fish food, crossing into Ecuador was a blessed relief. The dust and sand was replaced by mile after mile of lush vegetation and banana plantations. We made our last ever camp at the side of the road and I think everyone felt a sense of sadness as we set up the tents, cooked some food and dug a bush banos (toilet) for the last time.
The next day we arrived in Banos (not the toilet, but the place). If you´ve read my previous blog on Chile then you'll know that Banos is the town with the rather active volcano sitting above it like a giant time bomb. Luckily since it exploded in August it has been silent and the only taste of destruction was seeing the remains of the dusty lava flow snaking down the hill.
From Banos we set out to do a four day exploration into the Amazon. Our home was to be a jungle lodge on the banks of the Napo river - complete with no electricity and wooden cabins. It was all very authentic even down to the huge jungle cockroaches in
Fastow and friend
Fastow and friend the rooms, which I took to chasing with a candle and a can of Axe deodorant as a make-shift flame thrower (sorry to all Health and Safety technical people back at Unilever who are reading this!).
The Napo river is one of the main two which feed the Amazon and from where we stayed it would take around 4 months floating on the river current to reach the other side of South America and the Atlantic. Around 200km downstream you would encounter Piranha fish and not much further than that live tribes who don´t take too kindly to visitors. One of our guides lifted up his t-shirt to show the proof of this in the form of a rather nasty spear scar.
Given this, on the first day I had high hopes for our jungle walk. Would be abducted by angry tribal warriors and roasted over a spit or perhaps crushed to death by a giant Anaconda? Sadly not! The walk was all rather tame on a well worn path with not much to see but trees. On the second day we were just meant to do a much shorter walk, so I arrived with low expectations. Our
Pigs on ropes, Otavalo
Pigs on ropes, Otavalo guide (Fastow) took us on canoes for about an hour down stream before pulling up at the bank of the river. There was no visible path in the wall of green, but Fastow got out anyway and started chopping away the foliage with his machete to make a trail.
The one hour walk slowly turned into two hours and although Fastow was still happily chopping his way through the jungle, we suspected that he might be slightly lost. Then he let out a terrible yelp. A giant Anaconda perhaps? No, it was a giant turtle (of all things) which had fallen out of a tree and had landed on his leg. When we took it in turns to pick up the turtle we realised why he yelled out - those turtles just don't know the meaning of 'light weight'. Once we replaced the turtle in its tree we carried on down into a narrow gully. Suddenly the guy in front of me said that he'd seen a snake beside his foot. 'Yeah, right'I thought.....I was right it wasn't a snake but actually a bloody Cayman which was half hidden by all the rotten leaves and trees. I was a
Kerry, Me and Jo
Kerry, Me and Jo foot step away from standing on its tail. After that the Scorpion, highly poisonous frog, worm as big as a snake and Tarantula were all by the by. It was now three hours into the walk and we thought we had seen it all. We were tired and soaked with sweat, so that's perhaps why we failed to notice the sinking mud and all got stuck up to our knees. Like some comedy sketch we all tried to pull each other out - sending people flying and abandoning welly boots which had been lost forever in the boggy depths.
Out of the jungle - and having escaped burning down the lodge with my flame thrower - our next stop was the market town of Otavalo. We spent a day at one of the biggest markets in South America doing out Christmas shopping. So, if you're reading this and wondering what you're getting for Christmas I can tell you now it's Llama pattern socks. There is also an animal market in Otavalo where everyone seemed to be selling a pig on a rope. I guessed that they are not really like soap on a rope, so refrained from buying one
Last girl´s night out
Last girl´s night out as a Christmas present.
Finally, the end of the tour came a few days later in Quito. It's not nice to leave people you've spent every minute of every day with for 2 months. You know everything about them and they know everything about you. Will miss you Big Steve, Little Steve, Jo, Baby Joe, Ben, Kerry, Harri, Jed, Michelle, Tim, Jim, Emur, John, Dave, S, Ant, Nick and finally our faithful truck Tortuga (The Turtle).
Now it´s on to Buenos Aires for 5 days before going home.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0873s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb