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Published: August 14th 2007
The Amazon Jungle.. a brief introduction...
Facts:
In total the Amazon covers 2,700,000 square miles, which makes it as big as Australia. A network of 50,000 miles of waterways criss-cross the Amazon, about 14,ooo miles of them being navigable.
Over 60,000 species of tropical plant are native to the Amazon basin. That is about one quarter of all plant species on earth.
Some 4,000 species of tree grow in the Amazon. Only about a half dozen of these, however, have been commercially utilised.
A reported 14,712 species of animal life make their home in the Amazon. 8,000 of them are unique to that part of the earth.
The Amazon Jungle is a place of intrigue and wonder to most of us in the Western world - a place as distant and mysterious as the planet Mars. The Amazon Jungle sprawls over an area covering 8 countries in South America, the part of which i visited was in Ecuador half an hour away from the Colombian border by car in a place called Cuyabeno reserve, apparently one of the most beautiful prime untouched jungle that can be accessed by tourists.. apart from that along the Brazilian border and it certainly
Cuyabeno Reserve
Communities along the amazonian river..upheld its reputation as you can see from the photos.
After travelling 10hours on an overnight bus downhill into the jungle on mostly unmade roads, with a cliff on one side and not all that much space on the other (possibly the most insane ride of my life) we finally arrived at our pick up point in a Cuyabeno. Our miniture ecuadorian man was waiting for us at this point and kindly threw our luggage in the back of his pick up truck along with all our food, drinks and petrol to get us a to the next point... a four hour ride along an unmade road.. whilst our guide and two of his mates who were along for the ride sat on top of all our goodies in the back to make sure nothing fell of!!!! (lucky we had no breakables in our bags!)... so the four of us (two new york guys and myself and mish) along with our little ecuadorian driver set of to delve deeper into the jungle...
After four hours in the pick up truck and two checks by army officials, checking for illegal drugs coming across the border from columbia (as the road we
were travelling was running parallel to the columbian border approx half an hour by car) and of course lots of smiles from me and mish .. (which does wonders with the corrupt military in these areas) we were on our way without much of a hinderance.. we arrive at our home made canoes for another 3 hour ride along the vast number of waterways into the amazon which brought us to our little wood hut haven...(a bed in open air, mosquito net and cold showers supplied by water straight from the amazonian river....adding to the experience...Wrapped!)
Three Hundred years ago, there were about 20 Indian tribes living in the Amazon, but now fewer than twenty now remain. We were privledged enough to visit one of the communities and were shown how they make bread from one of their most used plant resource called yuca, using the roots of this tree they not only make bread but also make alcohol from the juices fo the root. The plant is a main source of dietry fibre in their daily meals.
Apart from the visit to the community we saw 5 different types of monkeys, anacondas, one of the deadliest tarantulas
in the amazon, many birds and butterflies, caught and ate paranas and bonded with a number of ¨friendly¨ camans living in the surrounding waters of our hut.
Take a sneak peak at the photos and our Jungle experience...
Mel
ps. mum and dad have a video if anyone wants to have a geeza.
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