Amazon Adventures

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Lago Agrio approximately 21km from the Colombian border, is a small frontier town, with little on offer for the traveller, except a jumping off point for tours to the Cuyabeno reserve. We waited at a very basic hotel situated in Lago Agrio for about 4 1/2 hours to wait for the arrival of our tour guide. We then caught the rickety tourist bus at 10.30am , collected those who arrived by aeroplane, and made our way deeper and deeper into the jungle. The vegetation became much more tropical, with the occasional wooden shack, and the roads became more and more bumpy and more like a dirt track. A four hour hot bumpy ride with one stop to consume some rice and dry banana (mmm delicious!). Then we hopped onto a large wooden boat with a motor, and took a 3 hour journey to our lodge. Our first impressions, very different to Borneo, flat landscape, an extremely wide murky Cuyabeno River, with fantastically unusual flora and exotic palm trees. Stunning views as we became a little wet from the enormous speed at which we were travelling along the river, lets hope we do not sink!

We passed a couple of villages, and bizarrely enough a family who owned a pet jaguar basking on the side of the river bank - no comment! We saw some very cute children, some fishing, some doing their washing, and others washing their hair in the river. One girl even drank some of the murky water directly from the river. They lead a very simple life and try to maintain a very traditional lifestyle, as of their ancestors. We had to cross three rivers including the Aguarico River and Lagartococha River, collect our provisions along the route before we eventually reached our camp at 7pm.

A little surprised by the facilities on our arrival or rather lack of, when we discovered we would be sharing a bathroom, consisting of two showers and two toilets to share amongst 25ish other people only covered with shower curtains for privacy! Our accommodation was a semi-terraced reed hut, with sides open to the elements including all the undesirable insects etc, just two beds fortunately protected by mosquito nets. We knew this would be a very different experience to Borneo, however from our previous experiences we know the creepy crawlies always find a way of entering your room! In the jungle you have to expect the unexpected and get yourself into a relaxed frame of mind, otherwise you'd never sleep!

I decided to have a quick shower which was very refreshing in the dark, no hot water and we later discovered was actually just the river water being pumped from the river bank!!! Although the outside temperature quite pleasant. We then sat down for a meal, in a great reed bar area with hammocks hanging from the ceiling, and views of the river and surrounding vegetation. The meal was edible (bugs falling into soups), we got the feeling that rice would be on the menu twice a day for the next three days - a staple diet! We chilled out for a short while, met our fellow group members mainly Germans and then hit our beds for the night. Seem to be a lot of vegetarians on the tour, although some happen to eat chicken as well?! That night Nick slept very well, Ellie not so, although both woken by strange noises in the early hours, lots of strange jungle noises reminiscent of Malaysia of insects and frogs! However can't help loving the jungle environment, everything is twice the size than normally expected, amazing wildlife - you never know what you will see next and that lovely fresh jungle scent!

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