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Published: December 2nd 2009
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Hello hello hello! We are getting back on track with the updates after spending four glorious days in the jungle. We were both excited about the trip, but a little nervous. We expected it to be a hot couple of days, with lots of biting insects and the like, and overall we thought it wouldn't be the most relaxing part of the trip, but important to round out our view of Ecuador. Boy were we wrong! The weather was excellent, very hot in parts (the three hour jungle trek comes to mind) but never unbearable. and the bugs... there were more bugs in Quito than in the jungle!
We began by taking a three hour bus trip from Lago Agrio to the Cuyabeno Reserve entrance. We got to meet up with our group, two wonderful ladies from London who promptly invited us to come stay with them in Quito, and two younger danish girls. We got our gear covered for a short rainstorm, then jumped in a long motor powered canoe for our 1 1/2 hour ride to the lodge.
We saw a lot of animals right away, birds and monkeys and huge butterflies. Up ahead in the river,
Pink River Dolphin
The best that we could do with a point and shoot. we heard a bigger splash and stopped the boat. I was telling myself, it was probably just a fish, but secretly hoping so hard it would be the one thing I desperately wanted to see on this trip. A few moments later, it rose again. A pale grey back, followed by another, and finally, a smaller one off to the side. Pink river dolphins! They rose a few more times, once quite close to the canoe, then disappeared in the dark water. The guide was even excited, because they are quite shy. Oliver got a glimpse of one of their backs on camera, but it isn't really something that can be caught adequately in a photo. In person, it was magical.
After we saw the dolphins, all my hopes for the trip were pretty much fufilled, so the next few days were just icing on the cake for me. We really enjoyed being fed three meals a day, and having all the tea and coffee we could drink. It is amazing how much you appreciate free water again! Since we have been pretty sick for awhile, it was great to start feeling better and enjoying food again. We stayed
in little open-air huts at the lodge, and got to see an amazing variety of insects in and around our room at night. The first night we also went on a night walk into the jungle, where our guide promptly caught a big scorpion spider. He passed it around and we got to hold it and get a picture. We saw more insects and spiders and frogs before we returned to the lodge for dinner.
The next two days were spent traveling up and down the river in the long canoe, spotting wildlife and taking hikes in the jungle. We also got to see a village where some of the traditional ways of life are still practiced. At the village we dug up yucca plants and learned how they grate them up and cook them into a sort of thin bread. It tastes a lot like rice cake.
Everything revolved around the river. We even got to fish for piranah! You bait the hook with a chunk of beef, the drop the short line in the water and begin thrashing. This is to simulate an animal in distress. Then they bite off all your meat and you start
again. I think our hooks were kind of dull, because even though we got a lot of bites, we couldn't hook any. The guide did though, and demonstrated the power of its teeth by having it bite through sticks and leaves. Crazy. Finally, I caught one! I was so excited, and then nervous that Oliver would lose a finger trying to get the thing off the hook. Shortly after Oliver got one too, and we were able to breathe a sigh of relief that we lived up to our Alaska and Montana standards.
That evening we went swimming off the boat in a big lake that forms in the middle of the river. The sun was going down and the water was cool and perfect. There were lots of jokes about piranah and anacondas and candiru fish (don't pee in the water!). After it got dark, we rode around looking for caiman, the freshwater crocodiles that live in the river. Our guide tried to catch a small one with a piece of meat on a string! Shortly after we came across a big one (8 feet!) lurking in the roots of the trees underwater. Our guide was amazing like
that, he could spot a tiny snake from across the river, and rush us over to see it. He really made the trip for us. One day he got so excited, he had heard that they spotted a really large anaconda (about six inches in diameter) down river near the villages, and he wanted to go rescue it and bring it back to the lake where it would be safe (the villagers kill them if they find them, because they believe they are evil shamans from other villages come to do them harm) We looked all over and even saw a giant track it made in the mud with its belly, but never did find it. Hopefully he will get to it before the shaman does.
The last day we got up early and turned off the motor on the canoe to see a last quiet bit of the river. We were stopped at an abandoned lodge to look at tucans, when our guide got very excited and pointed out what looked like a mouse jumping in the trees. It was a pygmy marmoset, the smallest monkey in the world. I have no idea how he saw it, but
we got to watch it in his spotting scope and it was so neat. Another animal I have wanted to see since I was a little girl, dreaming about the amazon (and making due with covering myself in wooly catapillars and freaking out my mother). We saw so much in three days, I couldn't be happier.
Jungle trip: $50 including food/lodging, insect repellent: $4, 7 hour bus ride from hell to Lago Agrio: $8, seeing pink river dolphins and a pygmy marmoset while anaconda hunting... priceless. Haha.
Well I hope this big entry makes up for our lack of writing earlier. We are trying to fill in the blanks, as much for ourselves after the trip as for you guys at home. We hope you like the pictures, and we will try to post more regulary from here on out!
Cheers, Danielle (and Oliver)
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MOM/Lee
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hey!
Read the blog yesterday without the photos, and much better with the photos, also nice to see your smiling faces, loves ya! miss you! Mom/Lee