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Published: December 14th 2009
7 December (day 44) - Journey to the jungle
We are definitely not going to be taking up careers at sea any time soon. James still felt dizzy this morning. We got to the airport with loads of time before our 9am flight. We sat waiting for our flight to be called and were slightly confused that our flight number came up on the board but it had Coca as the destination instead of Lago Agrio. We were told there was a connection to Lago Agrio so we boarded the plane. After 30 minutes we landed at Coca and were told we had to transfer. We collected our bags and were pointed towards a bus. We were very confused but got on the bus and after having our boarding passes checked we were on our way. We were none the wiser as to why we were on a bus instead of a plane and it took a bit of rummaging in the Lonely Planet to figure that the bus journey would probably be about two hours. Given that we had paid $130 extra each to fly rather than get the 8 hour bus from Quito we weren't too happy to
be on a rickety bus going over hundreds of speed bumps, each one more painful than the last. The bus driver was definitely a boy racer as he kept over-taking other buses and lorries on blind bends. After a couple of stops along the way, we arrived outside Lago Agrio TAME office (the airline we had flown with). As everyone else got off the bus we followed with stickers we had been given with our lodge name on in hand. An old man caught us as we were getting off and said he was from Samona Lodge. He had no sign and we were confused as to how he knew we were the right people so being a suspicious person I asked him some questions about the journey we were about to take and then followed him to his pick-up. It was now 12.30pm and we were starving but there was no sign of food in his truck, only lots of oil and two huge barrels in the back. We squashed ourselves into the back, me sitting with loads of legroom and James with none and we were off. The journey got hotter and hotter but at least it was
more comfortable than the bus. To begin with we were listening to some quality Spanish tunes, then the radio turned to white noise but the driver still had it on loud. I am not sure how but we both managed to sleep with this going on.
Eventually he re-tuned to Columbian radio. After two very sweaty hours we arrived at El Puente where the park entrance is. It is about 3 huts in the middle of nowhere. With no sign of food in sight we went to a hut and bought a drink (made the fizzy water mistake again) and some crisps. A man then approached saying he was our guide to the lodge and then our proper guide would take over. He then produced a lunch of rice and chicken which was much appreciated and we paid the park entrance fee and were on our way. Travelling by motorised canoe would be our only form of transport for the next 4 days and we were pretty impressed. There were loads of trees which had fallen into the river so when we went over these the driver had to lift up the engine. We dropped a local at his
house on the way and then sat back to enjoy the ride. William, our temporary guide, spotted a couple of things along the way - a toucan, a neo-tropic cormorant and what James heard as a snake but as neither of us saw it we weren't sure. After that he gave up and went to sleep.
About 4.45pm we arrived at the lodge and were greeted by Nathan, our proper guide, in full khaki. William took us to our luxury accommodation - the agency's description of basic is right but it had a bed, mosquito net and we even had our own bathroom, albeit with no toilet roll and only cold water. There was no electricity, but there was a candle in each room. After a very brief inspection for bugs, we headed to the main hut to meet our group for our first adventure. The group consisted of 3 Norwegian girls and a French bloke.
We headed off along the river with Nathan telling us that our first stop was to see a pigmy anteater which he was incredibly excited about having only seen three in his life. As they are like sloths and don't move with
the speed of light he knew where it would be. How he had spotted it in the first place we have no idea as it was pretty small and half way up a very leafy tree. When we got there you wouldn't have known who was guide and who was tourist, he leapt off the boat and climbed the tree with his video camera and camera in hand. He got so over-excited about this little ball of fluff and kept sticking the camera right in its face to get the best shot possible. We were there for about 20 minutes which was enough time to take about 20 photos and delete the rubbish ones.
We then headed to the laguna grande, our official destination. One of the other groups from our lodge was there and they were all jumping in the water, we didn't join them - we had had enough excitement for the day without swimming in piranha, anaconda and caiman infested waters. The sunset was pretty and as the sun went down our guide continued to spot wildlife. We saw pink river dolphins, herons, more cormorants and jumping fish (two of which jumped into our boat -
fishing must be easy here!). The highlight of the evening though was just after the sun had gone down, when we saw a green meteor flying across the sky and going between the clouds. We were all stunned as we had never seen a shooting star in the light before.
The evening wasn't over yet. Once it had got dark, our boat driver took us to the edge of the laguna where we put on our wellies and head torches and got out of the boat. We went on a 50 minute night walk through the jungle. I expected the path to be wide, but it was pretty much like walking through thick jungle with roots and vines everywhere. The main focus of the walk was to find spiders,beetles and other creepy crawlies, so you can imagine how much I enjoyed it. First we saw a beetle, which I could cope with. Next we saw a huge scorpion spider. I was right behind the guide and when he was scrambling around on the ground trying to pick it up, I had had enough of prime viewing position and leapt to the back, hiding behind everyone else. A couple of
people, including James, were mad enough to hold the thing. The rest of the walk didn't get any better, we saw a wolf spider, a massive tarantula and a jewelled tree frog. It was ridiculously humid but I was glad to be wearing trousers and a long sleeved top as I at least felt slightly protected.
It was a relief to get back in the boat, but it seemed that our night wasn't over. On the way back we were instructed to look for eyes in the water. They were everywhere - caimans hanging about at the side of the river. We headed towards them a couple of times but they sank when they heard us. Our guide spotted some eyes in a tree which turned out to be a 2 metre Amazon tree boa. As with everything else, he wanted us to get a good view so he got it on a stick and brought it into the boat. I was more than a little nervous but happily took photos of James with the snake about a centimetre from his head. Again James insisted on touching it!
How the driver managed to navigate in the pitch black
was a mystery but we made it back in time for dinner. Dinner was by candlelight as there was only one generator which they used only when necessary. There were hundreds of bugs everywhere and I wasn't best pleased when one of the Norwegian girls pointed out a tarantula in the rafters above our heads. We spent dinner getting to know our group and finding out about the plans for the next few days. The early mornings we were expecting were not to be as we would not be starting until 9am each day. By 10pm we were exhausted so headed back to our room to fumble around putting our mosquito net on and get ready for bed in the dark. We both had cold showers which at least made us feel less sticky for the 5 minutes before we got into our sweltering bed.
8 December (day 45) - in the jungle
We are very glad we chose the budget jungle option, not because of the hideously smelly and dank mosquito net we had to sleep under, but because we had a guide who would do anything to find us the animals we were after, we got
banana pancakes for breakfast and the other people in our group were young and happy to get as stuck in as we were, as opposed to the fat Americans who would be staying in the posher lodges.
As with the Galapagos where James made it clear he was after sharks, in the jungle he made it clear he was on a mission to find an anaconda. Nathan was only too keen to oblige and we headed straight to a few spots he thought they may be hiding in. When we hit boggy land and the boat wouldn't go any further he leapt out and started rummaging in hollow trees, sticking his head in any hole he could see. He was like the jungle version of Steve Irwin, dressed in khaki, with his knife on his belt all the time giving us a running commentary of what he was up to. Unfortunately the anacondas weren't at home. He did warn us that he hadn't seen one for 2 weeks and the one he saw then was dead, having been half eaten by a 6 metre caiman. We were pretty confident that if there were anacondas to be found then Nathan
would find us one, his enthusiasm was incredible, especially given he had been doing his job for 9 years.
Next stop was a three hour walk through the thick jungle in 36 degrees and 85% humidity. It started on a muddy path (which the guide described as terra firma) and progressively got muddier until at one stage we all got stuck in sinking mud with it coming over our wellies. We were all filthy and very sweaty by the end. We did learn and see a lot on the way. Apparently one hectare of Ecuadorian jungle has more species of trees and plants than a whole continent like Europe (not sure if I believe that but every tree was different). Flora included quinine tree, mahogany tree, lots of different orchids and pretty flowers and a pineapple. Fauna included some monk-saki monkeys, white throated toucans, great egrets, a two-toned sloth, some white-eyed parakeets, a ruby poisoned dart frog, a red skirted poisoned dart frog, leaf-cutter ants, termites, bullet ants, caterpillars and a massive moth. Things we ate included lemon ants, quinine and some bright red seeds that tasted like pepper. Nathan used to have the same camera as us but
broke it by dropping it in the water, so he was very excited by our camera and spent most of the time grabbing it so he could get us the best photos. He taught us how to use the macros on the camera as well. He said that if he found us an anaconda then we would need to give him our camera as a tip.
On the way back to the lodge we saw a yellow spotted Amazon river turtle on a log but as it felt the boat coming it plopped into the water. We also saw a huge fish which Nathan said could grow to 5 metres. They have the most diverse river fish here but they are impossible to see as it is so muddy.
We had a quick nap after lunch (clearly being the oldies in the group we need sleep). We were then back in the canoe for a spot of piranha fishing. I was rubbish and only caught a really tiny fish which James chopped up for me to use to try to catch bigger fish. James left it to the last minute but managed to catch a big red piranha.
As we were merrily fishing using our rods Nathan was stabbing his knife into the water and having much more success. We then packed in the fishing and went on anaconda search number two. We took our boat so far into the swamp that we got stuck and unfortunately it was all in vain as there were none to be found. We watched the sun set over the lake again and saw loads of birds - stinky turkeys (hoatzin), ospreys, ringed and Amazon kingfishers, capped, cocoi and green herons, blue-headed, orange-winged and moaly parrots, a night hawk and loads more toucans. The night activity was caiman hunting and as you can imagine, this wasn't the hands-off kind of hunting. We spotted loads of eyes and it became clear that the aim of the evening was to touch the biggest caiman we could find. The baby black caiman was clearly not a challenge so we tried to get near a 2 metre spectacled caiman. It sunk into the water before we could get near. The caiman we did touch was 4 metres long. We snuck up behind it in the canoe and after taking loads of photos Nathan grabbed its tail
and held on until its pull was too strong for him!
Nicholas, the French guy, had caught a silver piranha which we all tasted with our dinner. Nathan then showed us a book with all of the wildlife we had seen (hence knowing the full names of everything we saw). It was interesting to look up the Galapagos animals we had seen as well.
9 December (day 46) - in the jungle
The day started with a geography lesson about how Peru had stolen loads of land from Ecuador, where the name Amazon came from, the fact that our walk yesterday had taken us over the equator and a whole lot more which I can't remember. We also learned about the five indigenous communities in the area, one of which we would be visiting today.
Our first animal spot was a noisy night monkey which we took a great photo of through Nathan's $2,500 lens. On the 1.5 hour drive to the community we saw snake birds (anhingas), squirrel monkeys, king, black and turkey vultures, blue and yellow macaws, scarlet macaws, a black mantled monkey, a solitary sandpiper, a crimson crested woodpecker, a greater ani, smooth
billed anis, a wire tailed manakin, a sunbittern, a sungrebe and some more toucans. We were sick to death of seeing birds by the time we arrived!
We weren't particularly fussed about visiting the community as they were used to tourists visiting so it was not completely authentic, most of them were wandering round in jeans and T shirts and drinking coke. We had fun devouring their fruit as Nathan helped himself to it from their trees. We ate jungle grapes, two types of guava, papaya and bananas before Rita, a woman from the community, was ready to show us some local cooking. We followed her to a plantation and after she macheteed down two yuca trees, James pulled up the roots. We peeled them and carried them back to the cooking hut. We grated, squeezed out the poisonous juice, sieved and then cooked flat yuca bread which we ate with tuna (from a can) and marmalade. It was then time to leave so we got back on the boat and drove another 20 minutes down the river to our walking spot. After eating all of the bread and fruit, what we hadn't bargained for was a full packed
lunch, but we happily tucked into rice, chicken and water-melon.
One girl had a migraine so stayed in the boat while the rest of us headed back into the jungle for an hour in the sauna-like heat. Nathan wasn't showing much sympathy for the migraine and when we were out of ear-shot from the boat he turned to James and said he thought it was all psychological and no men ever got headaches! This was his third non-PC comment of the trip. The first was at dinner last night when he was telling us stories about people who didn't like the jungle and headed home early. He told us about two girls from New York who stayed up all night and then left at 5am the next day as they hated it. His description of them was 'there was one black girl and one normal girl'! The second classic was at the community where he told us that there were lots of cases of uncles marrying nieces and cousins getting married. He then said that he felt sorry for the girls in the community because they had a bad selection of blokes to choose from as they all looked
like monkeys, although he did admit that he was quite like them as well!
The walk was through more bogs and seemed even hotter than yesterday. The highlight was some absolutely enormous ceibo trees. We also saw a spot legged poisoned dart frog, vanilla orchids, male trees (so named because of their phallic branches), pincer ants, a chestnut fronted macaw, a lobster claw flower, cocoa trees and loads of mud. At the end Nathan painted us with some red dye from one of the trees. We ended the walk at the home of a shamen (like a witch doctor) and we ate cocoa fruit while we waited. The shamen was funny, he was fully dressed up in tradition costume with a feather through his nose. We all sat around listening to our guide tell stories about how he had cured cancer, paralysis, gangrene and all sorts. The moment when we really struggled to hold in the laughter was when we all had to sit cross-legged on the floor while he did a tribal healing chant and held leaves over our heads. He then offered us hallucinogenic potion for $10 a go which we politely declined.
As this was
our last night, Nathan showed us the video he had been recording throughout the trip. It started with him up the tree with the pygmy anteater. It was just like watching the Discovery Channel, well the first ten seconds were until he got a stick and started prodding it to make it wake up. The poor animal looked like it was boxing as it tried to fend off the attack. He assured us he didn't hurt it and as the lazy things sleep 20 hours a day it wouldn't mind a short interlude. We have stayed away from buying photos, videos and souvenirs so far this trip, but we couldn't resist paying the $10 he was charging for a copy of the video just for the comedy value.
Our last night in the stinky bed was the worst yet. First there was a big thunderstorm, then a girl in the room next door screamed in her sleep and worst of all of was getting bitten to death. When I told James this, he didn't believe me and told me to go back to sleep. It wasn't until the next day when I showed him the evidence (loads of flea
or bedbug bites) that he believed me - typical auditor scepticism waiting to see the evidence before he believed me!
10 December (day 47) - last day in the jungle and back to Quito
We had found that the reason for the bus replacing the bus was because the runway in Lago Agrio was being repaired so we needed to leave at 8.30am to get back in time for our bus back to Coca. We were meant to be going bird-watching at 6am but convinced Nathan that we would rather look for anacondas. He didn't take much pursuading so at 6am we were off back to the swamp. At the first stop we all stayed in the boat while Nathan and then the boat driver waded in and pulled bits off a dead tree, sure that there was one inside. They didn't see it. At stop number two, Nathan asked if we fancied a walk in the bog. We all enthusiastically jumped out of the boat keen to help with the search. As we waded through knee deep mud further and further away from the safety of our boat it did occur to me that I didn't know
what the plan was for if we actually spotted an anaconda. Nathan didn't seem too concerned and instructed us to spread out and search the area. We squelched around for about 20 minutes but found nothing. Then came a 'come quickly' cry and we all obediently followed the cry to a huge mound in the swamp. Nathan had come across a tree covered in about a foot of mud and slime and had thought the tree looked quite wide so had dug a hole in the mud and had come across a 6-8 metre sleeping anaconda. By the time I got there he had uncovered a reasonable chunk of it and everyone was standing within a foot of the thing, not certain where the head or the rest of the snake was. He then asked if we wanted to touch it, which we all decided was a great idea. As we splodged our way back to the canoe, elated that we had at last found one, it slowly dawned on us just how dangerous our little mission had been. Any one of us could have trodden on one at any point in our search.
We didn't give Nathan our
camera but we did give him a decent tip, he was so much better than our Galapagos guide. The jungle trip had cost a tenth of the price of the Galapagos tour and although you couldn't compare the two on wildlife, on food and guide the jungle was definitely better.
On our way back to camp we spotted a canoe parked by a tree in the middle of the laguna. On closer inspection through binoculars we could see a man sitting in the tree on a mobile phone. We couldn't believe that about 150 km from any form of civilisation in the middle of the deep jungle you could get any mobile reception and we were even more intrigued about how he discovered that that particular tree was the one to climb to get it.
We were dreading the journey back. We were fed up with having an aching bum from the canoe. The river level had dropped so there were even more times when the engine was cut as we went over tree trunks. Back at El Puente we tucked into lunch (chicken and rice) at 10.55am and then got in the most horrid cramped minibus ever.
I was squashed between James and a smelly local and after 30 minutes we were in agony. James' knee seized up and there was nowhere to stretch it. Back in Lago Agrio we stretched and checked into our plane before getting on the bus - all very weird. We sat towards the front this time which made a huge difference on the speed bumps. About 10 minutes in to the journey we nearly blew up as the bus driver headed round a bend head on into an oncoming petrol tanker, we missed it by about 6 inches. I am not sure how, but we managed to sleep for the rest of the journey. Our plane was a 20 seater but it was surprisingly stable. An English girl from one of the other groups at our lodge was on the plane with us. I had heard her moaning at the lodge and took a dislike to her then, but when she told us about their guide I could understand why she was moaning, he sounded completely disinterested and nowhere near as committed to finding animals as ours. When we arrived in Quito it was pretty cold and James looked ridiculous in
his vest and skimpy shorts - he looked like a 118 man! We shared a taxi back with the English girl and then went our separate ways.
Back at Amazonas Inn we found ourselves in the penthouse this time - our room was much bigger and had a window and a balcony. When we undid our backpacks the smell was disgusting. We took everything out and took the vast majority of our clothes, which were all really damp, to the laundrette. We then went in search of muffins. When we got to the cafe James realised his money was in his shorts pocket at the laundrette so he rushed back to get it. Having been away from civilisation for 4 days we were keen to turn on phones and check our e-mails.
We had planned to either go up the teleferico to see the city from above, eat out in the old town or go out for a few drinks in a salsa bar but after spending a while on the computer we couldn't face doing any of them so settled for pizza, risotto, cheesecake and brownies just round the corner from our hostel. Back at the hostel
James watched some rubbish film while I caught up on the blog. It has been a relief to be able to have the computer on in the evening without being attacked by mosquitoes. We both agreed we loved our time in the jungle but we won't be rushing back.
11 December (day 48) - Cotopaxi
There is no rest for the wicked it seems. We had an 8am pick up to go to Cotopaxi, Ecuador's tallest active volcano and the second highest active volcano in the world at 5,897m. I had had a terrible night's sleep as my flea bites had itched all night and our room (which yesterday seemed so great because it has a window) turned out to be over-looking a really busy road. James also spent half of the night complaining about the length of the bed. Since arriving in South America we have only seen one person taller than him and he was a huge Kiwi bloke. In general I am about the same height as most of the men here and at least a foot taller than all of the women. It has meant that throughout the holiday James has bumped his head
on doorways, struggled to fit into seats in taxis and minibuses and has had his legs over the end of all of the beds. He spent the night ranting about how he has a great business idea which is to make bigger beds amongst other things for South Americans in 20 years time - no wonder I didn't sleep well with all that chat going on!
Our guide for the day was Santiago, a very nice man who spoke good English and spent the journey to Cotopaxi informing us about Quito, the volcanoes and the surrounding area. Just outside Quito we stopped for a great view over the city (which has saved us a trip on the teleferico). Quito sits in a corridor in the Andes, unlike most other big cities in the Andes which are one side or the other. It is impressive seeing both sides as you drive out above the city. A real concern for the locals living just outside Quito in an area called the Valley, is the potential eruption of Cotopaxi which due to the glacier would create a huge flash-flood and wipe out the entire area (200,000 people). He also helpfully told us
the Cotopaxi typically has a major eruption every 100 years and the last time was in 1904 - we trusted him when he said Ecuador is very good at knowing when eruptions are coming as it has so many active volcanoes.
Our first stop was at a small museum where we learned about the animals in the park as well as when some of the big eruptions had been. We then went on a quick walk along a gorge. Santiago drove the car to the end and told us there was only one path and we couldn't get lost. There were two forks along the path but luckily we chose right each time. We were only at 3,700m but you could feel the difference.
We drove to a lake which was nothing special then as we drove up to the car park at 4,500m we got our first good view of the volcano. Santiago warned us that the weather closes in later in the day so we took photos on the way. At 4,500m it was windy and freezing so we were keen to get going. Santiago was faffing around putting on hundreds of layers so we headed
towards the path. We set off at a reasonable pace in an attempt to warm up and I think we scared Santiago as he puffed up behind us commenting that we could go ahead of him if we wanted to but he couldn't keep up that pace. The breathing was hard and the path pretty steep but it was only 300m in elevation so we kept plodding up and reached the refugio in about 30 minutes. Instead of taking a break in the refugio we chose to keep going for another 15 minutes up another 100m in elevation to the edge of the glacier at 4,910m. We spotted a fox on the way and a mad English man who was keen to sprint to the glacier. The glacier and view of the summit were impressive but we were both glad not to be staying the night and attempting the summit - the refugio didn't look like the kind of place you would want to spend 12 hours. We stopped on the way down for a very nice hot chocolate and spotted a rainbow forming a circle around the sun - weird. By this time about 100 local children were heading
up towards us and some had reached the top and were having snowball fights. We all agreed it was time to leave so headed back down to the car. We drove a bit lower before stopping for lunch - our first sandwich since Mendoza. It was accompanied by a fruit we hadn't seen before called Granadilla which Santiago described as poor man's caviar and was very nice. We have had loads of fruits here that don't exist in Europe.
The weather closed in as we were leaving and it was raining/snowing up the volcano. We chatted to Santiago about football, car prices and other standard boy talk on the way back. He asked what else we planned to do in Quito and as our plans for 23 Dec were still up in the air, he phoned a friend and organised for him to take us to Mitad del Mundo (the equator) and Otovalo market (supposedly the best craft market in South America) then drop us straight at the airport for our flight home. We are both a bit sceptical about the market as we are not handicraft fans - ponchos, tapestry, alpaca and llama jumpers just don't do it
for us, but it will be good to see what all of the fuss is about.
We were dropped back at our hostel at 3.30pm, over 2 hours earlier than planned. The budgeted time on the trip for the ascent is 2 hours so I think Santiago was relieved we made it in 45 minutes as he could head home early. We phoned home then tried to collect our washing. The shop was shut but we were assured by the shop next door that they would open at 5.30pm. We waited and eventually a man arrived.
We ventured into the old town on the trole (bus), paying particular attention to our bags after hearing that one of the Norwegian girls had had her bag slashed and her passport and wallet stolen on it. We went to a place called Vista Hermosa an open air restaurant on the top of a building. It had great views of the city. James had stubbornly refused to bring his fleece and was only wearing a t shirt, but luckily they turned on the outside heaters as it was only about 10 degrees. We ordered a beer, first for a long time, and as usual way too much food. As soon as they took away one plate another seemed to arrive. As we tucked into our second pizza in two days the live music started - a harp and guitar duo. We had planned to head on to another bar after dinner but were both too stuffed so got the trole back to near our hostel. We then went to Coffee and Toffee for pudding. We found a chessboard so had a quick game (quick because James beat me in about 15 minutes, we noticed half way through that the board hadn't been set up right and we couldn't really remember how to play).
It was Friday night and the whole of Quito seemed to be out. Santiago had told us the area we were staying in was known as the pink area (ie nightclub area). We definitely felt old as we yawned and headed to bed at 10.30pm just as everyone else was starting to enjoy the beginning of their weekend. We are saving our energy for our next stop - Colombia - known for its drugs, coffee, wild night life and beautiful Caribbean beaches. We will leave you guessing which of these we are likely to sample!
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Nigel and linda
non-member comment
Snakes and ladders.
Great pictures of the rainforest trip. Loved the spider pics although Linda could only sit there going "ugh". That Nathan deserved every penny you gave him James. Forward his details to the Lonely Planet people! Enjoy the beaches.--Ba have just gone on strike by the way. Lots of love Linda and Nigel.