Advertisement
Published: July 19th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Hola!
I´m back in Tena for the night after what seems like a lot longer than only a week in the Jungle! After my last posting that night we went out in Tena to a very "expensive dinner". There were white table cloths and we drank wine and I got a very yummy dish with shrimp for the high price of $3.50. After we went out to the discotec and danced until I was so sweaty and tired that I needed to leave. In the morning we met the group for brunch and one of the girls in the group had a seizure so we had to wait around while she went to the hospital. She ended up having to stay overnight and is ok! So the rest of the group headed on to Chichico Rumi. The taxi dropped us off at this little bus stop on the side of the road which seemed in the middle of now where. We walked through the jungle for about five minutes and arrived in the tiny little community of Chichico Rumi, where the people äre called the Quichua. That afternoon we took a canoe boat up the river to a small little town
dinner the first night
everyone was so excited to be eating pizza and since we were fresh off the plane we didn´t know what we were getting ourselves into where we rented tubes and then got in the back of a truck that drove us through the jungle on a very bumpy dirt road. Then we had to hike through very dense vegetation to the river where we got in our tubes and floated down the river for the afternoon! It was the most amazing setting, I felt like I was on a jungle adventure ride in a disneyland set. It seemed so surreal until we hit our first patch of rapids in which I went head first into a rapid that seemed like a wall of water 5 feet tall. They were pretty big rapids but we all survived! IT was soooo fun!That night we all hung out and got a good sleep for our first full day of work.
We all stay in a bunk house with bunk beds and thin mattresses and we sleep under mosquito nets at night. Next to us is the little kitchen with two picnic tables where we eat our meals. There is a flushing toilet with no seat and a little sink and we take all of our baths in the river. The people of the community live in little huts
all throughout the jungle. There are also many animals such as chickens, monkeys, these anteater looking things, that roam around. The community has also set up a garden area, with a museum and a "zoo" with some animals such as a turtle pond, and a cage with an animal that looks like a small cheeta. Tourists come to the community for a dollar and tour around. It is very basic and remote. However, up the road is a little store that sells sodas, ice cream, candy and really yummy bread rolls. There is also a basketball court and a small school and they acutally just got internet too!
Everyday I wake up and go for a run with some of the other people in my group- it is so beautiful to wake up to the sun rising over the jungle. then we have breakfast at 7:30 and then to work. We take a little boat that looks like a long canoe with a canopy across the river. Then we have to walk through the jungle for 5 minutes, ford a river with water up to our knees and then we reach the other side where the community of Puca Chita
is located. We have been working on a number of different projects including grouting tiles for a kitchen counter in the school where kids are enticed to attend school by receiving a free lunch. We also worked on a garden outside the school, using a machete to clear tons of thick grasses and plants. For the past two days we have been working on building a coop for the chickens. We have been mixing cement, carrying blocks and building block walls. After about four hours of work we head back across the river for lunch which always consits of soup and then a rice and beans dish. After lunch we carry sand from the river´s beach to make a smooth pathway through the gardens and for the floor of the museum. It is all such hard work but it is rewarding to see our projects progress. The first day I got the stomach bug and had absolutely no energy and couldn´t do much work but since then I have been feeling great but always comepletely tired by the end of the day. After carrying sand we take baths in the river and then relax for two hours before dinner. After
we eat people play basketball against the locals, there is also a little bar that we go to down the street. The first night we made jewerly and drew on our skin with this special juice from fruit that dyes your skin like a tatoo.
I am loving this experience so far but after a week of hard work and being completely dirty all the time, it is so nice to stay in a hostel and it was the best feeling ever to have a real shower and shave! So pretty much I have been been doing hard labor, been completely dirty, showering in a dirty river, eating rice and beans and potatoes and been bitten alive for a week and I am loving life! So things are good and I hope all is well with you all! missing you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.107s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0704s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb