The Amazon and back again...Olie and Emma's tale

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Hola! I´ve finally dragged Olie out of a random school uniform shop in search of his beloved football shirts, so we can update you on our first week in Ecuador. It´s been fantastic and flown by, despite enduring a 17 hr bus journey, with 5 hrs at complete standstill due to a landslide (hideous!)...

19/08/11 - So...last time we wrote we were due to fly to Quito; the 2nd highest city in the world and the 2nd largest city in Ecuador. Despite our hostal owner failing to show and pick us up, everything ran pretty smoothly. We caught a taxi to the hostal in the Historic Centre (another UNESCO World Heritage site - awarded for having the best preserved centre in Latin America) and soon realised we´d arrived on ´crazy street´. A tramp stood in front of the taxi for about 5 mins and wouldn´t let the taxi turn into the street until someone paid him an entrance fee. That night him and his crazy pals passed the time by ringing the hostal doorbell for hours on end! Annoying. Anyway, the Posada Colonial Hostel is nice enough..rustic/basic and pretty cold, but cheap and friendly. That first night we went out to get something to eat and were amazed at the contrast to Colombian evenings. Bustling! Street enetertainers, live music in bars, restaurants and pretty shops at every step. Sampled a couple of traditional drinks; vino hervido (warm, sweet red wine...similar to mulled wine but without the spices) and canelazo (warm fruit cider with aguadiente - a local spirit). Both perfect in the cool Quito evenings. We ended up getting dragged up to dance with some old Ecuadorians whilst listening to a trio of old guys singing and playing accoustic guitar with maracas. Surreal.

20/08/11 - Caught a bus to Otavalo; home to the largest crafts market in Latin America (heaven!) Bus took longer than we anticipated (5 hrs return), but it was worth it.. Beautiful textiles everywhere...I could of bought a shops worth of throws, cushions covers and hammocks from the local indigneous stalls, but a backpack limits you. In the end we did still end up with a warm llama jumper each, a few alpacha throws (Beth...sorry you have to wait until December!) and a few x´mas presents. Exhausted by the end of the day - too much bartering! That evening we treated ourselves to a steak dinner in a beautiful cafe just off the Grande Plaza in the centre of the old town (thanks Sally and John).

21/08/11 - Ecuador straddles the equator (hence the name) so we decided that we couldn´t visit without getting a tacky tourist photo of us 2 on the equator line. Unfortunately that meant catching ANOTHER bus to the northern bus terminal (25 cents each...pretty cheap!) and then ANOTHER bus to La Mitad del Mundo (The middle of the World). Although very touristy it was good fun. We timed it well, as they have live music on Sundays, so we had lunch at a cafe and read our books for a few hours in the sunshine. We spent that morning exploring Quito´s old town, which is full of beautiful buildings and public squares. Very pituresque. It felt a lot busier than the likes of Bogota and unlike Bogota is definitely worthy of a visit.

22/08/11 - The longest day on record (stick the kettle on and get yourself a kitkat)..... Checked out of our hostal with no real plan as the Amazon tour company had failed to get back to us and we were due to catch a night bus that evening. It was a bit of a weird day and the first time this trip I felt a bit like I could do with our old flat back and a sofa to chill out on. Since we needed to get rid of some of our Otavalo purchases, we caught a taxi to La Mariscal (new town Quito, more of a backpacker hang out) in search of a post office that accepts large packages. What an infuriating morning!!! La Correa de Officina staff were miserable sh*ts. Once we managed to find out that our purchases would cost us over 100GBP to send back (!) we had a rethink and decided to only send the bulky throws. (Unfortunatley that means we´re now carrying around more weight on our backs...no more shopping sprees.) The staff then refused to send our goods until we bought a box to package them up in, but then told us they didnt´sell boxes. So, we spent over an hour trapsing round the streets trying to beg and at one point steal a cardboard box. No joy. We stumbled across a DHL and decided to ask them how much they´d charge for sending back our throws. Quote: $330. We laughed in their faces, grabbed our bag and walked out wondering how on earth they were still in business and why on earth we´d ever visited the damned market! Fuming, we stormed back into the Post Office and the security guard mirraculously produced a cardboard box from his little pile of crap and decided he´d give it to us for $1. Why he didn´t offer this before is beyond me. 45GBP later we were done. What a joke. Oh well, the throws are lovely and were only 10GBP each. Anyway, since we wanted to go to the Amazon Rainforest that night and had nothing sorted out, we decided to go into a travel agency and get ripped off (Olie style) by a consultant. Fortunatly, this wasn´t an STA operation and the women found us a 3 night/4 day trip for 125GBP each. Sold! All we had to do now was wait around for a night bus, 11pm departure.... (technically we're now on 23/08/11 but it felt like the same day to us) 2:30am we awoke to what we thought was a normal midnight bus break. 2 hours later we were still sitting there and Olie was getting grumpier by the minute. We decided we better ask someone what was going on and it transpired that there was a landslide completely blocking the road about 1 km ahead. Since it was pitch black, no-one was even going to attempt to clear it until sunrise. Attempting to sleep was made all the more difficult by a grotesque 50 year old Ecuadorian chav couple blaring music out of their mobile phone, a screaming baby and a few snoring beasts. Not an experience we want to repeat. Fortunately there were 4 other people heading for the same tour, so we borrowed the bus drivers phone and managed to re-arrange the tour to start half a day late. **Tactical substitution - Emma´s out and Olie´s in feeling refreshed after finding out that Arsenal have successfully made it into the Champs League (I use my internet time effectively!)** So...we were finally into the amazonion town of Lago Agrio (birthplace of one Antonio Valencia for the football fans out there). Our guidebook has the following description of Lago Agrio... ´Seedy bars, prostitutes and fugitives share real estate with high-spending oil workers while hard-working locals keep their heads down and mind their own business (as visitors should too).´ Crime, prostitution and guerilla related kidnappings are not un-common as the towns proximity to the Colombian border renders it a corridor for trafficking (this is my description but I think it also accurate!). Unfortunately it's where all the amazon tours start from, so we jumped on the back of a ute-style taxi, then in a mini-bus, and finally onto a motorized-canoe and we were off into the Cuyabeno Amazon Reserve! The first áctivity´is literally the canoe ride to the Samona Lodge where we were staying. It takes 2 hours if you go flat out but we were slowing at various moments while our guide (Jairo) was peering into the trees searching for any wildlife. Pretty much as soon as we had quietly agreed with each other that the motor was too noisy to spot anything / it was the wrong time of day / our guide may have been a bit of a clown, Jairo turned the boat around and headed back to a protruding branch where a baby (3 metre!!!) anaconda was coiled up in the sun. Just as we were all jostling for the best photo position he shouted ´pink dolphin´ (which no-one really saw other than a ripple in the water) and moments later spotted a two-toed sloth balled up in the top of a tree. Our sceptisism was banished, we loved our guide, and were feeling pretty excited! 20 hours after we 1st set off we arrived at Samona Lodge. It was rustic - with nothing sealing us from what lurked in the trees other than a slightly raggedy mosquito net. At dinner we discovered that, unlike Em and myself, other people had ´prepped´their rooms - bags zipped up, mosquito net down, torches at the ready! We on the other hand has lost one torch (and the remaining one had a highly dubious level of battery power), had left our bags unzipped on the floor and had not even touched out mosquito net! We stumbled back to the room in a combination of dim torch and candle light to discover our bags being over-run by cockroaches! I think we were both slightly freaking out at this point (a cockroach looks pretty grim under candlelight) when I spotted something fist sized crawling down the wall towards the jackets we had casualy strewn on the shelves! After I´d alerted Em with an incoherent noise we shone torch and candle light in unison to discover our very own tree-frog! After dinner and a beer we went on a night boat ride searching for caimans (amazonian crocodiles). Immediately about 2m from the steps leading to our lodge we spotted the red eye of a 2-3m caiman lurking in the shallows. (You find them by searching for their eyes which shine bright red under torch light - obviously Em and myself offered little). About 5 minutes later we spotted a fully grown tree-boa snake (photographed a lot on snapfish as our guide coaxed it out of the tree with his paddle). It was at this point we discovered that opting the front seats next to the guide was a big mistake! No-one likes a 2 metre boa snake dangling above their head as the rest of the group merrily take their photos! Another few minutes passed as we recovered from our early sightings before Jairo spotted some more red eyes this time slightly deeper into the vegetation. As the boat got nearer and we all waited to hear what it was, how big etc. but all we got was ´holy shit!´ We´d got too close to a massive 4-5m daddy caiman. It was a monster! Its huge yellow eye (ala lord of the rings) was staring right at us. The mood was tense, Jairo was quietly whispering for us to get our heads down below the line of the boat. We were stuck on a log literally feet away from the ´holy shit´ beast. We were too scared to even take photos...when...from the back of the boat, in a thick German accent... érm I do not understand vhy vhee are sitting here vhen you say it is very dangerous...´this crazy German clearly hadnt heard the bit about us being stuck on a log and keeping as quiet as possible. The tension was unbearable and I (sitting on the side nearest the crock) was starting to plan my moves for when it attacked opting for the arm sacrifice and eye gauage! Luckily it never came to this as Jairo was able to push us away from the tree using his trusty paddle...we survived and have a couple of (unzoomed-in) juicy photos from the experience! We headed straight back after this and I think everyone was pretty exhausted so we just went to bed for a peaceful nights sleep...**Emma is back in because Olie has taken as long to write his elaborate tales (albeit true) as I took to do the first part...we've been chucked out of one internet cafe and are now sitting next to someone wearing headphones and watching porn...bit uncomfortable!** So, back to the blog...a peaceful night sleep it was not. I was woken to an incredibly sweaty Olie freaking out about a rabid vampire bat attempting to bite through the mosquito net and attack his face.

24/08/11 This blog is getting out of hand so we'll try and keep the rest brief. Day 2 consisted of a jungle hike during the day and at night and an afternoon of piranha fishing. On the way to the day hike Olie and the guide caught a glimpse of something big in the water, which was later confirmed as an anaconda. The day hike was mainly about seeing all the different plants and learning about their various medicinal purposes and indigineous uses. This included chewing a disgusting bark that cured malaria, drinking the gooey white sap from a tree to relieve diarrohea, smoking a fern for 'pleasure', making an insect repellant by placing your hand on an ants nest and rubbing in all the ants that swarmed over you and finally eating lemon ants; an amazonian delicacy (Mum - this is what is in Olies mouth in one of the photos). We also waded through jungle bog, swung on a vine swing and saw some monkeys and a crazy 'walking tree' that moves up to 20cm a year in an attempt to maximise its light coverage. Piranha fishing was a success (we both managed to catch some), despite Olie getting in a bit of a sulk after I caught one first and the only thing he'd fished out was a twig. The night walk focused on things you'd rather not see (a goliath tarantula, scorpion spiders (see guy with spider on his face in photos), various insects...oh and some frogs). More pain than gain for me...I just wanted to head back as I was being eaten alive (bite on my eye resulted in a swollen eyelid the following day).

25/08/11 Day 3 of our Amazon adventure wasn't quite as exciting. We took the canoe to a semi-indigneous village to watch a local woman harvest, wash, drain, sieve and then dry-fry yuca (a local root) into bread. No other ingredients were added (quite impressive) and it looked like a giant chipatti (tasted good when served with tunafish). The resident pet monkey 'Nacho' kept the group entertained, but became a bit of a horny pest by the end of the visit. That afternoon we got some much needed rest and chilled out on the hammocks at the lodge. The evening was spent on Lake Grande (still part of the River Cuyabeno) watching the sun set, spotting group of pink dolphins and a manatee (sea cow) and swimming. That night a couple in our group found a massive tarantula on the ceiling of their hut...put us all on edge yet again and resulted in another sweaty night for Olie! :-)

26/08/11 Early risers for our final activity of the trip - paddle canoeing for bird/wildlife watching at dawn. Jairo didn't disappoint and found us some colourful toucans, owl monkeys hiding in a hole in a tree, cappucino monkeys and a glimpse of a pichincha (?)...the biggest freshwater fish in the world. After a delicious pancake breakfast we were back in the canoe for the start of the return leg back to Quito. We'd recommend the Samona Lodge to anyone...it was a fantastic trip with a great group and we saw more than we ever thought we would. By 10pm we were back in Quito and back out in the old town for a slice of pizza, chocolate strawberries on a stick and a vino hervido listening to our favourite Ecuadorian trio.

27/08/11 Well earned lie in this morning and then headed to the Basillica..a grand old cathedral in the old town where you can climb up some precarious ladders to the top of the tower for some fab views over Quito. Rest of the day has been spent telling you lot what we've been up to!

Hope you've enjoyed our Amazon adventure. We're off to the much less exciting and much more relaxing coastal town of Canoa soon, so our final Ecuador blog won't be too painful. E and O xxx

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Comments

[John and Sally]

Awesome creatures (other than Olie and Em)
Wow! Another amazing stage in your adventures. Quito sounds fab but caiman well scary. What a wimp you are about spiders and bats Olie (Mum was laughing her head off until she saw photo of tarantula - pooed her pants!! Parcel from sh*ts at ppost office has arrived safe and sound and in storage in loft room awaiting your return. Glad you had a good nosh on us. Stay safe and enjoy everything. Blogs are amazing - you will have to write them up as book/tour guide when you get back - keep them coming. Love them, love you guys. All best,xxx.