To start our trip, we first had to take an eight hour, over-night bus ride to Lago Agrio. The roads were very windy and mostly dirt, so we didn´t get much sleep that night. We arrived at 6 am in pouring rain, but we weren´t supposed to meet our group until 9:30-10, so I had a short nap in the lobby of the hotel where we were supposed to meet. I´m not sure the hotel was too happy about me napping in their lobby, but fortunately they didn´t say anything.
Our travel agent had given us stickers to wear so we could locate our group. There appeared to be a couple of other groups meeting at this hotel as well, but no one else from our lodge, Samona. As 9:30 turned into 10 we started to worry because not only was nobody there to meet us, but no one else was wearing the stickers (the travel agent had told us there would be seven people in our group). Then, at 10:00 a man introduced himself as Naicer, our guide, and told us to get in his unmarked jeep. There was another dude driving, who we later learned was Naicer´s brother. We asked where the rest of our group was, and he said we had to pick them up from the airport. A little strange, but we went along with it.
First, we drove to Naicer´s parents house where we switched to a Volkswagon van. Then, on the way to the airport, Naicer got a call informing him that two of the people in our group had cancelled and the other three people were actually scheduled to come next month. We weren´t sure if us being the only two in the group was a good or bad thing, but it was definitely strange. We drove to the airport anyway where we picked up some papers. Then we drove to a gas station where Naicer appeared to have an argument with the attendant. Strange again! We later learned that the gas prices are much cheaper in Ecuador, so people often smuggle gasoline across the nearby Columbian border. The papers we had picked up from the airport were authorizing us to fill up several tanks of gasoline to use for the jungle boats.
After getting a little lost in downtown Lago Agrio due to construction, we next drove to a restaurant and picked up a few take-out boxes. Finally, we were ready to start the three hour drive to the Cuyabeno reserve. We stopped halfway through the drive at a tiny restaurant in a tiny town. There, we ate the take-out food, which turned out to be really yummy fried chicken with white rice. The restaurant owners didn´t seem to mind that we had brought our own food and weren´t buying any of theirs. Strange!
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The rest of the ride was bumpy, although very scenic. At the entrance to the park, they transferred all of our supplies to a dug out canoe. Since it was just Dan and I, we also picked up two hitchhikers, a woman and her young son. It had been raining all morning, so they gave us heavy ponchos to wear. Fortunately, the rain dwindled to a stop within the first half hour of our two hour ride. On the ride we saw many animals including macaws, yellow handed titi monkeys, stinky turkeys, and a river otter. We were very lucky to see the river otter because they were almost extinct. We knew this was special because Naicer got really excited when he saw the otter, quickly scrambled to get out his camera AND video camera from his luggage, and took photos/movies the entire time the otter was in site. Naicer was a really great guide because he would get really excited about the wildlife and you could tell he loved being in the jungle. In the below picture, Naicer is at the front of the boat and you can see the otter´s head to the left of the boat:
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The Simona lodge actually consisted of a bunch of separate huts all connected by a wooden walkway a few feet above ground. We were there during the dry season, but apparently during the wet season the entire campsite is filled with water and you can actually fish for piranha right off the walkway! Our hut was the largest, with two floors and a total of six rooms. Each room had a private bath with shower. However, the toilet, sink, and shower water were all from the river so the water was a little brown. There was no electricity in the rooms, but there were two candles that were sufficient for everything but reading.
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There was also a large hut that contained the kitchen and a large room for dining/lounging. On the first night we were instructed to not keep any food in our room because of the insects, so I put my bag of snacks in the communal refrigerator in the kitchen (I still had some Cliff bars I´d been hoarding for emergency snacks). However, despite our precautions, our room was swarmed with giant cockroaches every night. Most of them were about the size of my big toe! Below is a picture of two crawling through some clothing I had put on a shelf (after taking this picture I quickly shook out all my clothes and started keeping everything in plastic bags).
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When we got to the lodge, it was filled with tourists. However, it turned out that all but three of them were leaving the next morning, so we ended up with a nice group of five. There was a brother and sister who were about our age and another older woman, coincidentally all from Switzerland. Our first morning at the lodge we went for a hike. However, before we left, we were equipped with water-proof, knee-high boots, which turned out to be essential for jungle hiking. I was constantly amazed by all the different plants and animals we saw, but the two highlights were when a GIANT grasshopper landed on one of the guy´s backpacks and hiking through this big mud pit:
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In addition, on our way back to the lodge we saw a pink river dolphin, which is somewhat uncommon during the dry season. Unfortunately, river dolphins are a little shyer than their oceanic cousins, so this was our only picture:
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After getting back to the lodge, we had lunch and relaxed until mid-afternoon. Then we went piranha fishing! Our poles were sticks with fishing line and hooks, and our bait was STEAK. Piranhas usually hang out around tree roots and the technique is to first thrash your pole around in the water like an animal in distress, and then wait for the fish to bite. Right away Naicer caught a little Piranha (about six inches), but the crazy part was that it had a parasite living in it´s throat! Naicer pulled out the parasite and let the fish live. The parasite was very light yellow and looked more like a bug than a worm. Unfortunately, Dan and I were unable to catch anything.
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After piranha fishing, we moved the boat to slightly deeper water and went swimming. The water was so murky you could only see about two inches into it, so Dan and I opted out of this activity. It was dark by the time we headed back to the lodge, and Naicer spotted a baby boa constrictor hanging off a branch. He coaxed it onto a fishing pole so we could get a closer look. I tried to pet it, but it kept trying to bite me, so I decided against petting.
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That night, after dinner, we went for a night hike! There we learned the trick of putting your flashlight in front of your nose to make all of the animal´s eyes shine back at you. This even worked for fish in a stream, and I was amazed by how many eyes appeared out of nowhere. We came across a very photogenic tree frog, but the highlight of the trip were the fisherman spiders. These spiders can be as big as my hand and actually catch fish out of streams! Below is a picture of the fisherman spider with its dinner (but I must admit that Naicer killed the fish himself and fed it to the spider for pictures):
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The next day we took a boat ride up the river to see the medicine man. He showed us a bunch of different plants and explained how he uses them. While on the tour, we came across a giant fluffy caterpillar. I really had to restrain myself from petting it, because apparently they are covered in poison and are terribly painful.
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After the tour the medicine man performed a short cleansing ceremony on me. I didn´t notice much of a change.
Later that afternoon, while everyone else was taking a siesta, I decided to try my luck at piranha fishing again. After an hour of the fish stealing my bait, I finally caught a tiny little piranha. However, despite his small size, his teeth still looked a little menacing and I was afraid to take him off the hook. I threw the fish, still with the hook in its mouth, back in the water and put the pole on the dock. Then I ran and found someone to help get the hook out. However, by the time we got back, the little guy had either managed to free himself, or a bigger fish had come along and eaten him, because he was gone. I still had half a cup of steak pieces left, so I decided to keep going, and half an hour later I caught a really big one. At this point there was a girl there to help me unhook and release him, but in retrospect, I wish I had saved him for eating. Supposedly, piranhas are bit boney but make great stew.
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Even later that afternoon we paddled a canoe down the river to the nearby lake. On our way, we came across a caimen. It´s head was over a foot long and Naicer steered us to within a few feet of him. He didn´t move the entire time, but was definitely watching us.
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We also came across a group of about 30 squirrel monkeys. There was a break in the trees that they were jumping across. A few of them missed the branch they were aiming for, but they managed to catch the next branch before falling to the ground.
At the lake we saw a beautiful sunset. However, we started seeing lightening in the distance so we hitched a ride with a motorized canoe boat back to the lodge.
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That night, back at the lodge, we found a GIANT walking stick insect in the dining area that I let it crawl on me. I think he liked me because he didn´t want to let go of my shirt.
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The next morning we went for another hike where we saw bats, toucans, turtles, stinky turkeys, and thousands of mosquitoes. Both of the below pictures where taken through Naicer´s telescope:
Toucan:
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Stinky Turkey (named because the meat is too smelly to eat):
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The last afternoon turned out to be pretty frustrating because we were basically abandoned by our guide. The three Swiss had left and Naicer had to go pick up another group of tourists. Naicer said that we could join another group that were going on a boat ride to look for anaconda. Our travel agent had said our group would be no bigger than eight people, because larger groups tend to scare away the wildlife, but from the boat we didn´t think it would be too big a deal. However, it turned out that they were actually going piranha fishing and then hiking back to the lodge on the same route we had taken that morning. By that point we were pretty tired of hiking through hot, mosquito-filled jungle, so we asked if we could just go for the boat ride and not hike back, but the other guide said that was not possible. We were pretty frustrated because we had just hiked that same route that morning, and hiking with such a big group would not be very fun, so we decided to stay at the lodge.
When Naicer got back just after sunset we explained what happened. He was very sorry and said he could take us out to look for anaconda. Apparently, the anaconda like to hang out around a section of the lake filled with giant tree stumps. Navigating the boat past all the dead trees was pretty challenging, and a few times Naicer had to get out of the boat, and standing on a branch a few feet under the water, push the boat by. We were undable to find any big snakes, but the boat ride itself was fun and I appreciated Naicer trying to show us a good time.
The next morning we had to wake up at 4 AM to start our journey back to civilization. However, all the new tourists that Naicer had picked up that day were still on city time and kept us up until midnight with all their noise. The next day we had took the two hour boat ride back to the road and the three hour van ride to Lago Agrio. Fortunately, instead of then taking an eight hour bus ride back to Quito, we instead took a one hour plane flight.
When we finally got back to Quito at around midday, we headed straight for our hotel, showered, and took a much needed nap. Strangely, all of our clothes we had brought to the jungle felt wet because it was so humid there, so we also had to have everything washed. In addition, a GIANT cockroach crawled out of our bag.
The entire time we were in Quito we stayed in a great hotel called Hotel Pickett. It had friendly staff, cable TV, and somewhat reliable hot water for $20 a night. We stayed there before the jungle, after the jungle and before Galapagos, and after Galapagos, always in the same room. However, it wasn´t until getting back from Galapagos that we started noticing cockroaches in the hotel. They were much smaller than the jungle version, but we had to wonder if we had something to do with their sudden appearance...
Every day we were in the jungle got a little hotter, and every day we got more mosquito bites. I applied 98% deet at least 3 times a day and slept under a mosquito net, but by the end of the trip I had about 30 bites on my legs. However, overall I loved our jungle adventure! I had always heard so many stories about the jungle, and it was really neat seeing it for real. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend a 5 day trip to the Amazon jungle!
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| From Cuyabeno (The... |
1 comment:
You two are so brave - those cockroaches look quite intimidating... Anyway, this is amazing stuff - thanks for sharing - looking forward to reading more!!
ps: Glad to hear that everything worked out with the guide and all - I was worried for you as I read.
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