On Monday morning, we left for the rain forest at 9am. After a two hour drive, we stopped for a bathroom break on the side of the road with an amazing view of Ecuador's third or fourth (I don't remember) tallest mountain. The top was completely snow covered, and the air where we were was pretty cold since we were at 4000 meters (13,200 feet). Apparently seeing this mountain is very rare, usually it's completely obscured by clouds, and people who come to see it often stay a week without getting a single glimpse.
Thirty minutes later, we stopped at Papallacta to swim in what one of our academic directors considers the best hot springs in Ecuador. There were about five hot pools, each with varying temperatures of water, going from unbearably hot to warm but tolerable. There were also a number of freezing cold pools to jump into when you got too hot. From the hot springs we could see tons of mountains surrounding us, and the water was very clear and didn't smell like sulfur. After a picnic lunch, we kept driving, heading down out of the mountains into the Oriente. For about 45 minutes, the clouds were so thick that I could barely see the car right in front of us out of the bus windshield, and could see absolutely nothing out the side windows, so we crept along very slowly. All the roads here are incredibly windy and not all that smooth, so the pace is slow anyway, but that portion extended the driving time by about half an hour.
Three hours later, we took a quick break in Tena, the last big town on the route, then kept driving for another hour. We crossed the Napo river, which is one of the major tributaries of the Amazon, then kept going until we reached the Arajuno, the river we stayed on. The Napo is an agua blanca river, meaning it has lots of sediments because it begins in the mountains, while the Arajuno is a agua negra river because it begins in the Oriente and therefore doesn't have as much sediment. They both looked the same to me, with brown, murky water. After crossing the Arajuno on a bridge, we got off the bus and took a motorized canoe for five minutes to reach the lodge where we stayed. These motorized canoes are huge. They seat about 14 people each, and every time you get in and out, you have to turn the 2 person seat sideways so that everyone else can get by. In order to drive one, you need a licence, just like with a car, and in this area, the motorized canoes really do serve as cars and the rivers as highways.
After arriving at the Arajuno Jungle Lodge, run by Tom who is originally from Nebraska, we had a little bit of time to drop off our stuff (we stayed in simple cabins with bunk beds and full bathrooms) and meet Mona. Mona is a two or three year old red howler monkey who lives at the lodge. It was really incredible the way she would swing up and down buildings, scale trees and then leap down, and most of all, stealthily steal food from the table. Sometimes, Mona would just climb into your lab, or wrap her hand around your finger, and she was always interested in whatever was going on, accompanying us on hikes, roaming around during lectures, and being a very cute distraction.
Tuesday morning after breakfast we took the motorized canoes to a Kichwa village about 15 minutes away to participate in a minga. Kichwa is the language of the Incas, and the main language used by the Indigenous people of Ecuador, since the Incas conquered Ecuador about 20 years before the Spanish arrived. A minga is kind of like a community service project. Members of a community hold mingas so that work projects around the village get done. The one we particiapted in was for a new tree farm the community is developing. We mixed dirt, picking out rocks and other things, and then adding sand, and also filled hundreds of little plastic bags with the mixture so that they could be used to start seeds. After the minga, we joined a second grade class for a quick Kichwa language lesson. None of us learned very much Kichwa because all of the kids were running around the classroom, distracting us, asking questions, etc. Then we had about half an hour to play with the kids, so we had a soccer game, played duck duck goose, and then it dissovled into us spinning them around and giving them piggy back rides. It was about 90 degrees, and we were out in the full sun for most of the time. We had lunch at the community, and they served us a common local kind of fish, steamed but not at all fileted, so we picked the meet straight off the skeleton. There were also a number of other local vegetables, and instead of plates, the food was served on large leaves. Then we looked at the community's artisan crafts, mostly bracelets, necklaces, and a couple of belts. Everything was made entirely from products in the rainforest, including the thread.
After lunch we returned to the lodge, and had about an hour free to go swimming in the river. Although anacondas and electric eels live upstream, we were assured that they are not a problem where we were because the current moved fast enough, and that sting rays are very rare. The piranhas, although present, are vegetarian, unless they detect a significant quantity of blood. And we were warned very clearly not to pee in the river, because there is a very small fish that is attracted by urine, and will swim up your urinary tract, and then it´s barbs will prevent it from coming out except surgically. The only problem I had was from a motorized canoe that came very close to running me over. With Faba, one of our academic directors, and a couple other kids, I had swum across the river to a large sandy beach on the other side. This isn´t the easiest thing to do, because the current is pretty strong. Coming back across by myself, I was about halfway over when a motorized canoe came around a bend. It looked to me like it was pointing toward the bank I had come from, so I kept going. When it was about 30 feet away, however, it became very clear that not only was it headed right towards me, it either hadn´t seen me, despite other people shouting from the bank, or didn´t care. I sprinted hard and managed to get out of the way, but in the future I was very wary of canoes when swimming.
After our break, we had a lecture on Shamanic practices from Don Gabriel. The main idea is that a shaman acquires special powers by consuming certain substances, and then must adhere to a strict diet for about a week in order to retain those powers. The shamans here use a special halucinogen, ayawaska, which is a combination of two different substances, a neurotransmitter as well a a certain kind of inhibitor, in order to detect illness and harness their powers.
A four story wooden tower stands next to the building where we ate meals. The top contains solar panels which power all of the lodge´s electricity, as well as an area for people to observe the rainforest canopy. After dinner, since there were no clouds, a bunch of us climbed up the tower to look at the stars, which were absolutely incredible. Since Ecuador is on the equator, half the sky has the stars of the northern hemisphere, and the other half has the stars of the southern hemisphere, although I couldn´t find a single constellation I recognized anywhere.
Wednesday, we began the day with a long hike through the rain forest, guided by a man named Octavio. He showed us a number of different kinds of trees and vines, as well as insects, and we tasted a number of different plants. A couple were toxic and had to be spit out instead of swallowed, many were bitter. My favorite was the actual cinnamin plant. We also got to see a poison dart frog up close. For an hour during the hike, we were left completely by ourselves to sit, look around, and think. It was nice to get away from people, and in the quiet, I saw and heard (the wings are LOUD) a hummingbird, about fifteen different kinds of butterflies, and a number of insects. There are these tiny sweat bees that don´t bite but buzz around you incesently whenever you stop moving. It was amazing to hear how loud a single leaf falling from the canopy can be. It was about 95 degrees that day, and we all returned from the hike sweaty and absolutely disgusting.
After the hike and lunch, we took the motorized canoes for about 45 minutes to Amazoonica, a rehabilitation center for amazonian wildlife on the Napo river. We saw all kinds of monkeys and birds, capiberas, wild pigs that roam in herds and will eat people alive, as well as turtles, and a small caiman. On the way back to the logde, we had to take a different river route then the one we took there, because the water level was so low, and at one point, we had to get out and walk for 15 minutes before it was deep enough for the canoes to be weighted down again.
After dinner, we went on a night hike guided by a man named Miguel, who had studied in the midwest of the United States, and so anytime he spoke in English, he had a very strong midwestern accent. We walked around the main grounds of the lodge, looking at bugs on trees, under leaves, and on the ground. The way the leafcutter ants work was particularly amazing. There were paths at least five feet wide of hundreds of millions of these ants carrying pieces of leaves four or five times their size. What's really incredible is that the ants don't actually eat these leaves. Instead, they chew them up and then grow mushrooms on them, which is what they actually eat. Afterwards four of us went on a little longer loop through the jungle. About five minutes in, I heard Kyle, who was walking behind me, shout SNAKE, and turned around to see a snake slither away from a few inches near my foot. The snake was about three feet long, and black and white, with bright orange rings. We all snapped pictures while making sure to stay a good distance away. Miguel said it looked like a coral snake, but he couldn't be sure until we got back to the lodge and he could make sure it wasn't just an imitation using a snake book. It did turn out to be a coral snake--an orange-ringed coral snake to be exact--which is one of the most dangerous snakes in the world. We also saw a huge frog, and Lia and I got to hold it for awhile on our hands. Its feet were sticky and it tickled a little bit.
Thursday we began with another hike/lecture, although this time it wasn´t nearly as intense, which was good because like every other day, it was sunny and over 95 degrees. In my experience, the rain forest isn`t very well named. We looked at cacao plants. Ripe, the cacao is a large yellow casing that contains about a hundred seeds covered in slimy white goo. We put the seeds in our mouths, and the goo was very sweet, although once the goo is gone, the part that becomes chocolate is very bitter. We were also shown giant bamboo, and paja toquilla, which is used for roofing, and in Panama hats (which actually come from Ecuador). After the lecture, we did a work project at the lodge, hauling up bags of sand from the river beach to mix with dirt and then spread in the garden beds. Then we had another chance to swim in the river before lunch.
After lunch, we had a ceramics lecture from Tom´s wife, a native Kichwa. She told us about the tradition of pottery in the Kichwa culture. They make very intricate bowls and figurines, but the wheel is never used. We played around with clay for awhile, then got to paint small bowls that had already been made. She created a kiln by putting all the pieces on the ground, laying a piece of metal a couple of inches above them, and then building up a five foot fire using bamboo. When we took the pieces out of the fire, they had to be rubbed down with this product from a local tree that acts as a glaze.
Early early friday morning, it rained for the first time on our whole trip. It poured for about four hours, but had largly stopped by the time we got up, although the sky was still cloud and it wasn´t nearly as hot. After breakfast, we had a five minute canoe ride back to the bus, and drove back to Quito.
Pictures to come soon.
