Jungle Fever

After a few more days in Quito with my tour group (hopefully I will get around to posting a blog about them - sort of a pen portrait blog) we headed out of the city for a taste of the Ecuadorian Amazon. As you may know the Amazon is huge and refers to the greater jungle area that includes the Amazon river. Back in the day a Spaniard, who I understand was mates with Pizarro of pillage Inca gold fame, named Francisco de Orellana set out from Quito and made it to the Rio Napo, which runs from the east of Ecuador and forms the Rio Amazonas (Amazon River) with another river, the name of which escapes me at the moment. He and his mates ended up going all the way across the continent and out of the other side in the Atlantic Ocean. Quite a feat if I do say so myself.

So with the above in mind, I begun my Amazon adventure. We flew from Quito to Puerto Francisco de Orellana (or commonly known as Coca) which took a measly 30 minutes. Normally it would take about 9 hours by bus so I am happy we flew! Pretty much as soon as we got to Coca we jumped on a motorised canoe for a two hour trip down river to a place called (now don´t get confused) Francisco de Orellana where we trekked into our jungle lodge named La Selva (which actually means the jungle in Español). The lodge was situated on the shore of an ox bow lake. These are lakes that are formed by meanders of bigger rivers, in this case the Rio Napa. The lodge had a number of cabins and a big central hut that housed the bar and dining area.

Upon our arrival we were greated with passionfruit and rum cocktails and a lovely spread of fruit and chicken. Mmmmm chicken. I shared a room with the only other guy on our tour, Simon the Pom from Newcastle. Living in the jungle isn´t as bad as it sounds and we had hot running water, beds with mosquito nets, and a hammock on our porch.

Without boring you with too much detail we spent four days exploring the jungle, canoeing on the lake, checking out the wildlife, sweating profusely, taking muchas siestas, and fending off the mossies. A big highlight was our night walk through the jungle where we spied various grasshoppers and stick insects mating (some of our group took a lot of pictures of this for some reason!!!), and the big daddy of the jungle was also sighted, twice. When I say big daddy I mean a tarantula. We saw two different types, both hairy, but one was friendly and the other was poisonous and likes to jump at people.

The lake itself was pretty murky, and was home to piranhas, caimans (a small type of croc), and electric eels among other things. Needless to say I just had to get in for a swim and did so on two occasions. It was actually quite disconcerting being in there with all those other creatures but as I had no gaping wounds I was fine.

Simon and I also being the typical macho sporty guys paddled the canoe for one lake excursion. It was tough going at first as it wasn´t as easy as a small canoe (this one seated 15 people!) but after lots of criticism from the girls (who never offered to paddle mind you) we got the hang of it and finally navigated our way back safely to shore. We never got tipped though funnily enough.

I only managed to get one bite whilst I was in the jungle. To this day I don´t know what it was as I lay down on my hammock one afternoon and felt something bite me. It swelled up a little and after taking a few antihistamines I was right as rain. Some of the girls got eaten alive and had nice lumps developing. Being the only two guys in a bug infested jungle lodge, Simon and I got called out a wee bit to stomp on spiders and other creepy crawlies.

I must admit that in the heat and humity of the jungle you work up a bit of a sweat. You can´t go more than two minutes without the first beads dripping down your head and back, and so it doesn´t make it comfortable at the best of times. Its nice when it rains as it cools you off and the sweat mingles with the water cascading out of the sky. On one trip I was so sweaty that I didn´t even bother putting on my poncho. In terms of looks the jungle is quite similar to some of the forest back home in NZ, and at times I swear I could have been on a cub camp or a Duke of Edinburgh hike somewhere. But I can never remember being so sweaty on any of those expeditions. Maybe I am just getting too old!

Being of true Anglo-Saxon stock and the Cricket World Cup having started the day we left for the jungle, we had to get a game in sometime. A bit of old wood and a fruit resembling an oversized kiwifruit, except much harder, were all we needed for a game. With Poms and Aussies you can imagine the rivalry was intense. But after our third 'ball' distengrated after only two overs we decided to call stumps. That and the fact that the sweat had already begun to appear in bucket loads!

It was a wonderful trip to the jungle, but it was also nice to get back to Quito for a change of climate, some washing, and a nice shower in water that wasn´t from a dirty lake full of creepy crawlies. One of the girls ran out of ciggies in the jungle so she was happy to get back to civilsation and a packet of fags!