The Amazon Jungle

We just got back from a 5 day trip to the Amazon rainforest, which was such an amazing experience. What made it even cooler was that I was with Annie and Elizabeth, who are both biologists and really into conservation. Annie especially knows a lot about rainforest life because she studied in the rainforest in Costa Rica. It´s really cool the things you notice and question when you´re with people who also are so interested in the processes of the jungle! The tour we went through is working the the Huaorani, an indigenous tribe, to help them man their land without being exploited (as much as other companies do).
The trip started on my birthday. After taking a night bus to Coca, we were picked up by this Ranchera, a sort of open truck thing with attached seating behind the cab that is sort of what you picture to drive you through the jungle. We drove for 3 hours on unpaved roads, getting into thicker forest as we went. It was really sad because we were on roads that the oil companies own (we passed 5 different company´s refineries, including Halliburton, we were so mad!!!). We were always driving alongside the pipelines and passing big trucks. There were a lot of shacks and people just getting by, it was very sad. There were women and children washing their clothes in the river and tending to their properties.
When we got to the bridge that marks the start of the Huaoranis´ land, we were met by a canoe. We went by canoe for 3 more hours, seeing monkeys, macaws, toucans, turtles, kingfishers, herons, and just really lush rainforest. Very big, beautiful trees, including stranger figs and huge buttressed trees, and many different species of palms. Over the next few days we went on hikes, swam in the river (that, yes, has piranhas and snakes), made Huaorani bracelets. On the hikes we had a native guide, Jaime, who showed us many uses for the plants that the tribe uses, like which plants are strong enough to weave into sturdy baskets, what you put on cuts, the ants that you rub on your skin so when they go hunting tapirs they will not smell like humans, and we tasted the poison that they then boil and use on their darts. He showed us a rhinoceros beetle, different species of frogs, centipedes and millipedes, and fired one of the Huaorani´s blowpipes! We went on a night hike and saw a huge spider spinning its web, which was really cool (and terrifying). We ate these ants that taste like lemon and live in these holes in trees and keep the surrounding soil so acidic that no other trees can grow around and crowd the lemony tree. We saw a whole assembly line of leaf cutter ants going to their nest. We saw agouti, which are rodents like capibaras, with really long legs and so cute! We went fishing for piranhas, and caught some which we ate for dinner! We went looking for an anaconda that lives in this lagoon that, when we asked how big it was, the guide made a circle with his arms with just his fingers touching (we didn´t end up seeing it though). We did see many caimans along the river at night, and a snake swimming along the surface. We ate so well there, all traditional Ecuadorian food with lots of green plantains, maracuya (passionfruit) and papaya, and the soups with every meal were incredible!

When we left the lodge we began our 30 hour traveling to get to Cuenca, where we are now. We first had to take the canoe and the ranchera, and then we took a 12 hour bus along unpaved roads to Ambato, a little town up in the andes. During the night we were stopped for 2 hours because there was a large truck stuck in the mud and all the men from our bus and all the buses behind were trying to get it out, but it kept sinking. Finally they brought in this truck with this enormous claw that they were able to grab the truck and pull it out. Then we crossed, and luckily didn´t have the same problem!! We arrived in Ambato at 6am and stayed just long enough to wash our faces and brush our teeth before getting on a 7 hour trip to Cuenca. This was our first daytime bus ride, and it was gorgeous. We were already up in the Andes, and the green rolling hills and steep faces were sometimes covered completely by the clouds, and when we came through the clouds there were towns dotted along the green. It was so beautiful. Although our bus was a direct from Ambato to Cuenca, it stopped along all the little towns where there were Quechua people who wanted to go to the next town over. These people are so beautiful, with their long black hair wound with cloth and then with bowler hats (strangely enough--European influence). They wear bright pinks and greens and blues, and the women carry their babies with cloth tied to their backs. They would all get on the bus with us with all of their vegetables that they would go to sell in the next town.
Today we are in Cuenca and we are exploring the city. There are markets, especially with flowers everywhere. People dry their clothes on the river banks, and there are Inca ruins. There is a big beautiful monastary with blue domes right next to our hostel, and a big square with people everywhere. Tomorrow we´re heading off to Peru, and we will be staying in a surfing village called Mancora. The water may be too cold to surf, but we´ll see how it goes.
And, something very cool--I made it out of the Amazon jungle without a single bug bite!!
I hope you are all doing well!