Welcome to the Jungle

The week after I completed my volunteer project with Yanapuma I booked a trip to the Amazon jungle. After a night bus from Qutio to Lago Agrio a truck picked me up for a 3 hour drive, the last hour of which was on a very bumpy dirt road. Then I was delivered to a boat driver where I road in a motorized canoe for an additional 3 hours heading west on the Rio Aguarico, deep into the jungle. I was lucky enough to be the only person in my tour group (it was just me and 2 guides most days, and one day it was me and 5 guides). And amazingly enough (for the rainy season), I had 5 strait days of sunshine.

The hut I stayed in.
My first evening there we went on a night walk and saw all sorts of interesting creatures. The next day the English speaking guide (who I got to give me the tours in Spanish since it was just me) and the local guide and I went for a hike/walk in the jungle, inspecting plants, insects and animals. Then in the afternoon we went piranha fishing. For about two hours I was just feeding the piranhas from a hook, but then I finally caught one. Then we hiked up to the top of this 9 story bird watching tower to catch the sunset.


Crazy spider.Like they do on the Discovery ChannelThe next day we got up early to head further west in our motorized canoe for an additional 3 hours. We picked up another local guide (because we were in his region by then) and an additional smaller canoe with no motor and headed down this winding narrow side branch of the main river. I know it´s terrible to say this but I kept thinking of the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland. This didn´t have the corny jokes or the plastic elephants, but was still clearly way cooler. One of the guides was at the front of the boat hacking away with a machete at anything we couldn´t force our way through. Sometimes we powered the boat over a log, launching us into the air a bit like James Bond boat chase, and then the boat driver would lift the motor out of the water at the last second. Sometimes we´d have to go under a fallen tree laying belly down in the boat. When we couldn´t hack, jump or duck any further, we switched to the smaller canoe and continued along with paddles. Then the stream got really narrow, no wider than the width of the canoe. It was like this crazy Dr. Seuss marsh land towering over our heads, and finally after about an hour of this, it opened up into a lagoon, 6 kilometers wide. We paddled to a dilapidated cabana on the far side of the lake for our picnic lunch and then went swimming in the middle (because piranhas and crocodiles live around the edges). That night we went crocodile hunting because they are easier to find in the dark. When you shine a light out over the water, their eyes glow red.

Swimming in the giant Laguna Zancudococha

Green Vine Snake eating a large bird.
A baby croc
My last day in the jungle we went for another hike and the mosquitoes ate me alive, through my clothes. In the afternoon we went for a little paddle and it was so nice to be on the water without the motor boat, to just listen to the sounds of the jungle. Amazing.

My anaconda don´t want none...
Mariposas
Jungle sunset.