Hamadryade Lodge Tena

... hacking at bushes and spiders webs with his 40 inch machete, swinging madly like leatherface and occasionly halting to listen like a hawk to the sounds of the jungle whilst poised like a meercat. Only he had a gentle look in his eyes and laughed like a child when the twig he had propelled at the enormous buterfly struck home and it revealed its true beauty to us, flutering off into the jungle. This was his territory and he was wise to its ways.

We stopped along the ...

The lonely planet describes this place as a lazy jungle town, and it is just that - we loved it! I had heard about it from the rainforest man who came to Q'bury School when I was working there, to give a rainforest talk to the Geography students... he told us about the hostal (which is named after him - Dave Shaw!) Anyway, Misahualli is small, chilled and full of monkeys on teh edge of a river on the edge of the jungle. We booked into Hotel Shaw and booked a private tour for ...

... scary as i thought it might be. There was a french dude with his father and did not want to go for the funky rapids which I was a little annoyed about but was enjoyable, and I do not think I got Dengue........yet.
After the rapids we were at another little village with cheeky monkeys, they stole Rory's (Irish guy on boat) suncream from his pocket and run up the tree with it. I think he had a little taste tester and then through it out again!!

... and led us down a path behind the house. We both sported rubber boots to combat the thick mud as we descended down the slippery path. Along the way, Ramiro pointed out different plants and mentioned how they might cure some ailment, make a great food, or provide your family with a roof over your head if you knew how to tie the leaves. It was all very fascinating. He then turned around at the bottom with glasses made from the nearby plants and was hard ...

Just over a year ago a plane flew over the Amazon jungle and took several photos of "strong and healthy" warriors, women and children from an uncontacted indigenous tribe. By the time the plane completed a second flyover the woman and children had fled, while the men had painted themselves and were brandishing weapons at the sky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures /7426869.stm). Such is the size of the Amazon, there are still roughly 100 uncontacted tribes predominately in the ...

Hello Everyone,

We are back from our amazon adventure and it was absolutely brilliant. We stayed in a local community who provided us with a nice wooden lodge, with just a mosquito net between us and the thousands of bugs. The first night I nearly got carried away by the biggest beatle we've ever seen when it landed on my shoulder!!!! The mosquitos took a liking to Mark's legs, they have lots and lots of bites on them!!!

The community is ...

... I think they were involved in some kind of mating ritual, but the mound of sand didn't give me enough cover, the moment I got within any kind of distance to photograph them off they flew.

Then there's a climb (well we're not sure about the height because there's a sign for a walk at the top which mentions 2000 but I read somewhere the pass was at 2250) which seems to take forever too. But it's one of those climbs that is transparent in it's intentions, you can see the ...

... and the lichen. I read once that lichen is a good barometer for healthy air, with fewer vehicles using this road (I would imagine most use the Ambato road) the atmosphere is less polluted than the Pan American.

The road itself was good most of the way, but there are some seriously dodgy bits too, mainly by bridges that are being rebuilt. The road we are on that takes us to Tena and
onto Puyo, is not the Panamerican Highway, it seems like quite a poor ...

Friday was supposed to be my last day of teaching at the school, and I was supposed to leave Bilma's homestay today. But as I'm enjoying the teaching (despite the effort it takes to get the kids to pay attention and actually learn anything!) and the occasional stint of manual labour at Parque Amazonico, and I don't need to be in Lima to start the ...

It was the last day of working at Parque Amazonico for Ben, Valerie and Kine today and to thank them for their help, the staff there held a party for them this afternoon. Tom, Sophie and I invited ourselves along as well; Tom and I had put in a few hours' work down there this week when we weren't teaching, so personally I didn't feel guilty about gatecrashing and eating their food! In any case, we ...