Me Tarzan, You Jane, and that is a Huge Spider!!!
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2008
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16
122
Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
Tena,
Ecuador
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Our trip to the jungle was actually part of some spanish lessons, so between floating down the river, drinking mate, swimming in waterfalls, practicing our blow dart skills, and seeing huge bugs we also studied spanish. It was about time, as we had been in South America for a month.
Arriving at the jugle lodge was a nice surprise. This place is atleast 2 stars above anywhere weŽve stayed yet. We had a huge private hut, 3 course meals, fresh towels everyday, and our own bathroom - luxury! The resort was an EcoLodge so lighting was by lanterns, which added some romance and also helped us average 10 hours of sleep
everynight. Strangely more relaxing than the beach. We spent a week here, but weŽll just give the highlights
Scorpion we saw on the night walk
. Quite a bit of time was spent walking through the jungle looking for critters and learning how the Quichua people use the plants. Beattles, ants, snakes, scorpions, grasshoppers, and lots of spiders kept Charis on her toes. One night a tarantula joined us and some English people around the fire - how nice. One of the English guys was singing Bryan Adams and the harry little guy seemed to dig it. To see more mamals we stopped by a rescued animal reserve which was really cool. Ocelots, Macaws, Caimans, 3 different monkeys, toucans, and a blood tiger.
We were also able to float down the Rio Napo on tubes, which was really fun. A lot faster than the Penticton Canal and less abussive than the Cowichan. An hour at noon on a tube in the tropical sun meant Arik burned. But not as bad as an older German guy who had only his speedo to protect him from the harsh rays...ouch!
The German guy was on a vaccation with his daughter and they lived near Cottbus, where Arik did an exchange. It was the Germans first trip to anywhere in the Americas after living in East Germany for 50 years with the USSR and no ability to travel. Crazy.
We visited a Quichua village 2 hours south by river canoe to learn about how they live panning for gold, making ceramics, fermenting yuca (yuck), and shooting blow darts.
The final jungle experience was traveling 30 mintues to the nearest town to watch the Ecuadorian World Cup qualifying games on the big screen (all 32 inches of it). Ecuador won one game and lost one meaning they may not make it into the World Cup - watching these games gave us the chance to learn the more colorful spanish words.
In the end we learned quite a bit of spanish, relaxed, and saw an amazing slice of the world. For anyone travelling to Ecuador we highly recomend it.
Next stop the interestingly named town of Banos...
Comments
Jungle
This week sounded very fun, minus the spiders. What can you say in Spanish now?