I know what you're thinking: "Jared cut to the point, did you wake up with a tarantula on your face at some point during your Amazon trip? Did it sneak in there during the night, or did you both drink too many Cuba Libres and make regretful decisions?" To you I say, "No spoilers ... Read on."
We left off the night before the Amazon, packing up and heading to the night bus. Shane and Luke had a private bus but I did not. I met a German couple in our hostel, Jojana and Emanuel, and we took the pubic bus together. But first, I ran out quickly to dinner with two new arrivals, Frenchmen on business. It was pouring rain and Sunday, so very little was open, but we finally found a nice little kitchen for more chicken and rice. During dinner, there was a 4.8 earthquake near the center of Quito. By California standards, it was nothing and it didn't phase me. The locals ran out of there like the food had come to life, armed itself and started declared vengeance for the pollo race. One man stopped for just a second to look at me and gesture to follow, yelling something that I believe loosely translates to, "Run you stupid gringo!"
Unlike California, the buildings of Ecuador are NOT constructed to withstand earthquakes, and an earthquake not so long ago desecrated a good amount of Quito and killed many people. This night, no buildings crumbled, no people died, and my cenar (dinner) did not go cold.
At 11:45pm I took my seat on the night bus to Lago Agrio, the meeting point for our Amazon tour. An Ecuadorian sat next to me and we started talking, at first in Spanish and then, to my surprise he spoke English. Turns out, he is a mechanical engineer currently applying to a program at Ohio State University. His name is Augusto, and he was incredibly interesting. We spoke about the earthquake, since he is actually one of the engineers working to bring Quito to the structural earthquake safety standards set by the US. As mentioned, according to him, they have a LONG way to go. Augusto was very excited to learn I was from Los Angeles, and asked if I had ever been to the Whisky-A-Go-Go. Turns out The Doors are his favorite band! So, obviously, we talked music for a while. At 1am, we figured it advisable to get some rest.
At 6:30am, we arrived in Lago Agrio. Jojana, Emanuel and I walked to the meeting point, a little cafe at the Mario Hostel, where I immediately fell asleep on a bench.
We had breakfast and met Marcel (Switzerland), who was on a different Amazon tour (they all meet at the same place and time). Now that I am back in Quito (spoiler!) he and I are at the same hostel and hang out. The bus to Cuyabeno National Park, with our tour guide, Diego, picked up up at 9:30. It was a two hour drive to Cuyabeno, during whichI again slept.
We had lunch at the park, then boarded our canoe for our 4 day Amazon tour. We were in the Amazon, but not on the Amazon River; we were on the Cuyabeno river. This was actually great, because the Cuyabeno river is more narrow, so we were able to see more animals from the boat, and the water there has a very high acidity so mosquitos don't like it there. There has never been a reported case of Malaria from Cuyabeno. We spend about 3 hours cruising down the river to our abode at Dolphin Lodge. Touring the Amazon is like riding the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland, except way less expensive (4 days all inclusive for $300), and half of the passengers on the boat are spiders. Seriously, it' she hop-on-hop-off tour for water spiders, who literally jump onto the boat, crawl around a little, then walk to the edge and leads back into the river.
We saw six out of the nine species of monkeys, and at one point were at a clearing where the monkeys were crossing, the largest, The Wooly Monkeys, carrying there babies, and the second smallest, The Squirrel Monkeys, following behind. It was like watching a scene from the Jungle Book! We also saw a Macaw couple very close before they flew away.
We saw lots of Orropendula, named for their gold (orro) tails and the shape of their nests, elongated like a pendulum. They make really cool noises. I call them DJ Orropendula.
That evening we went to the lagoon to watch the sunset and to swim. Diego told us to jump in but everybody hesitated. After all, this lagoon does have piranha, anaconda, Cayman, and numerous other extremely deadly animals inhabiting it. Since I had been getting poked fun at for my dislike of spiders -- I kept my cool ... I guess depends on your definition of cool ... I never screamed -- I had a chip on my shoulder; so, without hesitation, I jumped in first. It was a great swim and a beautiful sunset.
After sunset, we slowly cruised back to the lodge while looking for Cayman. Cayman are like little crocodiles. It is pronounced like "hymen," which is why they are often referred to as The Virgin Crocodile (by me and I think me alone). We found one pretty big boy, 2.5 meters long. Some people on the boat couldn't see him (it's dark and we're shining headlamps on him), so Diego started poking him with an oar to show them where to look. After ignoring Diego for like seven paddle strokes, the Cayman was like, "Fuck this, I'm not pledging this fraternity," and did that classic crocodile whiplash and dive maneuver, startling everyone on the boat nearly overboard.
The next day we hiked to an indigenous village where they hosted us for lunch and we got to meet the Shaman. The Shaman spoke all about his various medicinal duties and how he performs Ayahuasca ceremonies. The Shaman was kind of awesome.
He walked into the tent, introduced himself to everyone and sat down next to me, very quickly and devoid of pretentions. He saw that I could speak Spanish (probably overestimated my abilities by a lot) and so spoke mostly directly at me. Diego would interpret for the group afterwards. I felt bad for everyone who didn't speak Spanish, because Diego's generalized interpretations didn't do the stories justice. The Shaman went into detail about his first Ayahuasca trips, and about how his cousin couldn't hang. My favorite story was when he talked about the marriage counseling he does. A man came to him to find out why his wife had run away. So he and Shaman did Ayahuasca. While they were tripping the Shaman asked him, "Have you been sleeping with other women?" To which the man replied, "Well, yes." Which led the Shaman to conclude, "Maybe that's why your wife has run away?" Seems like a logical conclusion, but one that simply could not have been reached without the help of a seriously strong hallucinogenic episode, right?
That night we did the dreaded night trek. If the day tour is Disney's Jungle Cruise then the Night Trek is the Haunted Mansion; except that it's absolutely nothing like the Haunted Mansion, it's freakin' terrifying at everything you see will kill you if you touch it. We saw tarantulas, some kind of banana spider that is like the third deadliest spider in the world, a bunch of frogs which are all poisonous, and more. The least deadly thing we saw was a python hanging from a tree like a noose (which was really cool). Not withstanding, it was pretty awesome and fun, even if all my muscles were clenched in fight or flight (mainly flight) the entire time. The number one rule of the jungle: always walk behind and exactly behind the guide. Lest you want to walk face first into your doom.
The next day we did our day trek, looking at plants and insects and birds. The highlight was being able to climb and swing on the hanging palm fronds and other dangling branches and weeds. Let's just say, I went full Tarzan.
So many other cool things that I don't have the time to write about and you don't have the time to read about. Unfortunately, I'm so far unable to upload anything from my 360Fly camera (I guess the Internet just isn't good enough). I was hoping to hyperlink throughout this blog to videos of the river dolphins, climbing trees, sunset cruising in the lagoon, and more. Sorry!! I survived The Amazon and not once did I wake up with a spider in my bed. I made it back to Quito, moved to a party hostel, and I'm heading to Mindo (The Cloud Forest) tomorrow. More to come!
