It was a dream of ours, whilst planning this trip, to visit the Amazon rainforest. That isn’t difficult, there are lots of entry points into the secondary, shallow, peripheral forest. But… we didn’t want that. We wanted to go as deep in as we could go into primary rainforest. After a lot of research and a last minute booking (24 hours before we left), we settled on La Selva Ecolodge.
What can I say? Words fail to adequately describe just how mind blowingly amazing it was for all of us. There were so many adventures that it’s difficult to recall them all. We will all take different memories and cherish them forever.
The journey began in the first class lounge at Quito airport – a very unexpected bonus of booking last minute. Then followed a 20 minute flight to Coca , 3 hours travelling at high speed down the Rio Napo in a motorised canoe , a 20 minute walk through the jungle and finally a further 20 minute voyage in a dugout canoe across a black water lake. Finally we arrived – to the flattest, most dense green area that you have ever seen!
Let us all tell you about our favourite bits:
Amanda:
* The environment. We have visited several patches of jungle on this trip and I’ve always thought “is this jungle then? It just feels like hot forest.” But this REALLY felt like jungle. It was just like standing in one of those National Geographic photographs. The air was steamy, the trees were huge, all stretching and competing for sunlight in the high canopy. Vines hung from every inch of space and rotting vegetation coated the earth – all absolutely alive with bugs and insects.
* The storms. They don’t call it the rainforest for nothing! Every afternoon around 5pm, the rains would start. There is ample warning, the landscape is so flat that you can watch lightening fork miles in the distance, the light growing in intensity as it approaches. And the thunder? I’ve never heard thunder like it. The ground practically shakes, it’s deafening and amazing at the same time.
Coats/ponchos are useless when the rain begins. It’s so heavy that you are soaked to the bone in seconds – but who cares! Melody danced around in it for an hour, happily jumping in and out of newly formed puddles and streams. Pure childhood innocence in the middle if the Amazon rainforest.
* The night sky. Those posters you can buy for bedroom walls, charting the constellations? I feel like I’ve been in one of those. On a clear night you can see EVERYTHING, it’s amazing. No light pollution, absolute dense darkness, just bright shining stars as far as the eye can see. An overwhelmingly beautiful sight.
* The sounds of the jungle. It is never, ever silent. In fact, it’s usually deafening, particularly at night. The near sounds – the bat clicking away in the roof cavity, the insects scurrying across the cabin floor, the geckos chasing the insects across the cabin floor and the flying bugs buzzing constantly. Then there’s those further away sounds – the howler monkeys…well howling; the squirrel monkeys jumping branch to branch screeching as they go and the frogs and cicadas seemingly in competition to see who is loudest.
* The Children. Watching Naomi and Melody play with Kichuan children – absolutely no similarities in their daily lives at all, yet they played together joyfully for almost 2 hours. Games of chase and tig, no words required. A boy of 6 years old who could hunt with more skill than I have ever seen. The 18 month old girl crawling around the forest, self sufficient – again, amazing!
Friendship in the jungle
John:
The primary Amazon in Ecuador; the densest and most biodiverse section of the rainforest outside of Brazil. I’m afraid my brain is ill equipped and my vocabulary woefully inadequate to properly describe this awesome spectacle of nature. It is a constant, humbling sensory overload of life, colour and magic.
So, where to start? What can I tell you? What did we see? In no particular order: squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, pygmy marmosets, tamarinds, , toucans, river turtles, caimens, stinky turkeys, hawks, eagles, ospreys, mot-mots and dozens of other jungle birds, fishing bats, lizards, tarantulas (we shared our cabin with a couple of them), vipers, scorpions, poisonous tree frogs, the largest worm in the world, crickets, beetles, caterpillars (including the rare and poisonous bumblebee caterpillar), millipedes, many moths and butterflies, piranhas, sardines, huge dragonflies, some enormous wasps and flies, praying mantis, ants (including the very nasty bullet ant whose sting can incapacitate an adult for 24 hours), many mosquitoes (all of whom wanted a piece of me), so many flowers and trees I can’t remember, several full on rainforest storms and the biggest, brightest night sky I have ever seen. Phew! My apologies to any jungle creatures I may have forgotten.
For me it was all about the wildlife, especially the monkeys – I just love monkeys and I wasn’t disappointed. Before we had even reached the jungle lodge we were treated to lizards, colourful grasshoppers, a troop of squirrel monkeys and several species of colourful birds.
Our stay in the jungle was made all the more fun as we made new friends there, the Marr-Laing family from Red Deer, Canada – they were great company and I hope we see them again soon.
Our expeditions each day were amazing and we were expertly led by two great guides, Daniella our academic naturalist guide who could name everything we saw and Raul our native guide who could spot the tiniest creatures from many feet away.
The other highlights for me were swimming with piranhas each day in a black water lake, this is a little scary at first and then you realise that they don’t want anything to do with you (unless you are bleeding that is). We also spent a wonderful and fascinating morning in the home of a REAL native Amazonian family; we learnt about their customs and way of life -our host even explained and demonstrated how he constructed his home as well as sharing his quite mind blowing home brew with us. But the real treat came when he took us outside and taught us how to fire a hunting dart through a traditional blow pipe. His six year old grandson could hit the target every time – I missed by a country mile each time.
I did not want to leave the Amazon, it was such a great experience in an utterly inspiring environment.
Monkey and me!
And here’s a video of some of the things we got up to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve2qElPG3dA
