Ecuador!

Hola!

What an adventurous start! We arrived in Quito, Equador (pic on right) on Friday afternoon after a 15 hour transit via Madrid from London. Saturday we spent mostly sleeping, only venturing out in the afternoon to see the old part of town. Quito is dirty, crowded & gorgeous. A vibrant city perched amongst the mountains at 2,850m above sea level, there is latin music everywhere, coloured buildings and heaps of people!

The old part of town has cobbled streets and big old buildings. Quite a few of the streets are closed to cars, making it a pleasant walk. Between the altitude & the steep streets though, I seem to be breathless quite often.

On Sunday our guide picked us up & we drove for 5 odd hours over the Andes mountains (we got to 4000m above sea level on the way) and down into the Amazon jungle. On the map on the left you can see the red star where Quito is and the red dot where we stayed. On the way we visited the hot thermal springs in the mountains. Freezing wind up in the mountains, and water which is 30 to 40 degrees. Bizarre. Anyhow, we arrived on the banks of the Napo river in the afternoon, where we were met with a canoe with a speedboat engine which took us 20 mins up the river to Yacuma lodge where we were staying (down to 600m above sea level).

The area is actually relatively developed, with the jungle broken occasionally with banana plantations or, as we were driving in, petroleum plants. Parts of the road were also sealed. Apparently Oil & Bananas are Ecuadors 2 top income earners, followed by sea products (mainly shrimp), followed by tourism.

The lodge uses no electricity & all the cabins are open, meaning that the windows and much of the wall is covered with fly mesh and otherwise open. Apparently because Ecuador is on the equator (runs through approx 22m north of Quito) the temperature is virtually the same year round. That is, very high humidity & quite warm. We were greeted by around 20 huge cockroaches (around 2 inches in length) in our room & managed to kill around 12 of them, the rest escaped through the bamboo walls. After securing our beds tightly with the mosquito netting we were able to head up to the communal bathrooms where we brushed our teeth etc while dodging/killing the many more cockroaches we found up there. Lovely.

On Saturday we headed down the river in the canoe to visit an animal rescue centre (Amazoonia) where we were treated to a guided tour of the monkeys, Toucans, short tigers (Richard's favourite, see pic on right), turtles, parrots, and many more amazing and fascinating animals. Apparently the centre has trouble releasing the animals once rescued as they are in danger of being killed or hit on the road.

After a relaxing lunch on the side of the river, several of us (Richard, myself & some german tourists who were with us) hopped into the river & went tubing down through some minor rapids. Heaps of fun & quite bizarre to think we were in a rubber tube floating down a river in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador! See pic on left.

On Sunday we headed out into the jungle in our gumboots & walking stick along with the local community president (Orso, from the Quichua tribe), our guide from Quito to translate & our driver came along for the walk too. First stop was a community school, where the local children & teacher entertained us with a song and dance & answered lots of our questions about how the schooling works in the jungle. The school has 10 children, from kindergarten age to grade 6. They were very cute (pic on left). We paid a USD$3 fee each to visit which goes toward the cost of the school. The school is privately funded (mainly through the lodge we stayed at), as the government only provides a primary school if there are more than 25 children.

We then continued on & visited an older man's house, where we paid another USD$1 each to be shown some of the cooking methods & learn about how the community operates, including how the house is built from local materials. We were then face painted with red berry juice so the jungle would know it was our first time, and so our enemies would know we were brave and strong (and hopefully therefore wouldn't mess with us!). Orso took us on a 3 hour hike through the jungle proper, where he showed us lots of the local plants & explained their uses, including one which, when the leaf is chewed, provides an antidote to maleria and yellow fever. Amazing stuff.

We ended up back at the lodge exhausted and starving for lunch. After lunch, Orso gave us a demonstration of using the blow pipe, which is a 2 mtr long pipe which can shoot up to 50m. Apparently the neighboring tribe uses one which is 5 mtrs long and which can shoot up to 80-90mtrs! After having a go ourselves (with Richard managing to shoot the target & me falling short :P Pic on the right), we hopped back into the canoe to go up the river where Orso showed us how they pan for gold on the banks where the river curves. Apparently gold comes down from the mountains & 1 day of panning will yield on average 1 gram of gold which is worth $10. Its back breaking work though, & not something you'd want to do for too long!

We finished off the afternoon with some piranah fishing (pic on the left), which coincidentally happened to be in the same spot we were tubing down the day before!!! Unfortunately no one was successful, although a few of the lines came back minus the hook, the bait & the sinker!!

Anyway, back in Quito today (Monday) & heading out to grab a bite to eat. On Wednesday we head to Lima where we'll be embarking on a 3 week journey down through Peru & ending up in La Paz in Bolivia. Will keep you posted!!!

Hope you're all well & happy!

Lots of love

Corryn & Richard