The Jungle

I made a two day trip to the Amazon. Just so I can now say, I´ve been to the Amazon. No not really, I went because I love nature and trekking...I made the trip from Baños with a guide called Milton (pronounced Meeeltooone) and a French couple, Gael and Olivier. We took a bus from Baños for one hour past some amazing waterfalls to Puyo, where we met a taxi. The taxi drove us 5 miles or so to a small group of cabins. We expected a traditional lunch. We were served plantain (fried bannana), vegtables and a small mound of rice with a ketchup smiley face. Yes you didn´t just hallucinate that last part, a tomato ketchup smiley face.... This is obviously very popular in the Amazon.
Once we began our trek into the Amazon, the noise was incredible. A constant chorus of insects and animals. Milton insisted we paint our faces before walking any further, we wanted to be "legit" and all. So we set off again looking ridiculous.
Milton stopped to show us medicinal plants and explain our surroundings. I found it difficult to understand everything he said, mostly because alot of the words were new to me. Yes he was speaking Spanish and not English! He persuaded a monkey to take some food from his hand, Kev you would have been terrified!
We arrived at a group of cabins near the river and waited for our canoe to be emptied of water. Yes that´s right it had about a foot of water inside. The three of us watched the parrots and managed to take quite a few photo´s.
Milton warned us the river is know for its Anaconda´s. I was glad to see we would be sitting on a blank of wood 6 inches above the bottom of the canoe. I felt all safe and warm inside... I soon forgot the Anacondas as we approached the rocky waters. I expected to see some local knowledge come into play, surely the "captain" would navigate these waters like the back of his hand. Well no, we just kept getting stuck on top of huge rocks and the little canoe would sway from one side to the other. The river was full of rocks and we navigated our way into everyone of them. At the end of the boat trip I was glad to stand on firm, if a little muddy ground.
There were a series of cabins for us to sleep in, I was thankful for a mosquito net but would have liked a torch too.
Unfortunately it rained quite abit so on our night walk we didn´t see any crocodiles. But I did get a big kick out of just walking around the jungle at night. Surprisingly I didn´t feel as frightened as I thought I would. For some reason watching a documentary about the jungle is far more terrifying for me. I guess reality is never quite so frightening. Although I was pretty frightened at night, at one point I heard something quite large drop from the ceiling of my cabin and hit the floor. After that I lay awake for most of the night! I was really pleased when light began to appear, I decided to get up and take a little stroll. Unfortunately it was raining, so I snuck under a canopy and began to relax after a terrifying night. It was around this time a bat flew directly into my face! I ran from under the canopy and decided I was safer in the cabin!
After breakfast the sun reappeared and we took another wander into the jungle, Milton directed us to the most beautiful waterfall, we had a swim and walked some more. Another guide then joined us and took us higher into the jungle, he had to use a machete to clear the way. In a huge cabin he lit a fire for us to dry off (it was raining again) and began carving a crocodile out of a piece of wood. We had a little competition blowing darts through a huge tube (I forget whats it called) towards a target and I won, (Harry and Emily expect a wooden crocodile in 6 to 10 weeks) much to my surprise.
This was the end of my trip to the Amazon, although it tested my nerves it was a great experience.

I´m having problems with Blogger so I´ll try adding some photo´s later.