COUNTRY: Ecuador
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Care Work
WRITTEN BY: Clare Baxter
I have decided, mis amigos, to dedicate this entire blog to our adventures in the Amazon. I feel as though this is rather necessary, due firstly to the amount of drama the volunteer group caused back home by visiting there (many apologies loved ones), but also due to the amazing experience we had over the weekend. They don't call it the AMAZE-on for nothing. (Not going to backspace the terrible pun, so sue me!)
The volunteer group’s journey started with an achingly long overnight bus ride, which included a 3am stopover in an abandoned depot in one of the most notorious cities in Ecuador, Lago Agrio. Waking up in a dark, empty shed in the early hours of the morning was not the best start to our trip, but eventually we moved on and four hours later we arrived and were greeted by Romulo, our guide for the next four days.
Twenty minutes on the water and the group of international volunteers had reached Cuyabeno Lodge, our sanctuary nestled away in the depths of the jungle. We were living in huts with palm-leaf rooves, propped up above the ground on stilts to safeguard against the occasional floodings of the Cuyabeno River, a tributary of the Mighty Amazon. After dumping our things under the mosquito nets (just in case a pesky tarantula tried to set up camp in a hiking boot), the volunteers had a hearty breakfast and were introduced to Tas, the pet boar. This six-month-old boar would be our constant companion on hikes around the rainforest and explorations of the grounds around our huts, which were dotted with banana and cacao trees. We then wasted no time in getting out of the Orient heat and used a rope swing to jump into the river. Unfortunately this was where we quickly learnt the Essential Rope Swing Law of Averages; the first swing will be executed with much grace and elegance, but the second will result in heavy bruising up one side of the body, or even a fractured finger in Adrian's case.
The volunteers’ first day was a lazy one after the long bus ride, with a two-hour meander through the rainforest before lunchtime as our main activity. There we spied Romulo's favourite spider, the Scorpion spider (reminscent of the one used by Mad-Eye Moody in the fourth Harry Potter film to demonstrate the Unforgiveable curses). We all tried to emulate George of the Jungle by climbing the liana vines, incredibly strong and flexible roots dropped by plants growing in the canopy. Not all of us succeeded, needless to say, but we all got a lolly for our efforts.
A daily activity that the volunteer group also enjoyed, was our rides in the panga (motorised dingy) to the perfect piranha-fishing location ... the same river that we'd been swimming in. Contrary to what Hollywood would have us believe, piranhas aren't going to strip a human to the bone in a matter of seconds. They're actually quite fussy eaters, and human meat is just not good enough. We witnessed this pickiness as, after reeling back our raw beef bait, we saw that they had cunningly nibbled off the meat and left the strings of fat on the hook. Needless to say, this prompted many cheap jokes along the lines of, "What do Adrian and piranhas have in common?"
On Sunday, the volunteers spent four hours on a one-way panga ride to a small farming village about 70ks away from Cuyabeno Lodge. Definitely a highlight was when the boat stopped by a group of squirrel and black monkeys, and we were able to watch them swinging from branch to branch. We were even lucky enough to spot a woolly monkey, one of the rarest breeds in the Amazon due to decades of over-hunting. As we continued our trip down the river, a curious gang of squirrel monkeys followed us along the banks.
But that was not our only encounter with these furry friends. Once we'd arrived at the village, the volunteers were welcomed somewhat painfully by Nacho, the overenthusiastic pet monkey of the community. Our very own monkey (Paul) climbed a guaba tree with Nacho and brought us down the soft, fuzzy and sweet-tasting fruit that grows in 40cm-long seedpods on the tree. After our snack we set about harvesting yuca, the yam-like vegetable we then used to make yuca bread. With no water, salt, oil or butter added to the yuca flour, the result is a somewhat bland, dry flatbread which we ate with pineapple jam and peach-flavoured Tang sprinkled on top.
One of the most exciting things about our weekend travels has been meeting fellow international volunteers from all over the world, and our Amazon weekend was no exception. The eight-hour return boat trip that day seemed short due to our multilingual game of "I went to the Amazon and I brought ..." with Zuzka of the Czech Republic. We met Dee, a British lady volunteering in the Galapagos, and a Canadian family we affectionately named The Thornberries. They were doing a world trip with their two children, the youngest of whom was reminiscent of Eliza Thornberry from the aforementioned TV show. My favourite example of this similiarity was when I overheard the nine-year-old and her older brother arguing about the origin of the giant land tortoises in the Galapagos.
Our weekend trip to the Amazon was definitely one of the best so far, a mix of sweaty hikes through the thick mud in the "swampy place", of lazing in hammocks in the humid afternoon heat during our siestas, of long conversations in Spanish by a roaring bonfire under the light of a full moon, and getting up close and personal with creepy crawlies. It truly lived up to its name, and was an AMAZE-on experience.
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