We went to the Yacuma Ecolodge on the Napo River. We left Friday morning and it was about a 5 hour bus ride to Tena where we loaded up into three canoes and took a ride! Our first stop was at a rescue animal zoo that was full of wild jungle animals. We saw toucans, parrots, monkeys, capibaras, an anaconda, a turtle, and a cayman. There were a few other animals that we saw but I don’t remember their names because I could hardly understand, but there was also jaguar-ish cat, a hairy pig, and a giant ferret looking animal. Unfortunately we did not see any of these animals in the actual wild but they were still really cool to see and to be honest, I’m glad some of them were in cages! After our tour of the animal reserve we boarded our canoes again and were supposed to head back to the bus to pick up all our bags. Supposed to. Our canoe guide said the river was too dangerous to cross (don’t mind that we watched three other canoes cross the river) so he decided to wait for everyone to return.
Unlucky for his he decided to park the canoe in spider-infested plants along the shore. The spiders starting coming slowly and small at first, but before we knew it our boat starting filling with jumping spiders (that did not drown either) that got bigger and Bigger and BIGGER! I bet you can imagine everyone on the boat freaking out and trying to kill all those spiders! It was a riot to watch everyone twitch in fear from these things. Thankfully I was sitting next to a girl who had no fear and no problem squishing them; she made me feel brave because I never had to touch one. Finally after a good half an hour the other canoes returned and we could escape from that spider torture zone!
At the Yacuma Ecolodge we were put into cabanas: each cabana had two rooms with two people to each room. We had delightful hammocks on the porches and each bed came properly equipped with a bug net. Unfortunately my roommate got sick after lunch and proceeded to vomit after that lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next day so she didn’t really leave our room for the first two days. Like I said our beds had those convenient and appropriately placed bug nets. Each night we were graced with the presence of cockroaches! Some people were not very smart and left food out so they had more cockroaches, but they were inevitable and came through the cracks in the walls. Again I got lucky with yet another brave friend, and despite her condition, she had no problem smashing the cockroaches. One night I actually had one crawl out of my suitcase and I whimpered while trying to kill it; they are just too gross. We tried to keep our lights off as much as possible as to not attract any other critters. Then all through the night I could hear bugs hitting my net and little pitter patters on the wall behind my bed, monkeys in the jungle, and bats in our roof. But thankfully I never had anything join me in my bed!
On Saturday our adventures began! We painted our faces to mimic what the indigenous Quichua people would do when traveling between villages to represent friendliness. We did not paint anything too traditional – I had flowers on my face – but it was neat. Then we crossed the river with our indigenous guide as he took us through the jungle to his home. It was an easy walk and he showed us all kind of plants: papaya, coffee plant, cacoa (we actually ate the fruit part which I did not know was part of this chocolate-producing plant), yucca, bananas, ají, pineapple, termite colonies, cotton, herbs, and many tropical flowers! His wife taught us how she makes ceramics; I actually really liked this part because it was so quiet while everyone intently watched her delicately work away at forming her bowl. They showed us how you can put your hand in the termite nest, let it get covered with the little things, and then smush them and rub them all over your skin as bug repellent (I opted out of this activity). And they fed us fresh grapefruit from the tree! Then we crossed back over the river to go visit a medicine man and the local school. The medicine man, or shaman, practiced one of his traditional cleansing rituals on a girl and then gave us a tiny bit of one his drinks that makes him hallucinate for days (no, we did not hallucinate). Nobody was at the school since it was Saturday but we still got to go inside and see how the kids learn both Spanish and Quichua.
After lunch we continued learning about the indigenous and how they hunt: with blow dart guns! We got to practice shooting one! We had a little wooden bird to aim at and everyone took a couple of turns trying to hit it. It was really hard to hit because the gun was long and heavy, but it was funny watching everyone try! Only one girl hit the bird.
We finished our day with bird watching. The canoe took us to another part of the river where it was more dense jungle and he hiked into an open field to look for birds.Unfortunately we did not see many exotic birds. Of course I forget the names but we saw a lot of a certain black bird with a yellow tail and then we briefly saw this cool bird with a mohawk! Despite not seeing very many birds I loved being in the middle of this field and being completely surrounded by the jungle. It is such a magnificent thing! On our boat ride home we got to witness this absolutely breathtaking sunset. If you think it looks good in the picture, remember that pictures never do justice to the real thing so it was ten times more beautiful!
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