Tarapoa, Ecuador
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
We've just returned from the Amazon and have had a fantastic time - what a wild, crazy place. We stayed in a place called Samona Lodge which is on the Rio Cuyabeno river in the Cuyabeno nature reserve in the north Oriente, up near the Columbian border. The lodge was pretty basic, but very comfortable, perfect for people travelling on a budget and very atmospheric with lots of candles at night as they only have electricity in the kitchen. Our guide was briliiant and had hawk like vision - we saw lots of differnt types of monkey, sloth, caimen, anacondas, dolphins, pyhranas, more bugs, beatles and spiders than I've every seen before and loads of birds. You can't touch anything with out an ant the size of a babies head crawling over you! We did lots of hikes through the jungle, both day and night, and took dug out canoes down the river. We went Caimen spotting at night - you can see their red eyes glowing in the torch light, and went pyrhana fishing - they have some serious teeth on them!! We had an indiginous woman in our canoe (the grandmother of the guide) who was catching them with strands of her own hair, with just a bit of meat tied on one end...she put us all to shame! We also went swimming in the river...eek! I wasn't so keen on the idea of that given all the evilness that lives in the waters, but everyone else was doing it so foolish pride made me feel like I had to get involved...I survived the experience though all limbs intact...just!! ;-)
We're now back in Quito for the day before our flight out to Miami tomorrow am, leaving Ecuador for good...
