Jungle Hike

  Jatun Sacha, Ecuador
Friday, January 4, 2008

In order to beter observe the reserve (2200hectares) we are building a new Cabana at the other end of the forest. The hike there takes about 3 hours.











Once we had reached the half built cabana and had had lunch we vaded across the river Arahuno and walked upstream for 40 min or so. Barefot in wet gumboots the walk was a bit uncomfortable but very pretty. We met lots of kids on their way home from school and they were all keen to talk to us and most of all look at our cameras.






After crossing the river again (this time in a strong current)we walked up to the school. 120 children study her and most of them have to walt for up to an hour to reach get there. Families take turn to bring food and cook so the children get both breakfast and lunch at school.




After some interesting chats we neded to make our way back to the cabana. However, we were not loking forward to walking all the way back with blisterd feet. Floating home on the river was much more appealing, but her was the problem with two cameras...



As we stood there puting the walk home off a balsa log came floating on the river. The forest guard William swam out and got it and proceded to cut it in half with his machete. With some palm leaves he then tied the two parts togeter to make a little raft for our backpack.



After a hot and sticky afternoon it was bliss to slowly float down the river and chat o locals that thought us rather hilarious. There were a few places with rapids but most of them were shallow and most of us (read: everybody but Sofia) managed to cross them by foot.





Well home we got the fire going and made pasta with tomato sauce for dinner. From the hamocks we watched daylight fade away and then enloyed blinking our flashlights at the fireflies that happily blinked back.

After a few hours we went on a night walk and viewed spiders, frogs and insects with our flash lights. Monkeys were chit chating in the tres above us trying to figure out who we were.

Very tired and content we went to bed in our sleeping bags on the wooden floor. Sleeping was uncomfortable but doable.







In the morning we walked down to the river. The scenery was breathtaking. A 50h farm her costs about US$10000... We sat there for a while and enjoyed watching the locals take their canoes to work, school etc.We were lucky enough to catch a motorized canoe that took us 1h downstream to the road where we could get a bus back to the station.







The river ride were wet and wild as the over loaded canoe made its way through rapids and shallows. The fare was US$0.25.