Last Days in the Rainforest

The next morning after breakfast we went back to the same place we were the night before for another hike in the rainforest. Remember at the very beginning when we set out on this journal we talked about our rainforest get-up? Yeah, we finally got to sport those. I was wearing the pair of leggings I happened to bring with me to Ecuador with my black KSU t-shirt, and my borrowed black industrial-looking rain boots; I looked like I should be riding a horse or going on adventures with Indiana Jones.

Aaron, me, and Danielle in our awesome jungle gear

And let me tell you – it takes a secure person to be wearing leggings with your derrière hanging out in the jungle. Eventually it just got too incredibly hot that I had to take off the t-shirt and wear the tank top I had underneath. It was a big dilemma though. Do I take off the t-shirt and feel more comfortable as far as the temperature but risk being eaten alive by the mosquitoes? Because there were TONS of them around. I didn’t really get eaten very badly but others were a feast for the insects.

I’m going to be lazy and just give you a list of the things we saw in the rainforest:

• Bright orange roots – for some biological/scientific reason these roots are this color. They look like someone spray-painted them. Because the nutrients in the ground are so poor, these roots grow out farther as opposed to deeper.
  

  Many of the other roots were even brighter than this.

• We saw these huge tall, tall trees that use buttressing to carry the weight. By buttressing I mean that the sides of the trees flare out like 3 fish fins. Daniel said that guides and the local people would bang on the sides of these fins with thick sticks to signal other people very far away because the noise would carry so far. But of course, this is not good for the trees.
• We saw dung beetles. Very gross creatures. Daniel pointed out that while there are many, many animals in the rainforest we don’t see their poop thanks to these insects. Um, thank you…?
• We also saw this other insect that I can’t remember its name. I learned the real reason we have mosquito nets is not because of mosquitoes (most of the nets had little holes in them anyways) but because of this insect. It will bite you and somehow (I can’t remember specifically; dang it!) it will infect you so later you will have heart problems, I believe. Many locals have these problems due to these bugs. (Don’t worry; I would have known if I had gotten bit by one of these bugs).
• We saw huge, HUGE nests of marching wasps. They’re called marching wasps because when they are irritated they flap their wings inside their homes and it sounds like marching. This sound is a warning noise to their enemies.
• We also saw huge nests of termites. They will build a nest in the top of some tree and then make a long tunnel going down the length of their tree to the ground because they do not like sunlight.
• Another insect is some kind that lives in the ground – maybe a type of cicada? Yeah, I think that’s it. They live a very short life out of the ground. They spend most of their time in the dirt and when they’re ready to come out to mate they create these tubes made out of chewed up dirt – it looks almost like Georgia clay.
• Saw a seed pod that was probably just a little smaller than a regular-sized pillow.
• Saw red seeds about as big as a grape – these seeds are used as a dye in typical Ecuadorian food as well as for local’s ceremonies.
• Saw HUGE ants. And you could literally follow the line of them working with even bigger chunks of leaves on their back.
  

  Big ant

• Saw crazy, thick, long vines; kept looking for George (or Jorge, if you will).
• Saw another type of tree that had devised another way to hold their weight besides the fish-fin buttressing. Instead at the bottom of a skinny but very tall tree was many roots coming together to almost look like the top of teepee.
  

  Teepee-like bottom of the tree

• Saw a couple tarantula holes but we couldn’t persuade any tarantula to come out and visit. They don’t like strangers or noise so… they wouldn’t have liked us.
• We walked across a marsh on moss-covered logs – felt like something out of a movie.
  

  Crossing one of the rainforest's "bridges"

• Got our boots muy dirty in the thick mud.
  

  Breaking in the rainboots

• Saw a red flower that is used by the locals as a birth control and abortive. Apparently, they know a recipe where they make a birth control that lasts up to 10 years.
  

  Bright red flower (there were less bright colors than we thought there would be).

• Saw beautiful roots that looked like braided bread.
• Saw a big tree that has sap which they call “dragon’s blood” – I’ve seen this on a travel show! They use the sap on cuts, bruises or insect bites as a topical. You could see all these gashes and cuts on the sides of the tree which of course, is bad for the tree.
  

  You can see the dragon's blood dripping out of a cut -- and a termite tunnel, too

• Saw a tree that had this white powder on it – it’s used as incense all over Ecuador. In any church you go to in Ecuador, that’s what you would smell. We just swiped a little off the tree and could smell our finger – smelt like any incense to me; I’m not a big fan of it but others in our group thought it smelled wonderful.
• I can’t remember if we saw a frog or a plant that the locals use to go into a trance – maybe we saw both. But they use the wildlife to get closer to nature and basically get high.

Eventually we came to a point where our guide asked if we wanted to push ahead or go back. Some people had had enough of the jungle – the heat, the bug bites, the walking. Me, I could have kept going on and on; I was fascinated by all the things I was learning. But we decided to head back.

After our jungle hike, we had some down time. So what does a group teachers with downtime in the afternoon in the jungle do? We read. There were at least about 7 of us sprawled out on the deck chairs in the shade, or in the hammocks reading the books we had brought with us and drinking the lemonade brought to us. It was so relaxing and I’m sure we all looked a bit funny and nerdy.

Before dinner, Daniel took us out piranha fishing. We got high-tech fishing poles – tree branches with wire and a hook.

Me and my fishin' pole

We hooked our meat and threw it in the water. I must say, I’m no gifted fisher. 1) I don’t really get it. Probably because I don’t have the patience. It’s just boring and kind of pointless to me. But on the other hand, I’ve never fished for a creature who might bite my finger off. Also 2) I didn’t get any fish. Those damn things would steal my meat but I couldn’t reel one in. Daniel caught a strange Amazonian fish that looked sorta like a Bass. Kevin had so much fun when his group went fishing that we invited him along for our trip – I eventually gave him my pole and concentrated on my Pilsner. He ended up catching a piranha (on top of the 2 he had caught the day before).

After fishing we headed deeper into the lagoon for a ceremony. Kelly, the CM teacher who organized the trip and who is American, had recently married an Ecuadorian jungle guide, David. They invited the local shaman (this is the real deal, y’all – no tourist crap, here) to perform a blessing ceremony on their marriage. So all 5 boats from our lodge congregated at sundown at this one part of the lagoon. Kelly and David passed out big beautiful bouquets of flowers to everyone and we waited. The shaman didn’t show up. So eventually Kelly said to go ahead and take just the tops of flowers and throw them in the water as wishes.

All the wishes floating in the lagoon

Well, before dinner the shaman showed up. He said that he ran out of gas and had trouble getting to the lodge. He was an old man with leathered skin and wore almost a sort of cotton baggy dress. He wore a headdress and many, many necklaces around his neck. He asked us to not take any pictures and explained (with Daniel translating for us) that before he performed a wedding ceremony, him and his colleagues would drink a certain drink that would allow them to see certain things (maybe from that frog or plant we saw in the rainforest earlier). They would start drinking this at 5 and then at 8 perform the ceremony. During the ceremony, he explained that he was going into a trance and would be able to see the insides of Kelly and David – he compared it to how our doctors use X-rays to see inside their patients. He made Kelly and David sit together and the shaman took a bunch of plants in his hands and started shaking them around the couple while chanting. Then he said some final words and sent us off to dinner.

After dinner we continued to celebrate. It was a festive mood in the air – we had tapped out all the cerveza so we were enjoying what was left and milling around socializing on our last day of our trip. After dinner many of us ended up all playing games – we played this dream game (which is so much funny – I have to try it back home!) and a strategy game called Mofia. The lodge said that because all the cerveza was gone that we could try the moonshine that they had (not to be confused with the moonshine we tried in the Sionan community). This stuff was called punta meaning point (at first we thought it was called puta which is a mean word for a female so it was a hilarious mix-up). This stuff tasted similar to margaritas – muy bien.

At about midnight I dragged my feet to bed – I didn’t want this trip to end. Mary, Danielle and I talked to the other girls through the wall we shared with the other cabin for a while, letting the night linger on a little bit more.

The next day we got up early and left paradise.

Chao Cuyabeno!

I swear the birds were singing dirges our entire way to the buses. We got on our 2-hour-bus (not to be confused with our 8 hour bus ride) which looked like some creepy circus caravan – it was pretty hilarious and tacky.

Our bus dropped us off at the bus station back in Lago Agrio (the sad little oil town) and we were starving. We walked across the street to this tiny hole in the wall restaurant, looking for something decent to eat. Most of the food looked like it promised parasites. Eventually, I went with some of the other girls back to the hotel for the most wonderful cheeseburger.

Then we jumped on our next bus. The bus that took us from Quito into the rainforest was a dream compared to this one. It was much smaller and much more crowded. I was tired, dirty, my clothes were disgusting, I was tired of sharing my stuff for 4 days and I just wanted to be transported quickly to Quito. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack, I felt so claustrophobic in the bus seats and poor Kevin was my bus buddy. But eventually, he got my mind off it by playing games. Where the other bus was at night and just went directly to our destination, this one was during the day and we picked up other people at other stops. There were no seats for them to sit in so they would either sit on small little plastic stools in the aisles, stand or sit on the floor. I don’t know how they did it but they were like that all the way into Quito.

Another strange thing on the bus was the movie they played. Wrong Turn 3 which included topless women, a disturbed Neanderthal West Virginian serial killer and of course, lots and lots of horrible, disturbing gore. Apparently, a woman with 3 little kids gave the movie to the bus driver to play.

We had gone about 2 hours when our bus got stopped. The military made us get out of the bus and everyone had to show our censos and they searched our bags (just the ones we carried on the bus – not the ones stowed away). Then we stood on the side of the road for a couple minutes waiting to get back on. It appears that the government routinely checks these areas because we were close to Columbia and there are many guerrilla fighters and people trying to sneak cocaine into Ecuador.

Finally we arrived in Quito where Kevin treated us girls to a fancy Valentine’s dinner – McDonald’s. It was delicious (though still not as good as McDee’s in the States). Once I got home, I was so tired that I didn’t even have the energy for a shower. I just woke up early and dragged myself out of bed to take a shower and get ready for the teacher work day.