Misahualli

It was hot and humid, so hot in fact even I was sweating, lots (obviously you can imagine the state Ollie was in). The background noise was a loud and constant buzzing, so infiltrating you wondered if it was just in your head. The surroundings were dense with greenery, the mud bright red and the green rivers wide and murky. We had arrived in the rainforest.

I had been looking forward to this for some time. We boarded dugout canoes to take us 20 minutes down the Napo River to Anaconda Lodge. In the dugout canoes you felt like the water would come over the edge at any moment and the wide, fast flowing river seemed very aggressive from this vantage point. The boat ride really gave you a sense of the vastness of the rainforest. There were a few locals washing themselves or their clothes in the river, a few small houses along the banks, cows grazing near the waters edge and as far as you could see green huge trees and tropical leaves.

This would be our home for the next 3 nights within the Amazon rainforest. I know I hate anything with more than two legs, especially if it has ´spider´ in its name, but I was intrigued.

As we grounded the boat outside Anaconda Lodge we jumped off to see our new residence. We crossed a small path of leafcutter ants on the way to the lodge which had me and Ollie fascinated, the others thought we were a little weird. The lodge was a large wooden hut open to the elements on all sides, with several small wooden huts surrounding it. The smaller huts contained a bed with a mosquito net over, candles on bedside tables (no electric) basic bathroom (no hot water) and windows covered in fly netting only.

The sun was shining and it was hot so I donned my summer dress to get back on the boat to go to the local animal sanctuary on the next island. This animal sanctuary had animals of all kinds rescued from local cities or taken by customs and here they were rehabilitated then eventually released or used in breeding programs. As we got off the boat Woolly monkeys greeted us, one with a penchant for trying to pull off flip flops, or if you wasn´t wearing any, trying to slap your head –Ollie fell victim to this to my amusement. We also saw Spider Monkeys, Tamarind Monkeys, Capibaras, Cayman, Macaws and many more. Seeing the Toucans was beautiful but somewhat spoilt when Ollie was inspired to spout off for an hour with the worst ´toucan´ jokes you have ever heard (toucan play at that game). We wanted them to bite him, they didn´t. It was a great place, but if only I wasn´t an idiot; within a few seconds of getting there I realised there were huge spider’s webs everywhere and biting ants all around our feet. I ended up wrapping the dress round my legs to stop anything crawling up and within 5 minutes of getting there the heavens opened and I was left soaking wet, the dress stuck to me and my flip flops were buried under the 3 inches of mud that had been the path. I learnt the hard way, the jungle is not a place for dresses.

We headed back to the lodge, to try and get dry and sit down for some local grub. The first course had us all a little confused; Plantain soup with popcorn on the side. We were then informed that its Ecuadorian tradition to put popcorn in soup like croutons, don´t know if he was winding us up or not but it tastes pretty good. We then headed off to bed early for a good nights kip ready for the next day, or so we thought...

In bed, pitch black, the sounds of the jungle penetrating the small hut, I heard more humanly murmurings. “Someone’s ripping out my inners, I´m going to be sick” came Ollie’s pitiful cry. Trying to light the candle on the bedside table I got the (forgotten) mosquito net wrapped round my head. When I eventually found the matches by scrambling around on the floor in the dark (not thinking about what the fluffy thing was that I picked up thinking it was a match box), I looked at the bed to see Ollie clutching his stomach and looking the worst for wear. He spent the next hour in the loo. Both ends. Having been not so well myself for the last week I felt sympathy towards him, which quickly ran out when I had to fight him for the toilet. All night we battled for the use of the toilet or clutched our stomachs and moaned. I think we scared most of the animals away, or intrigued them with our animalistic cries.

We are not blaming the food that night, on closer inspection of the 'fresh natural water' we had purchased from a shop a day prior we realised it was two years out of date and had white floaters in it. No we didn´t check the sell by date before drinking it, that would take common sense.

As dawn broke we had fallen into a restless sleep and both knew today we weren´t going to be up to much. We appeared at breakfast, touched nothing and both left to fight for the loo. An hour later we forced ourselves out into the jungle on the day trip (thank you immodium!). It was still heavily raining and had been from the afternoon prior, all the paths were muddy streams and the river had risen by 2 meters overnight. We boarded the canoes and headed to a local Quechua village. A short walk through secondary forest, passing many cocoa and banana trees we arrived at the local school. It was pouring with rain but the kindergarten toddlers just ignored it and played barefoot outside in their t-shirts and shorts. The classroom was a hut, with walls 1.5m high with the rest open to the elements. It was extremely damp in there and posters on walls had long since faded and worn. The teacher was a lovely man who explained about the school, all the children from this island attend (government funded) from the age of 5 to 12. They have two classes for all children with two teachers. The government runs a vaccination programs and once a year a doctor and dentist visit the school. The children buzzed around as intrigued with us as we with them. As we entered the older children’s classroom we found the teacher was off sick and so no children were around, school is just cancelled and the kids would go to work with parents instead. Unfortunately, he said this happens often.

We then went to visit a local family. We found the mother out in her field tending to her Yucas, a principal food in this area. She had a huge machete that she was using to cut down the yucas, weed the area and replant new ones. I like to think I helped her, I dug some up and put a few stems in the ground so they could re-sprout but I got the distinct impression I hindered her operation. After collecting the yuca roots we then peeled them and took them back to her house.

Her house was again a hut construction on stilts as the whole island is prone to flooding due to the unpredictability of the Napo river. The house actually houses 3 families; it had only 3 bedrooms, one for female children, one for male children and one for all the adults. When I asked about ´parental intimate time´ the guide said they just got on with it, even if others were present!

In the centre of the hut a wooden square structure housed an open fire and onto this she put the freshly peeled yucca to boil. 10 minutes later, it was mashed then mixed with sweet jungle carrot and left to ferment for a couple of days, and guess what you were left with? That not so lovely but potent drink chicha. The yuca-based chicha tastes even more rank than the maize form, like gone-off watery yogurt with fibrous strands in it. I have no idea why they spoil something that tastes as good as yuca (like sweet potatoes) by letting it ferment for a couple of days. Actually, sharing a house with 2 other couples and 12 children, I see their point.

The guide, originally from the very village we were visiting, was explaining how Quechuan people are known to eat anything and in the vicinity it was hard to see animals now, as the populations had declined rather dramatically after firearms came into the area making hunting easier. I thought he was joking until I noticed the turtle shell and monkey skull on the kitchen shelf (gulp). There was also a baby chick in a small grocery bag hung on a hook next to the kitchen counter, I´m hoping it was because it was being hand reared.

It was still raining, we were soaked to the bone so started making our way back to the canoe through the muddy jungle paths. We came across more cocoa plants and a small caiman lurking at the edge of a large puddle. Back at the now vast river, the guide gave us the option of making a raft and floating back to the lodge. The river was fast flowing, murky, and had what resembled rapids. After my last experience with water and rafts I politely chickened out (never, ever, ever again) and left Ollie to it. Within minutes a raft had been constructed out of balsa tree trunks and rope and 3 of them were precariously sat on it making their way downstream. After an hour of floating, Ollie decided he wanted to go for a swim. The current quickly pulled him to the other side of the river, away from the boat and he travelled for 2.5km bobbing up and down in his life-vest. When the current shoved him into the side of the river and he got stuck we rescued him with the canoe and it was left to me to pull him in. Thats quite a task I assure you.

The afternoon for me was spent in bed, I still wasn´t well and Ollie went to another town to see some pottery (rubbish apparently) and some balsa wood carving (really good apparently). The guy used a machete and took only 10 minutes to carve a balsa wood parrot. If you so wished, you could buy a shaman hat made from armadillo skin and vials of dragonfly blood. Nice.

Needless to say, after the previous nights debarcle we skipped any food that day and got an early, restful night.

Feeling more like ourselves, the rain had stopped as we headed down river to the primary forest to do some jungle trekking. It was still hot, but this time I was ready for the jungle, long pants tucked in, adamant nothing was getting up my legs. We walked in total for around 4 hours, through dense valleys of primary forest and up to high viewpoints where the massive expanse of jungle was mesmerising. It was amazing and mystical but predictably we didn´t see any animals, only insects. We heard white mouthed monkeys above our head but they moved quicker than we did. My highlight was seeing the poisonous tree frogs that they make the poison darts from, really small with red backs, so cute. I managed to avoid all tarantulas, the yellow and black spider, the biting sun ants and anything else that put the heeby-geebies in me and really enjoyed it. We also learnt about the plants medicinal and other purposes, drank from a water vine, ate cinammon tree leaves and saw palm, wild garlic and vanilla growing. We walked back to the boat down a stream, in some places up to our chests in murky water, sinking to our knees in the debris that was lying on the river bed (don´t think about what it is, just leaves and stuff, keep walking, all's good...). I didn´t moan, I didn´t acknowledge any of the jumping water spiders that everyone was helpfully informing me were all around us "look, that one is bigger than my hand!" and I ignored the fact the guide pulled out the biggest freshwater crab I´ve ever seen from the same water we were walking in. Denial works for me!

The afternoon was spent learning about various traps they use for capturing animals, fishing tools and also learning the technique of the blowpipe. I would starve to death but Ollie wasn´t bad.

That evening back at the lodge the local shaman came to show us his ´medicine´. This involved one of us sat on the floor in front of him while, by candlelight, he drank offensively strong alcohol, intermittently spat it on the poor beggar in front of him, wafted a bunch of leaves to 'scare the evil spirit away' and 'sang' for 10 minutes. Cynic -me?! Mind you, I´d never repeat the above sentence to his face, he looked scary.

Oh, by the way, I have to apologise that this entry is so long and has no photos to back it up. Ollie´s SLR temporarily broke due to the humidity, along with his phone.