We survived the Amazon....

Last night we returned from our trek into the Amazon, what a great couple of days it was! On Thursday morning we got into a truck that took Lyndsay, myself and two Austrians two hours into the Jungle for a very busy couple of days.

Let me first start by describing our travel partners the Austrians, or the lesbians as we affectionatly began to call them....behind their backs of course! For the life of me I never caught ether of their names because I don't speak phlegm, but for the stories sake lets call them Horris and Borris. They were both 32 and on their first trip to South America as were we. Horris (the lady) was studying to be a doctor, very pleasant to talk to but didn´t know too much English and physically she was a little bigger then the average bear. Borris (her boyfriend) was quite a bit more reserved even though he was pretty good with his English and he was very frail and feminine looking and much smaller then his girlfriend. His feminine looks were compounded by his choice of hiking attire, white clothing from head to toe! As we began to hike we got great amusement from watching Horris lift Borris over the more difficult parts of the trail and let him sit in her lap in the back of the truck to keep is white pants from touching the dirty bed of the truck!

Our first stop was the monkey rescue center called ¨Centro de Rescate los Monos¨or in English ¨Monkey Rescue Center¨ haha. As our truck pulled up outside there were monkeys on the dirt road before we had even entered, so naturally Lynz and I grabbed our cameras and chased them around for about 10 mins until we realized that if we just listened to our guide, the smarter thing would be to go INSIDE the center where there are like a hundred monkeys and no chasing involved. This monkey palace was not in anyway in closed and the monkeys are free to come and go as they please but they never go because nothing beats free, hand feed bananas. So after walking thru the front gate a monkey walks straight up to Lynz on its two hind legs, grabs her arm and hoists itself up onto her neck just like child riding on its parents shoulders.

As we took it all in there were monkeys of every species, from tiny little squirrel monkeys the size of....you guessed it, squirrels to bigger ones that were almost ape sized.

They also had turtles and opossum looking things to dogs and cats running all over the center, it was seriously something straight out of Ace Ventura. Some of the smaller animals were just like puppies, they would come running up to you and want to sleep in your arms, or play fight, which is a little scary when you see their needle sharp teeth!

After about an hour with the little creatures we were on the road again to our final destination alongside a giant tributary river of the amazon. The camp was a little touristy when we arrived in the way it was traditional grass hut looking structures....with running water and plumbing. Since we had decided to do a two day one night trek, all of our activities were back to back so we basically put down our stuff, stepped into our rubber boots and headed off into the jungle.

Our guide was a very nice guy named Gustavo who was born in the area and married to an indigenous tribes woman from the jungle. He took us on a hike to a waterfall that was a couple of hours outside of camp. Along the trail we would literally stop every five feet for him to show us how to use this plant/bug/mud/rock/stick/flower/etc to make anything and everything. We chewed on leaves that made our mouth numb, painted our faces with seeds that were bright red, treated bug bites with tree sap, ate ants that were far more sour tasting then lemons, braided bracelets with plant fibers that are stronger then metal wire and of course exfoliated our skin with Amazon mud. You can find anything in the jungle, Lynz and I were half expecting him to pull a TV or microwave out from under a rock! After returning from the waterfall

we made our way back to camp and ate a traditional indigenous diner, and hoped right back into our boots to head off into the swamps to go Cayman hunting (Cayman are those alligator looking things). With only our guide and our flashlights we walked along the edge of the swamps scanning with our lights looking for the reflections of their red eyes. When we would spot a pair of eyes, our guide would run over and jump into the water to try and grab them but with no success.

When we returned to camp Lynz learned the hard way not to leave food in her backpack, a rat chewed a hole straight through her pack and ate our only apple! We then looked at the walls of the room and could see they were crawling with huge 747 sized roaches! We fortunately had mosquito nets and wrapped ourselves in them so tight we probably looked like mummies from the outside but it did the trick.

We woke up in the morning feeling a little stiff and tired but ready to go. So once again we hoped into our rubber boots and headed off into the jungle for a 5 hour hike to another waterfall. When we arrived we were in a deep canyon with sheer walls that required you to strip down into your bathing suit and start walking through the waist deep water for about 50 yards. After reaching another dry part of land we put down our stuff, took off our boots and had to swim another thirty yards around a corner where we could suddenly see what we had just worked so hard to get to.

The waterfall was breathtaking, it was crystal clear blue water with beautiful vine covered cliffs surrounding it. A tree had at some point fallen into the water next to the falls but came to rest vertically so you could swim over to the tree, climb up it and jump into the pond, which everyone did several times.

The waterfall had been splashing into the pond for so many thousands of years that a pretty big cave had been carved out behind the falls, so you could actually stand behind the sheets of water, it was incredible.

Upon arriving back in camp, our guide notified us that our canoes were ready so we walked down the the rivers edge to board our canoes (which should have been named death boats).

These rickety, termite eatin, barely buoyant pieces of crap were so unstable and so un-waterproof we should have probably politely declined the ride, but when in Rome right? So as our guide pushed us out into the current four wide eyed tourists began our ride of terror down what should normally be a reasonably tame river. After getting to the first set of many rapids we realized why the boats were in such bad shape, the guide makes little or no effort to miss rocks and boulders, and at times seemed to enjoy watching us get whiplash and splinters trying to keep ourselves from flying out of the boat every time it nearly capsized.

Of course lyndsays butt had not yet recovered from the bike ride the other day so bouncing down a river for 45 mins did her healing process no favors. But to be honest the view was amazing and no one caught a blow dart in the neck so I guess I would do it again given the chance.

We arrived back in Baños yesterday around 6pm and noticed that it was not the quite little tourist town we had left 36 hours earlier. The streets look like Waikiki or Vegas or something, apparently its a national holiday and all the locals flood Baños on three day weekends so we are truly getting a taste for the culture. Half the streets are closed to foot traffic only, all the restaurants are packed and people are partying night and day despite the rain and 50 something degree weather.

We plan on staying in Baños till Friday when we will catch a bus back to Quito where we will meet Jono at the airport, spend a day and then head off to Cotapaxi for some more adventures! Look for another blog sometime near the end of the week. Till then Adios



Sean & Lynz