The pipe you see just meters in front of someone's home is 300 miles long and transports crude oil across Ecuador. I wasn't that surprised to see a town called Shell in the jungly region (el Oriente) of the country.
My jungle posse: Manon from France and Barber & Job from Holland.
I literally couldn't stop myself from loudly humming & dah dah dah'ing the theme song from Indiana Jones on our 2.5 hour canoe ride to the lodge.
so cool
Fishing bats would come out at dusk each evening and commence their dive-bombing ritual as we gazed at them from the relative comfort of our giant tourist canoe.
Don't remember the name of this birdy, but he sure is purty. ;)
Our stilted accommodations at Jamu (armadillo) Lodge were quite awesome in their open-air, wood and thatch construction and offered easy access to all kinds of jungle visitors like toads, spiders (even tarantulas), and monkeys (the monkeys stayed in the trees circling the property).
Billy the Bass, I think you have some competition. Meet Pepe the Piranha! Oh yes, we went piranha fishing and I was the first to catch one (thanks to all the fishing trips with Daddy sprinkled with some dumb luck ;) ). We cooked one up, too...tasted like fish ;).
Sunset on Laguna Grande...muy romantico ;)
A lil guy just hanging out in the trees. Our guides were so good at spotting wildlife just by the reflection of the animals' eyes.
Caiman...jeepers.
Sir mix-a-lot's inspiration. I gasped in sheer excitement when we spotted this guy chillin' in a tree. Just to clarify, they aren't venomous...they'll just squeeze you to death. :)
A woman from one of the indigenous communities in the reserve cutting down the tree to pull out the roots (the edible part) of the yucca plant. We made yucca "tortillas."
I'm such a masochist...Our guide Rodrigo asked for a volunteer to lightly hit with the spiny ortiga plant...
Is that leprosy?! No, it's just the reaction from the ortiga plant. Apparently it improves circulation and is used in shamanic rituals, as well. At first, you don't feel anything, but then a gradual heat builds up in your skin as it turns bright red and huge mosquito bite-like welts appear. Luckily, the heat goes away after a bit and the welts disappear within several hours.
Nachoooooooo the monkey! He was the yucca woman's pet.
We met a shaman who works with the local community for their alternative medicine needs. To diagnose patients, he drinks ayahuasca or yague (derived from hallucinogenic plants) so that the rey de yague can appear and tell him what is ailing the patient. If natural healing isn't sufficient, he suggests that the patient visit a doctor of Western medicine.
The ortiga punishment, er, I mean, treatment. :) Just kidding. It is supposed to be helpful.
Yellow cacao pods can be opened to eat the fleshy part off of the seeds within.
Look at those shiny happy people. We painted our face with achiote seeds like the shaman. An Ecuadorian woman saw my face, started giggling, and took a picture. ;)
Ceibo tree. Huge like a sequoia.
After rowing for a few hours in a canoe, we reached a serene lake with gorgeous trees and underwater foliage (preventing any synchronized or regular swimming). It was quite an ethereal experience as we saw no other human beings for hours! Ahhhh, so nice.
The trees emerging from the water were hollow inside and very fragile, but many of them were home to some lovely orchids as well.
I removed the hook from this red-bellied piranha's mouth. It was a bit nerve-wracking since he could bite back! After finally catching a decent-sized silver piranha (which we're allowed to munch on), we headed to a little-known patch of land to eat lunch. We built a fire using some tree rubber for swifter ignition and cooked up our fishy friend. Quite yummy really.
Poky
This tree was covered with a white fungus which served some symbiotic purpose. It was called something like Devil's Bone Tree or something like that.
Our last night was a wet one...we embarked on a night hike armed with only ponchos and flashlights when it began to dump on us. The ponchos didn't really serve their purpose so we turned back and hung out in the dining room after dinner which was pretty fun because the rain brought all sorts of creatures seeking shelter including this toad hanging on the underside of the thatch roof.
An early morning bird-watching excursion yielded a few birds to behold, but my camera was misbehaving so I didn't catch the huatzin, a bird with dinosaur ancestors, but I did get a pic of a miniature toucan's silhouette.
A furry friend perched in the rafters in the dining room. Glad I didn't notice him 'til the morning we left!
Our jungle cat crew: some of the kitchen staff (Ecuadorian), Rodrigo (Ecuadorian), Irene (Dutch), Manon (French), Job & Barber (Dutch)
"Rollin' down a river!"
