Sunday, February 27, 2011
I’m glad I set low expectations for the Amazon; it means I’ve been completely satisfied with my experience.
What a wonderful introduction to the forest. Getting to the Amazon took a good part of Sunday. The hotel kindly made us breakfast at 7:15am so that we could leave at 8am. Lyle and Marie-Ann were running a few minutes late, but the taxis were on time and the driver David and I had got us to the bus station in 30 minutes. I was holding on for dear life as he swung around corners and passed other cars. The south Quito bus station is the nicest I’ve seen in all of South America, more like a modern airport terminal, and looks over Cotopaxi volcano which was fully visible given our cloudless morning. Of course the lack of rain meant I didn’t notice I’d left my umbrella at the Magic Bean until after we boarded the bus.
The bus wound through the mountain side as we descended from 2800 meters to 500 meters above sea level. A horribly violent movie blasting in Spanish played for part of the journey, so I donned my ear buds and caught up on today’s events through various podcasts while staring out the window. Six hours and a few bathroom stops after departing Quito, our bus arrived in Tena. We quickly piled the luggage in one location and took turns using the loo. Miriam walked around looking for the local Tucan guide while we waited. Eventually she came back with a couple of men and we loaded our luggage in the back of a pickup truck taking seats in the cab while Miriam and the guys sat in the back. Afraid that our bags would get soaked if the impending rain started, the driver picked up a tarp before we drove into the forest.
A new airport is being constructed near Tena to increase tourism to this part of the Amazon, so we drove on a beautifully paved (or in the process of being paved) road to the boat dock. By this point it had started raining and Miriam was getting soaked in the back. 45 minutes later we boarded a narrow, long covered boat with our luggage and sped upriver. I sat in the middle of the seat attempting to stay dry and warm. We eventually pulled up to a concrete platform and 150 concrete steps leading to our lodge. Luckily the men carried our large backpacks and I only had to hull my daypack up the stairs.
I wasn’t expecting much, so I was pleasantly surprised when we reached the lodge at the top of the stairs. The first wood building had lounge chairs facing the Rio Napo and a large dining area with bar. The bathrooms, while having only cold showers, contained four toilets, two showers and four sinks, all looking clean and modern, at a much higher standard than I imagined. The other building contains the rooms which are nice enough, the beds covered with mosquito nets. It was already 4pm, so we had a brief chance to settle in and select our rain boots before heading off for a short walk in the jungle.
The rain had just stopped as our four guides walked me, David, Lyle and Marie-Ann through the jungle to the house “next door”. On the way, Marie-Ann and I asked for walking sticks to help us balance on the muddy ground. Our nature guide pointed out some local plants and constructed two different hats for Lyle and David before making me a crown from a small palm leaf. We arrived at the next door house at 6pm; the two men living there have a small fruit farm and didn’t appear to have wives, although they could have been hiding inside. The one man I conversed with briefly said he’d been living in the jungle for 33 years. The fruit they grow is sold in Tena, each pineapple costing 50 cents.
We were offered half a grapefruit each, a delicious, juicy sweet grapefruit unlike any I’ve tried elsewhere. The only difficulty was eating the fruit since my hands were dirty and I was attempting to get the fruit out without touching it; this basically meant that I took the longest to eat my grapefruit and the fresh pineapple was already being passed around. The pineapple had a mild flavor, not too sweet or too sour, and was light yellow in color. Marie-Ann liked it so much that she requested another to be cut on the spot (the men originally thought she wanted to save it for later) and the men looked through the plants to find another ripe pineapple.
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| David and Marie-Ann with their grapefruit |
Time passed quickly and it was getting steadily darker by the time we started back to the lodge. My eyes adjusted, but the trees covered the little light left in the sky as we walked carefully back. We had an hour until dinner, so I took a quick shower, trying not to be chilled by the cold water, and got dressed in warmer clothes even though it was still quite humid. Just after we returned, the sky broke and it started pouring, and I mean pouring, the kind you would expect in the rainforest. It pounded on the roof for hours. For dinner we were served corn soup, followed by chicken with rice and cucumber salad. We sat talking until almost 10pm when we hurried to get ready for bed before the lights went out.
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| Miriam, Marie-Ann, Lyle, David and me at dinner |
I as snuggled into the sheets under my mosquito net, I reflected on what a wonderful day it turned out to be. I fell asleep looking forward to the next couple days in the jungle.
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