I spent this past weekend deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We went to a place called Tiputini which is right off of the Tiputini river. The journey began at 7 am on Friday morning. We met at the airport to take a 30 minute flight to a town called Coca. The flight, however, was delayed almost 2 hours because the Coca airport was closed due to heavy rains. When we finally made it to Coca, we took a short bus from the airport to the river. We all sat down by the river to wait for our canoe when all of a sudden - a bunch of monkeys began jumping on us. It was seriously one of the best moments of my life.
After playing with the monkeys for a while, we boarded our first canoe. The canoes were shaped like canoes but had motors and canvas tops because it rains a lot in the Amazon. The first canoe ride was 2 hours. Luckily the canvas top was there because it poured rain for most of the two hours.
After the first canoe ride, we boarded a wooden open aired bus which took us two more hours down dirt trails. Random indigenous people kept hopping on the bus and then whistling really loudly when they needed to get off. After the bus ride, we took another two hour canoe ride on a different river. This canoe took us to the place we were staying. It was right off the river (the only way to access it was by canoe) and it was a research station for the University of San Francisco in Quito. We had to walk up tons of stairs which brought us to a big open air patio with tables and a kitchen where we ate all of our meals. There was a trail behind the eating area that lead to a library and a further along the trail were very simple open air cabins where we slept. Luckily, they were screened in and were relatively clean of bugs (besides the tarantulas that were on the outsides of some of the cabins). The camp only had electricity for 2 hours a day so at night we had to use candles. It was also 90% humidity all the time so we had to put all of our cameras and phones and books in a dry box in the library when we weren't using them.
The first night we were there, we watched a documentary made by a guy who lived and researched in the camp for 8 years. It was kind of like planet earth but it was made in the place where we were staying. It showed all of the animals in the amazon, including live footage of an anaconda eating a monkey. Saturday morning we woke up for 6:30 am breakfast and then began our adventures. We were divided in 3 groups of 5, each with our own guide and we all had to wear giant rubber boots because of all the poisonous animals on the ground. Our first activity was to go to a viewing platform above the trees where you could see forever. It was beautiful. There were telescopes up there and our guide found tons of birds and monkeys for us to see. After that, we went to a rope bridge in the canopy that was so high up and so rickity that we had to wear harnesses and clip ourselves on the whole time. It was infested with ants so it was kind of gross.
After lunch and a short nap, all 3 groups went canoeing down the river and then we got to swim in the river. As we were all jumping in, our guides told us that the river contained anacondas, sting rays, and caymens (alligators) and that if we let our feet touch the ground we would probably get bitten. It was pretty frightening but we were so hot that the water felt amazon. We did see dolphins however which was really cool! So we spent 2 hours floating down the river in life jackets. That night, after dinner, we went on a nighttime nature hike in the dark. We all brought out flashlights and went deep into the jungle. The amazon is incredibly loud at night. Our guides pointed out tons of animals, including terrifying spiders. One was bigger than my hand!! There were some really cool bugs. We also saw lots of frogs and we even saw a snake.
That night we all played cards by candle light and listened to all the noises of the jungle. The next morning we woke for our 6:30 breakfast and started on another hike. This time we spent almost 4 hours just hiking around the jungle while our guide pointed out animals. We saw a whole group of squirrel monkeys and tons of birds. Our guide was really good at bird calls - the birds even answered him! We also ate ants that tasted like lemon and we chewed on a plant that made our tongues turn blue for 5 hours!
At the end of the hike we ended up in a beautiful lagoon and we canoed around it for a while. There were many water animals and tons of flying turkeys.
After lunch, we went on yet another hike and saw many more animals. Our guide kept pointing out giant spiders which I did not appreciate. That night, we went on a caymen hunt. We all boarded the canoe and our guide had a giant flashlight and we found a bunch of caymen and capybaras on the shorelines. Caymens are kind of like alligators and capybaras are the biggest rodent. They are the size of large pigs and are nocturnal.
On Monday, we began our journey home which was the same as the journey there, which of course included monkeys.
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