The jungle is always something that I’ve been drawn too. No idea why. Maybe it is because it holds some crazy figure like 1/2 of the worlds flora and fauna. And, I’ve always wanted to see an anaconda in the wild since seeing the movie ‘Anaconda’ when I was little. For some reason it has stuck in my mind.
So, for 3 nights and 4 days we lodged and canoed (electric canoe that is) through a slice the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon Jungle, piranha fishing, monkey spotting, dolphin watching and swimming in the river to our hearts content.
Zooming along in our electric canoe
Expecting to be rouging it because we’d gone for the cheapest lodge we could find – Jamu Lodge - we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves living rather luxuriously, except for the cold water showers, and occasional animal that pooped in your room thanks to open air living. Warned to check your 
gumboots for spiders before putting them on, and to check toilet bowls before sitting down for frogs, we all survived the Amazon without an major incident, except for Claire, who thought she would try her luck swimming with piranhas and electric eels.
After returning from our jungle walk during which we got trapped in a torrential downpour, we all had to wash our gumboots. With the 
submerged section of the pontoon occupied with the rest of our group, Claire decided she would join Washington, our guide, and dip her feet into the water while leaning on what turned out to be a not so stable chair. As she attempted to delicately dangle her foot into the water the chair toppled over, and so did Claire, headfirst, straight into piranha and electric eel infested water. Washington was very quick to react, and immediately pulled her to safety, all before I even knew that she had gone in. I was busy making splashing noises with my gumboots while trying to wash them, and had not even the fuzziest idea what had happened until someone, whom I thought was playing a practical joke said “Claire just fell in the water.” I looked up to see her saturated from head to toe, sitting on the pontoon, her hand full of thorns from a prickly tree.
The remnants of Claire’s fall. Spot the floating chair…
I didn’t fancy trying my luck with electric eels. Instead, I voluntarily let a creepy crawly climb all over my face, and not a small creepy crawly at that – an enormous tarantula. On a night walk through the jungle, Washington, our jungle guide, spotted a huge tarantula in its hole. After carefully coaxing the thing out of its hole with his fingers (?!?!) he offered it around for people to hold. Little did I know at the time, but Washington’s plan was to then make it crawl up your neck and sit on your face. Ewwww, it felt gross. Your initial reaction is to flick the thing off, but instead you just stand there squirming for fear of it biting you. One of the girls on our tour took a photo of it sitting right on my cheek. I’ll post it as soon as I get it.
Apart from the creepy crawlies, the jungle was absolutely spectacular. As you drift down one of the many rivers that will eventually flow into the Amazon, you are immersed in a world of the brightest and biggest blue butterflies you will ever see (known as morphos’), complete with monkeys soaring above your head trying to cross the river (not all making it). Here is one that did:
But my favourite parts of the whole trip had to be swimming in the river (well away from where the electric eels and piranhas call home) 
as the sun set in the distance and piranha fishing. Who knew that piranhas would be so difficult to catch?! One fishing line lost two hooks in a matter of minutes because the greedy little things with their razor sharp teeth took the whole thing off in one bite. I must say, ii takes quite a bit of technique to catch them, though by the end of the day we’d pretty much all mastered the jerk necessary to trap them on the 
hook. Somehow though, the hook never really seem to get them well enough. All my piranhas managed to escape just before I got them into the boat, which I’m retrospectively thankful for. Many piranhas dropped off the line just as they were suspended over the boat. Loose piranhas failing around on the floor of our canoe caused much panic and rocking of the boat for fear of loosing toes! On several occasions, we were all almost piranha bait!
No anaconda though, poo!
The Amazon at sunset
I cannot say that I wasn’t a bit fearful about arriving in the small town which our tour departed from – Lago Agrio. Lonely Planet describes it as a FARC haven. Apparently they cross over the Colombian/Ecuadorian boarder and hide out here when they start feeling the heat. Hmmmm. To add to my fear of the FARC, we were told we had to take a night bus to Lago Agrio, though we’d planned to get a midday one. According to many travellers, night buses are a faux pas in Ecuador, many people being victims of bus robberies. Luckily for us, our biggest happening that night was the complete lack of air conditioning on a bus with no windows. While a chilly night outside, the temperature inside the bus rapidly became that of a sauna. That will happen when there are 40 people breathing for 7 hours with no means for air to circulate. Gross. Even though I stripped down to a singlet, and rolled up my light cotton pants to my thighs, I was still left sitting in the most uncomfortable heat I have ever experienced. Forty-five degree temperatures in Walgett cannot even compare. And, like clockwork, we both developed colds that we are still trying to shake. Not wanting to relive that nightmare, we splurged on the way back and flew home to Quito.
Though getting over Quito, having to wait until 11pm to catch our bus to Lago Agrio did mean that we had some time trek out to the ‘must do while in Ecuador’ equator. In typical Claire and Bec style however we missed the real one. Though we knew that the equator marked was at least 200m off (thanks to the French apparently) we had no idea that the real equator was marked in one of the museums close by. Whoops. Oh well, we have some good photos of the fake one.
Next stop, COLOMBIA!!
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