Rebecca adventure Travel

A whole new worldIn collaboration with

The Amazon – a whole new world

Imagine a lush green rainforest that’s spread thousands of miles over large parts of South America. Underneath the dense, green canopy

where parrots and toucans build their nests, is a whole new world to explore. This was an opportunity for us to get close to an amazing

wildlife and ancient culture that we only had heard of and seen bits of on nature programs on TV. This was our chance to see for ourselves the extraordinary insects, mammals and plants that live and thrive i

Cuyabeno, a wildlife reserve in northeast of Ecuador.

Day 1 – The adventure begins

With the rucksacks packed with insect re-pellent, snacks, notebooks and camera, we set out late on Monday evening in Quito to take our bus. Down at the Plaza Foch, the bus would take us from the capital of Ecua-dor, over mountains and through valleys, to Lago Agrio, the capital of the province of Sucumbíos. It was already 11 o’clock at night and we knew the ride would be 7-8 hours long. After a shaky and bumpy hour we fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes again it was early morning and the sky was all pink. Through the window I saw swaying palm trees, cows and stray dogs as we drew near the city of Lago Agrio. When the bus final-ly stopped we got out and were hit by an invisible wall of heat and humidity. Com-pared to Quito, which has a cool and dry climate, it was quite a contrast to suddenly be in the tropics.

After coffee and some scrambled eggs at a nearby café, our tour bus that was going to take us into the rainforest arrived. Our guide Tamara, a friendly woman in her late 30’s, welcomed us aboard the small bus. Except for me and my husband there was a French family with two teenage kids, an Ecuadorian family with their kids and a woman travelling alone from Holland. Af-ter greetings we put our bags in the trunk and buckled the seat belts. After a rather rough ride alongside green palm trees and brown rivers, the rainforest began piling up. Like a green, wide carpet that stretches out in all directions, we had reached our goal– the Amazon.

“That the rooms didn’t have any roof in some places didn’t bother us, we were here to explore the jungle after all.”

We had a quick lunch of rice, fried chick-en, black beans and patacones (a thick slice of platano that has been fried) before we continued our adventure deeper into the rainforest. Since there aren’t any roads to Cuyabeno our new transport was a large motordriven canoe.

The trip on the river took two hours and during that time we saw parrots, butter-flies large as hands and even a sleeping sloth that was hanging high up in a tree.

In the afternoon we arrived at Dolphin Lodge, our home for the coming days.

The accommodation was simple but tidy and our rooms had everything we need-ed; a comfortable bed with mosquito net, a private bathroom and shelves for our lug-gage. That the rooms didn’t have any roof in some places didn’t bother us, we were here to explore the jungle after all.

A fruit and a flower.

Bananas in the jungle.

After settling in and having a rest the group gathered and Tamara explained to us that

we had to hurry a little in order to catch the sunset over the river. Quickly we jumped into the canoe again and travelled on the crooked river for about half an hour. The dense rainfor-est went all the way down to the waterline. We heard the ghostly roar of howler monkeys, saw bats fly past and lianas dangling as we passed by. Suddenly the jungle opened up and the narrow river transformed into a big lake. The water was tranquil, clear and looked almost sparkling.

The sun had begun to sink in the lake and the colors in the sky went from bright blue to pur-ple, pink and orange. Tamara said “Okay, now we will try to spot some of the pink dolphins”. We sat very still in the canoe. After a short while I saw something move under the water surface. “There is one, look!”, said Tamara. The whole group fumbled with the cameras and we all stared wide-eyed on the surface. Suddenly, a short distance from the boat something turned up from the water. A dolphin, a pink beautiful dolphin. It looked around a few moments be-fore it dived under the surface again.

Pleased to have caught a glimse of the rare pink dolphin I turned my gaze towards the sky. Nev-er before had I seen such a marvelous sunset. In addition to the dazzling colors of the sky, there was something very special about sitting here, in a canoe on the river in the lush Amazon, lis-tening to the water slapping against the canoe and gazing out towards the greenery that spread out like a skyline in front of us.

The last sunrays quickly vanished in the water and it was suddenly pitch black. At least for a little while, but soon millions of stars started to light up the night sky. Our canoe driver took us into the narrow river again and we all took up our flashlights. Our guide Tamara had great eye vision, she could spot animals, birds and insects that hid behind branches and leaves. She also seemed to have quite a talent for spotting cay-mans in the dark.

“There is one, do you see the eyes?”. And indeed, under the surface I saw two glowing red eyes. After about an hour of looking at the caymans swimming in the water we started heading back to the lodge. On our way back we saw a huge cayman on the shore, crawling towards the wa-ter and smoothly sliding into the water. It was probably two meters long.

BBack at the lodge I was both hungry and tired. After a dinner of asparagus soup followed by rice, fried fish and fresh pineapple, we head back to our room and went straight to bed. As I listened to sounds from the jungle I could not identify, I fell asleep in a few minutes.

Day 2 – Meeting the indigenious community

“Today we will go further into the jungle, to a Seo-queya community”, Tamara said. Seoqueya is one of the indigenous people of the Sionas tribe in Ec-uador. After about one and a half hour in the ca-noe we stopped at the shore and stepped out. I was lucky I had dressed in long pants, long sleeved shirt and rubber boots – the place swarmed with mos-quitos.

During our walk on the Turtle Trail Tamara showed us some plants that were used for medicine, for ex-ample to relief pain on wounds. She gave us a leaf each and we smelled it. It had the exact scent of a lemon. >>

“It’s a fungus, it is called “the Devil’s penis”, laughed Tamara.

A fungus called “The Devil’s penis” because

of the shape.

After walking for a while the Ecuadorian fam-ily burst out in laughter. Right on the ground

there was something growing that looked very weird, to say the least. “It’s a fungus, it is called the Devil’s penis”, laughed Tamara.

After an hour’s walk we arrived at the communi-ty. Soaked in sweat and with one or two mosqui-to bites we stepped out from the forest.

In the Seoqueya community we got to meet the indigenous people and one woman appeared with a machete in one hand and a basket in the other. She led the group to some kind of culti-vation with small trees and shrubs. She began pulling up thick roots from the soil, and up came yuca, or cassave as it is also called. Yuca looks like large sweet potatoes although the taste is more similar to normal potatoes. This root vege-table is very important as staple food.

Back in the hut we got to prepare the yuca. First we cleaned the roots, then we teared them in smaller pieces and finally we squeezed them un-til no water was left. Of the flour that was left, the woman prepared a very delicious bread. It tasted similar to pita bread.

After lunch it was time to meet the Shaman. The Shaman is a healer who practice rituals in order to heal people. Becoming a fully trained Shaman takes years, some practice for 80 years. The Sha-man that we met was named Aldemar, he was 54 years old and had studied in Colombia. Aldemar was very respected in his village and although the idea of a Shaman is to act as a doctor, the role is so much more. Aldemar is almost like the head of his village, a man who guides his people.

After spending the afternoon among the Sionas tribe it was time to walk back to the canoe. It got dark very quick and we had to use flash-lights to light our way through the forest. It may have been dark, but is was far from quiet. Insects, howling monkeys and chattering birds kept us company as we strolled along the path. On several occasions a spider’s web was caught in the flashlight and we saw big spiders hanging from strings. We saw both scorpion spiders and tarantulas.

“one woman appeared with a machete in one hand and a

basket in the other”

How to make yuca bread:

1. Peele the skin and wash the roots very carefully.2. Tear the yuca on a grater.3. Put the meat inside a towel and twist it as hard as you can in order to squeeze all the water out. 4. Heat a pan without oil or butter.5. Put in the flour and form it to a tortilla bread.6. After a few minutes, turn the tortilla and let it fry a bit on the other side.7. Serve with tuna, salad, marmelade or whatever you fancy.

A woman from the Sionas tribe is

preparing yuca.

Traditional facial paint.

D “the string orches-tra from a thou-sand locusts ac-

companied me as I got dressed”

Day 3 – Back to reality

The first morning rays of sunshine streamed in through the hole in the roof and I squinted to-wards the blue sky. Swaying palm trees moved slowly in the wind and the string orchestra from a thousand locusts accompanied me as I got dressed. I had granola, fresh fruits and yoghurt for breakfast before it was time to leave.During the two hour canoe trip back I kept gaz-ing into the lush forest. We had only been on this Amazon excursion a few days, but I felt I had got a glimpse of a totally new and different world, and I was sad to leave it.

“the string orchestra from a thousand locusts accompanied me as

I got dressed”

Aldemar, the Shaman in the village.

The Shaman’s role is to heal people.