Quito and the Amazon (2-9 marzo)

At the Equator

Saturday Marc, Carley, and I moved to a hostel in Quito and then went to Mitad del Mundo--the middle of the earth.  When people originally calculated the equator, they fucked up and built a monument for the equator 200 m south of the real thing.  At the museum, they had some hokey science experiments to prove it was the real equator, but one was cool where they had a sink full of water and when they pulled the plug, the water swirled in different directions, depending on what side of the line you were on.  That night we all went out for dinner, and then said bye to Carley and her boyfriend Johnathon as they were flying to NYC the next morning.

Sunset in the Amazon

Sundays suck because everything was closed.  Marc and I went to an artisan fair in a park, then to the artisan market, and then the Santa Clara market where we wanted to try Cuy (guinea pig), but they only eat it on special religious holidays, so there was none to be had.  We then went to the Teleferico which took us all the way up the cerro, giving us an amazing view of the city, but it was super windy and cold!  When we got back down we ended up going to this giant park with a reptile house in it and there was a show with a boa which was cool.  There were like no restaurant options though because it was Sunday, so we ended up going to this shitty BBQ like texas-style place which made me feel awful.  The nexy day I pretty much spent sleeping off the shitty food, and then hopped on an overnight bus to Lago Agrio.

Rainforest

Tuesday I arrived, and met a couple from Australia who were going to the same ecolodge as me, so we grabbed breakfast together before we got picked up.  It was a 2 hour vanride to the launch point in Reserva Cuyabeno from Lago Agrio, and then another 2 hours in a motorized canoe to our lodge.  On the way we saw snakes, butterflies, monkeys, sloths, and birds!  Once we got to the lodge we had a bit of time to chill out before hopping back in the boat to go to the lake for a sunset swim.  That night we went Caiman hunting after dark--their eyes reflect light, so they're easier to find at night with a flashlight, as they camouflage quite well in the day.  We saw a baby that was 2m, and we learned that caimans and anacondas are both really territorial and fight each other--our guide once saw a fight last for hours that the anaconda eventually won!

Pirannha teeth!

Wednesday in the morning we went for a hike in the forest and saw all these super cool species--lemon ants taste like lemons because of the citrus in the tree that they live in.  All the trees that house these ants have like a 1m clearing surrounding them due to the symbiotic relationship between the tree and ants--the ants keep other trees away, thereby giving the tree more nutrients in exchange for living there.  We also saw lianas that grow down from the top of trees from birds shitting seeds out, and the plants suck the moisture from the tree they are growing down and their roots grow around the tree eventually killing it and taking over.  We also got to swing on the lianas tarzan style!  Also, if you find a house of termites and rub them over your skin, they're a natural insect repellant, and the bark from one of the trees when boiled in water can be drunk as a tea to prevent malaria.  Our guide also caught a poisonous frog, and we saw some red ants that the indigenous people used to use as torture--their nickname translated from spanish is "take off your underpants," as the only way to get them off you is to strip down naked.  There was also this tree that could move--the roots grew above ground and would keep moving like a tripod (multipod?) until it was far enough away from other trees to get more sunlight.  Also, the leaf cutter ants we saw are the strongest animals in the world--they can carry 3-5X their weight bringing leaves to their home.  They don´t actually eat the leaves--just the fungus that grows on them; and after one year, the queen flies to a new location to lay fresh eggs and start the process all over again.  We also saw military ants; their soldier is called the surgery ant, because their pincers are so strong, you can use them to sutcher close a wound--you just get the ant to sting on either side of the wound and then you cut it's head off and the pincers stay there as a stitch.  After the walk, we paddled back to the lake, stopping for a swim along the way.  I was the only one that went in though other than the guide...I don't understand how you can go to the rainforest and NOT want to spend as much time in the water as possible!

During the nightwalk

That afternoon we went pirannha fishing which was super cool--their teeth are huge!  The fish are are quite small (max size 30 cm), and we used leftover raw meat as bait.  Luis, our skip was the only one with any luck; he caught two!  But we're not allowed to keep them to cook up unless they are at least 20cm and badly injured, so we didn't get to try pirannha for dinner that night.  We spotted another caiman on the way back to the lodge; this time it was an adult and it was huge!  It had one blind eye, and was 4.7m long.  Loco.

Me and my guide in the Simona community

Thursday we started with a visit to an indigenous community a 2 hour boat ride away, and we spotted a number of cool animals along the way, including black saky monkeys, night monkeys, and yellow-footed monkeys!  There are 3 Simona communities in the region, consisting of 6, 8, and 12 families.  We visited the medium-sized one, where we met Ester, the wife of one of our boat drivers, Pedro.  She took us into the field where I got to pull up Yuca and peel it.  We then went back to a hut where we grated the yuca; Ester then put it into a woven case and squeezed all the juices out--saving them for soup--creating a yuca flour.  Ester then sifted it a few times to make a finer before finally cooking it.  She made the first yuca bread, and I got to make one after her--you simply sprinkle the flour on the pan directly on the fire, spread it around, flatten it, and then flip it.  And it was delicious!  We ate it with tuna mixed with this black chilli paste and it was so yum.  After lunch we went down the river to visit a shaman--they used to live within the communities, but after the arrival of the spaniards and christianity, the shamans were forced out of their communities and now all live alone.  The shaman we met had studied to be a shaman from tha ge of 8 to 22 with his grandfather (a shaman), and then from 22-40 with his father (also a shaman), before he graduated.  Shamanism doesn't have to be passed down familialy though--most shamans have upto 8 pupils, but it is rare for more than one to ever graduate.  When finally ready to graduate, the ceremony involves taking Peji in the forest alone, giving him 24 hours of halluciantion and made from the white trumpet flowers.  Women can be shamans as well, and are actually considered to be more powerful than male shamans, but cannot practice as a shaman during their period each month.  After the the half bowl of peji the shaman must take to graduate, they then have to take a full bowl of Ayahuasca, which is a much less strong hallucinogenic that they use more regularly to connect to the spiritual world when looking for answers to heal the ailments of their patients.  After Tomás told us his story on how he became a shaman, he did a demonstration ritual on me to show how he would treat a patient.  He started by brushing all my bad spirits away, and then sang a chant.  He then would have drank the ayuhuasca and waited for his visions to guide him had it been a proper ceremony.  If in his vision, the shaman sees that he cannot help his patient, he will send them to a western doctor to seek a cure.  Once a shaman from the lowlands had a vision to use plants from the highlands--as place he had never been before in his life--to cure his patient (a well-known politician), which is very rare, but he was able to cure him!  Also, for quite rare cases, the shaman will consult all the other shamans in the area for guidance on as how to proceed.  Tómas currently has 6 students, including his 12 year old son, however the majority of his students will not graduate, as the training is quite rigorous, and being a shaman requires one to devote their entire lives to their studies and their community.  After the shaman visit, we went back to the lodge and after dinner we went for a night walk in the forest and saw so many cool creatures!

Making yuca bread

Friday we woke at 5:30 to go bird watching, but about 20 minutes after getting out onto the water it started to pour, so we went back.  I was displeased.  We saw a few varieties, but definitely not worth the early morning.  Our guide and most of our group left that day, but the family from Guayaquil and Daniel stayed and we got a new guide to take us on a paddle to this protected aread where motor boats can't go.  We went for another forest walk and learned about water lianas, palm trees, and many of the other species spotted on the previous walk.  And my spanish vocabulary improved immensly as the guide did not speak english, and he was talking about a lot of species I had never heard about before in spanish.  We had lunch on the lake, and our guide gave me a wheto tattoo on my face--the juice of this fruit found in the amazon turns black when dry and lasts for upto 2 weeks!  We had a long paddle back then (in the rain), and saw some woolly monkeys, whose call can bhe heard 2.5 km away!  We went caiman spotting again after dinner and this time saw a white caiman, which only grow up to 3 m long.  The caiman find abandoned termite nests to lay their eggs in and then cover them with leaves and guard their nests for 3 months.  Most of the eggs hatch, but only 60% of them survive their first year.  Like the iguanas in the galapagos, the sex of the caiman is determined by the temperature of the eggs.

Shaman brushing my bad spirits away

My last day in Cuyabeno, I decided to skip the bird-watching repeat, as it had been pretty lacklustre the day before.  After breakfast we had a 2 hour boat ride back to the start of the reserve, had lunch and then an hour and a half van back to lago agrio.  Our bus from there to Quito left at 3:30 and was supposed to be 6 hours, but we ended up arriving at 11:30 pm--we were stopped by the military, the bus broke down for a bit, and the driver kept letting people off in the middle3 of nowhere.  The entire time back the bus felt so rickety and was working so hard to keep going, I was convinced it was going to flip.  Luckily though, we made it back safe and sound, albeit quite delayed.