Jungle-icious

OK, first let me apologize for waiting so long to finish describing this whole jungle experience (I know you were all hanging on the edge of your seats huh?). I'm going to make this brief, and just sort of give an overview of the rest of the trip, as much for your sakes as for my own.

Our days in the jungle generally consisted of three meals eaten in the village which were cooked for us by one of the local women. The guide had food brought in for us from the city to "prevent depletion of their resources", though I suspect also as an attempt at comfort. This mostly consisted of rice, soup, some fruit, and a loaf of white bread. There were some seriously inaccurate calculations somewhere along the way and this "western food" ran out about day four. After that we pretty much ate yucca and.... no wait, yep, just yucca. This proved to be a fairly uncomfortable diet for someone not accustomed to so much starch and I even got a nice little starch belly (which disappeared days after departure thank goodness). Between breakfast and lunch we would usually go on jungle walks with Abel, our 23 guide from the city, and Gustavo, our local guide. This generally involved trudging through knee-deep mud (don't worry, we had rubber boots on at all times) and occasionally crossing bridges over streams (and by bridges I of course mean trees cut down over the river). The foliage was incredibly thick (as you'd expect in the jungle) and we saw an amazing variety of flora and fauna. Our guides would frequently stop to explain the use of different plants--everything ranging from medicinal to edible.

We encountered a fair amount of animals while we were out wandering (millions of species if you count bugs). Our guides were extremely enthusiastic about searching for monkeys, I think that somewhere along the way they got the idea that tourists are obsessed with monkeys and will not be happy unless they see them every day. So we spent a good amount of time scanning the canopy for primates and spotted some at least five or six times. But by far the coolest animal we saw was an anteater that walked right up to us and then stayed around for awhile climbing trees and searching for food. It was pretty amazing. It frequently rained, which made the jungle walks considerably less comfortable and the mud infinitely deeper. I must say I also thoroughly enjoyed our guides various animal calls throughout the trip.

There were definitely some amazing experiences in the jungle, but by the end, I was more than ready to leave. This unfortunately did not happen as planned (as nothing really did). On the day that we were supposed to leave there was bad whether in Shell (the city the plane leaves from) and we couldn't fly out. I don't think I have ever been more devastated in my life. Wait, that's not true, on the THIRD day of waiting with still no sign of a plane I was significantly more devastated. Finally, at the end of the third day our salvation arrived. The plane had left just as bad weather was rolling into Shell and the pilot was freaking out and yelling. At one point we were in the air in the middle of a gray cloud where we couldn't see anything, I really thought we weren't going to make it.

Because of our delay in the jungle we ended up missing our flight back to the States and couldn't get out for another week. At first this thought was horrifying, but after a massage and a facial and a couple of days in incredible Colonial Quito at churches and museums, my hope in life was restored.

It's been almost three weeks now since we've been home, and the whole experience is getting rosier in my memory. Though I do STILL have bed bug bites that itch every once in awhile. I'm not sure if I'll ever be completely healed.

Welcome To The Jungle (think Guns n Roses)

The next morning luck (or some other universal force, after reading our experiences, you decide) was on our side and we made our way bright and early to Shell, a neighboring city where the plane would be leaving from. I will admit that I was a little worried when I saw the old 4-seater plane that looked like it could be straight out of 1978 waiting for us. It didn't help when the pilot immediately began praying and crossing himself, but I guess it's always better to have God on your side.

After an hour and a half flight over miles and miles and miles of absolutely nothing (seriously, nothing) during which I began to question my decision, we arrived on a hand-cut landing strip in the community of Juyuintza. The culture shock set in almost immediately as we stood in the middle of a crowd of almost the entire community in the bazillion degree heat (that's a technical measurement) watching confusedly as naked children ran around and the adults had some sort of heated discussion about who would take the plane ride back to the city. We understood none of this, as the community speaks an indigenous dialect called Shiwiar and our guide had apparently momentarily forgotten about us. We were finally led to what appeared to be a community hut (which we found out later was the home of the teniente who was away in the city, but seemed to be a popular place for community gatherings) where we sat down on wooden benches and again commenced listening dumbly to a community discussion in Shiwiar. After awhile our guide told us that we were waiting for the president who lived a half an hour away on foot. We sat like that for another hour or so while the chicha was passed around and everyone talked (except us of course, who probably just stared wide-eyed).

Chicha is a traditional Shiwiar drink that makes up the staple of their diet and their primary beverage. They drink what appeared to be gallons of this stuff a day, drinking it out of bowls that they pass around, and always served to the men by the women. Now I don't mean to sound culturally insensitive, but chicha is quite possibly the most foul liquid ever created on the face of the planet (needless to say, I passed on trying it). Allow me to explain: chicha is made from Yucca, a root plant similar to a potato that makes up the bulk of the Shiwiar's diet. They harvest the Yucca, peel it, cook it, and place it into a huge canoe-shaped bowl to prepare the chicha. Once in the bowl, the women mash it up and then begin filling their cheeks with the stuff after which they proceed to chew it up until it is almost completely liquid at which point they spit it back into the bowl and continue mixing and chewing. Once this step is complete, they allow the mashed up and salivated yucca to sit for a day and ferment (they sometimes let it sit for up to three days if they want alcoholic chicha). Then they mix it with river water (brown, and taken from the same part of the river in which they bathe and wash clothes and dishes) and serve it in community bowls. When the women are serving it, they frequently stick their hands into the middle of the bowls to squeeze the yucca fibers and then run their fingers around the mouth of the bowl before handing it to a man. When drinking the chicha, they sometimes get yucca fibers in their mouths and so they hock massive loogies throughout the whole experience. It's all very appetizing. Chicha is one of the most important parts of Shiwiar life and, as explained by our guide: "Chicha is life".

We were eventually led about five minutes away from the main part of the community to the school, a cement building with a corrugated metal roof and the only closed in building in the community since it was constructed by the government. This was where we would be sleeping. They set up some one inch thick mattresses with sleeping bags and pillows and left us there to rest. It turned out that they actually cancelled school while we were there so that we could sleep in the school, an idea I found to be a little unsettling but didn't have much control over. Overall the mattresses weren't too bad as far as comfort goes (nothing even rivaling a motel 6 but I wasn't expecting much), although when we discovered that they were infested with bed bugs it became significantly more difficult to sleep on them. Still, I was grateful for a little privacy and a bed somewhat protected from the elements. From what I gathered the people slept on wooden planks under their huts, some of them with mosquito nets and a few with sheets. I was grateful we had somewhat better accommodations. I did find it a little weird when our guide told us he would be sleeping in the one room school house with us, but we just went with it. It was a little awkward when my mom asked him where the bathroom was for the school and he looked around a little confusedly and, with a vague motion to the surrounding area replied "anywhere". When in the main part of the community there was a three-sided outhouse with more species of insects than I have ever previously encountered; I learned to prefer the greater outdoors.

After a day or two of sweating profusely and trudging through knee deep mud, we finally brought ourselves to inquire after bathing accommodations. Our guides obliged very kindly by hauling two kettles of river water up to the school for us (these looked VERY heavy). We managed to achieve a mediocre level of cleanliness (which lasted all of an hour before we were just as dirty as before) and even succeeded in washing some clothes in the leftover water as we had already dirtied half of our clothes by the second day. I soon learned to accept the stench coming from virtually everything I owned as inevitable and we just did our best for the rest of the trip.

Well, I think I've at least covered the basics of jungle living, though I haven't even begun to cover all of what we did there. I'm going to have to stop there for now, but I promise to get into some wildlife descriptions in the next post; I can only take so much reminiscing in one day :).

Monkey Business

To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly sure where to begin this post. I have recently returned from a trip to the Ecuadorian jungle and want to share all the gory details, but there are almost too many to think about. I find myself torn between getting my feet wet and just jumping right in. I suppose if you're going to get wet you might as well go swimming right? Consider this a bucket of water dumped on your head. So, per the Von Trapp's excellent musical advice, I'll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

The original plan was to spend ten days in the Ecuadorian jungle, working through a very, very small, virtually unknown tourist agency to live in a small Shiwiar indigenous community. [Anyone seeing any warning signs yet?] A little apprehensive about this expedition with no reputation that she found on the Internet, mom opted to pay only half before we arrived and put up the rest of the money when we met Pascual (owner, director, and tour guide) and confirmed the existence and legitimacy of the trip. When we arrived in Puyo, the day before we were supposed to fly to the jungle, we met Pascual, decided that he seemed legitimate enough, transferred the remaining money, and packed up our stuff.

The next morning, we were met with what would prove to be a common occurrence on our expedition, bad weather and a change of plans. Because of the weather, we were unable to leave for the jungle, since we would be flying in a small, 4-seater plane into, well, the middle of nowhere. After waking up at 7 am as directed, we waited around the hotel for a couple of hours awkwardly attempting conversation with our 23 year old and clearly inexperienced and less than social guide who kept assuring us that the weather could clear up any minute and we thusly had to be ready to go on a moment's notice. [It should be noted that this guide was not the aforementioned Pascual, but rather his younger brother Abel. Pascual apparently decided that since we didn't require an English-speaking guide (of which he spoke a little), he would take this opportunity to stay home and work at his various pursuits while sending us out into the jungle with his kid brother.] The team (by which I mean Pascual, his wife, and Abel, which, from all that I saw seem to be the whole of the company) eventually decided that we should do something other than sit around waiting, since, by all calculations, the plane would not be flying today, and we were still paying for a day's accommodations and activities. (This thought had occurred to me hours before).

After a sufficiently awkward lunch during which I discovered that they believed that vegetarians only eat vegetables, we headed to a sort of nature preserve outside the city for jungle animals. Here we were introduced to many of the animals native to the jungle we would soon be exploring. Unlike any zoo or preserve I've been to in the United States, they invited us right into the cages where I came into much closer than comfortable contact with several unsettling reptiles.

The most eventful part of the day however, occurred when we were walking the muddy path around the preserve through trees and jungle. We saw several monkeys jumping around the trees surrounding us and got pretty excited. The guide mentioned we were in the vicinity of this particular group of monkeys' haunts, so we stopped, presumably, to observe. When Abel took out a banana I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, but certainly nothing even close to what happened. Within seconds there were four or five monkeys jumping all over me and, from the shrieks I heard behind me, my mom too. Alarmed but not wanting to miss the moment, I quickly shoved my camera into the hands of Pascual's wife standing in front of me, as much so that I wouldn't drop it as that I wanted a picture of what was happening. The monkeys were climbing and jumping around excitedly all over me trying to get a piece of Abel's banana. I can't say I really enjoyed the moment at the time, I was so shocked that I didn't know quite what to do and concentrated primarily on how many animals I had on me and where exactly their hands and tails were going (I am fairly positive that several of said appendages made their way down my shirt at some point). I am also pretty sure that I was left with a couple little presents on my shirt, something I think happened sometime while two monkeys were fighting over some banana on my back. It was all over in less than a minute, but it was certainly a memorable experience.

After that adventure we headed back to the hotel for another night, once again anticipating departure in the morning.