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.