Jungle Vacation

In mid-January, we took our vacation to the third region of Ecuador: the jungle. Yes, we've supposedly lived in the jungle throughout our two years here, but this was our chance to go "muy adentro"--way far in. We took two days to hike through Jatun Sacha (which means "big jungle" in Kichwa) with our guide, Fabio (not the margarine-eater that's on your romance novels).

Standing in front of a ceibo tree.

The first day we took a six hour hike through primary jungle. There's not much of this left where there are people. On a satellite map, you can see the difference in green near the highway (E45 - we live near the Napo/Pastaza border) versus the green of the jungle to the east. This is where the Ecuadorian jungle has been changed the most: through deforestation, construction of cities and towns, and changing the waterways.


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So we were pretty excited to get out into the JUNGLE jungle. Jatun Sacha is a forest reserve near Misahualli, the town where you can see monkeys on the beach. On our hike in, we were able to see a lot of plants and animals that are common in our town, but we saw some new stuff too, including a poison dart frog, the infamous equis (we're told it's the scariest snake in Ecuador), and a white-tailed deer.

Matapalos, the tree-strangling tree. In this picture, the victim has already been strangled and rotted away.

A snake with its tongue hanging out. Apparently they always look like that. Isaac picked it up, and it made his hand smell like dying things.

A giant worm tunnel! Don't drop your marbles down there--you'll never get them back.

We were a little surprised to not see more big trees--the kind you see in National Geographic. Apparently we're still pretty high up in the watershed; the big trees don't start until you're lower down. We did find a few big ceibos. They have giant buttresses that hunters use for protection at night--like a big wall at their backs. You can also thump on them to send messages to your friends the next ridge over.

Seeing the forest in Jatun Sacha helped us understand that the little chunk of jungle we live in isn't in as dire condition as we thought. Being indoctrinated in the woes of jungle deforestation throughout elementary and high school, it's easy to automatically think that everything is awful the first time you see it. But now we know that there is still some good forest around Santa Clara--it's just a little bit different kind of forest than what television prefers to show. (This isn't to say that it's just peachy where we live--there are definitely huge issues with deforestation, overgrazing, and mismanaging the watershed... but we'll maybe save that for a future post.) 

Fabio made sure we had maximum fun on our journey--generally by making us look ridiculous. The jungle is like one big toy box!

Jungle earring, Isaac the warrior, new glasses, jungle princess clown (?!)

River-clay carving of two loros (parrots).

After our hike, we stopped for the night near the Arajuno river and swam with some little blue fishes. In the morning, we went on a medicinal plant hike, and then took a canoe trip down to the Napo river. It was a quick trip, but it was good to get away for the night!

..Kirstie and Isaac..