Experiencing the Amazon

Jungle walks and the local village

We woke at 6am as the sun came up. We walked up to the bird-watching spot we were meeting, the Costa Rican men were there, and an English girl called Alice who appeared to be travelling alone. Alfonso informed us that the jeep hadn’t made it in time, so it was called off and we went back to our rooms until 7.30 breakfast.

Everyone was speaking a mixture of Spanish and English about the differences in the language between regions, and comparing tropical fruit. Douglas the founder was there, it turns out Alice used to be the English teacher at the school here.

We said goodbye to our Costa Rican friends and embarked on our Amazon walk in our compulsory gumboots. Alfonso drove Alice and us in an open top truck deep into the reserve. I have no idea how he spotted the path, because it was completely overgrown and he had to chop it clear again with a machete. The first section was very dense bush but it opened up to a track like a New Zealand backcountry trail. It needed to be cut in sections, but for the most part it was easy to follow. We went down a steep ridge, along a stream to a bigger river, then up the bank. We heard the national bird of Guatamala, saw some cute little camouflaged frogs and learnt lots about the trees and plants.

Then it was back for lunch, just five of us this time. It was another three course meal, soup, main and dessert. We had some free time until 3pm, so I completed another Icebreaker recruitment step.

At 3pm we jumped back into the truck and drove down to the river, which was actually enormous! A man called Jose drove us across to the other side in a little boat.

There we met one of the Quechua/Kichwa indigenous people, a healer. We learnt about how he knew every plant in the forest, then he did an energy healing on each of us. It involved a bushel of mint leaves and tobacco smoke.

Next we tried our hand at a native blow-dart and javelin. I was a lot better at the dart. And we saw the woman preparing yuca – a potato like root vegetable that is their main staple. There was an alcohol made of it and we mashed some more up with them in an enormous wooden bowl/dish. They also showed us where they grew it, how they harvested it and replanted the stems.

It was back over the river as the sun was lowering around 5pm. We had another 3 course dinner. It was Douglas, the founder’s birthday so everyone dined together, which I prefered.

Then we did a night walk of the property with Alfonso. This involved tramping through leaves and streams around the paths we knew well to see animals. It was apparently great weather for snakes, but we didn’t see any. We did see an enormous spider, a bat flew at my face and the moon shining over the corn field surrounded by stars of the north and south hemisphere, as we are on the equator.

Bird-watching and a culinary experience

Bird watching tour at 6.30am. This time it went ahead and we saw some amazing birds, huaxins and a ‘fiesta of tucanos’ as our driver called it, about 10 Tucans all in a tree! We went back for breakfast at the lodge, this time a traditional dish of plantain (banana) mash, peanut sauce with an egg on top. It was very nice.

Next we went to pick vegetables for lunch from local farm. It was more like an orchard of coffee and cocao plants. We picked grapefruit, lemons, palm hearts (palmito), banana leaves for cooking, herbs. We tasted fresh cocao pulp - it was sweet and pulpy like a fruit!

We came back and ‘prepared’ lunch. We watched Adolfo and tried poorly to imitate, until he took over. We put fish in the leaves and baked it. Then he cut up the palmito and made salad. We also made a stinging nettle salad (harvested today). We stuffed cheese inside bananas, then battered and deep-fried them. Then we sat down and enjoyed all this food.

After lunch, Alfonso took us on a tour of the projects around the foundation. My favourite was the hydroponic/aquaponic system that cycled water through a fish tank, creating fertiliser that filtered onto hydroponically-grown plants, that drained into an algae pond which filtered, cleaned and created nutrient-filled water for the fish.

This was all inside a butterfly house, where Rosa collected caterpillers from the jungle. She knew the right plants for each species to eat and lay eggs on. There were Blue Mophos, one with blue leopard print wings and the Owl Eye butterfly.

After this we had a little rest in our rooms. The power had come back on after being out for most of the day.

At 4.30pm we went back to the kitchen to learn how to make chocolate! We peeled some fermented beans (this takes a while so we couldn’t use the one we picked today), roasted them, ground them to make cacao butter. Then melted it with milk and sugar. We ate it directly with banana, ginger and chili (separately)! It was so much fun.

Then we hung out in the kitchen while dinner was made. We tried a drink traditionally made for November 2, the Ecuador day of the dead. It was called Colada Moranga because it was made with purple flour and fruits. It bubbled like a caldron but was sweet with lots of spices like cinnamon, star anise. I wrote down Lucy’s brownie recipe in Spanish with a lot of help from Alfonso. I felt like I was 5 years old trying to learn to write again.

We sat and ate dinner, luckily it was just two courses after our non-stop cultural food day. We talked together until 9pm and all walked back down the road.

The next day Washington turned up two hours late to drive us back to Quito. It was another stunning drive over the Andes from the jungle. We stopped at a place called Gina’s where we had trout and Washington watched the football. There was also a hitchhiker we had picked up near Yachana.