Ecuador - Welcome to the jungle

With one week left in Ecuador time was due to do something else than hiking. Galapagos is too expensive, the coast something I´ll get enough from in New Zealand, so the choice fell on going to the Amazon jungle for a few days.

After a beautiful 5 hours busride, I arrived on monday at 3pm in Tena, a 10.000 habitants village located at the gate to the Amazonas. The climate was quite a change, beautifully hot and sweaty humid. Two big rivers - Pano and Tena - come together here and build the heart of this adrenalin tourism place.

Parque Amazonico

One thing I´ve noticed very fast was that the girls from Tena seemed to like me a great deal for some reason. I wasn´t in town for half an hour, when I suddenly found myself accompanied by two of them for a visit to the Parque Amazonico, a kind of zoo stretching over about a squarekilometer. The girls were everything but shy and wouldn´t let go of me till I caught a little ride on a rope between two towers.

Finally free, I enjoyed the most peculiar zoo I´ve ever seen. There are some interesting plants and very few animals, of which particularly the Jaguarundi impressed me, locked up in cages. Since the park lies on an island, however, most animals are walking aroung free and are about as shy as the two girls.

So you suddenly hear a noise in the bush and out comes a wild pig on a mission, you look amazed into the snakes cage and a monkey grabs your legs and looks at you hopefully or you have to get away from the track cause a big fat tapir ir filling it all up - welcome to the jungle.

Jungle experience near Serena

The next day I met Fausto at 6.30am to spend a day out in the forest and discover its miracles. He is a native from a tribe near Coca, studied chemistry and biology and has a travel agency in Tena. We went by bus to a small native village called Serena, where he prepared a wholesome breakfast. Then we went for a walk straight into the jungle, where he explained me fascinating things about the whole ecosystem. There weren´t many animals, mainly insects and butterflies as well as a sloth and a snake, but therefore a broad range of beautiful trees and a stunning view over the hilly countryside. After the tastiest spaghettis I´ve ever had in my live, I relaxed at and in the nearby river, visited a museum about the Kichwa (native people), a large family from the town as well as the local school and caught the 6pm bus back to Tena.

Kayaking with more girls

On wednesday I tried myself in a new sport - kayaking. With all the equipment and my private teacher Boylan, a young fella just slightly older than me, we drove up the river Pano to a nice beach where the water is deep and calm. One day is very little time to learn kayaking and I first just tried to get comfortable in it.

It went all well till noon, when about 15 jungle-beauties arrived to swim in the river. Whilst I was trying to focus on learning the escimorole - something very difficult for me because being head upside down in the water isn´t exactely where I feel comfortable - they all gatered around me, asking me all sorts of questions (Where from? Girlfriend? How long in Tena? What doing tonight?) and making remarks (ojos bonitos, muy simpatico).

After being head upside down for at least 30 times and being kayaking for about five hours, I was getting really exhausted, blisters all over my hands, and decided to call it a day. The weather had been most welcoming the whole day, but now a storm was creeping up and we tried to make it back to Tena before it started to rain. This didn´t work, but it did´t matter anymore anyway cause the river had been stronger than me, leading me too close to some low branches and I capesized, just about saving my paddle. Luckily Boylan caught the kayak and we somehow made it back without another accident.

After this tough day out on the river, I just relaxed the rest of the time in Tena, enjoying the good restaurants and bars as well as reading near the river. I was quite happy to make it back to Quito on thursday night, since the mozzies got me really badly. Apparently there are very few in Tena, I hadn´t seen any at all, but I had at least 50 bites in each of my calves.