Our group took an overnight bus from Banos to Lagoagrio up in the northeast part of Ecuador. The bus took the long winding road up and down the mountain path through the night. The weather was cold, rainy, and miserable and made it hard to sleep. I had to politely ask the bus driver to stop so I could get out my only jacket to stay warm.
Arriving at Lagoagrio we went to our meeting point at a little pizza restaurant. Worst. Breakfast. Ever! We sat there looking like the perfect picture of hippie backpackers. Our packs thrown on the ground, us In baggy dirty clothes, my feather in one ear, and half of us sprawled on the ground. Cameron's long shaggy man hair with tie dye head band and Brontes patterned bucket hat only contributed to the sight. We frantically messaged our friends and family to say we would lose all contact for days as we would not have any internet or forms of communication for days.
Then we started our journey. First an hour and a half truck ride on the only road out of town and further into the Amazon and out of civilization. The houses resembled that of Southeast Asia with tin roofs and clothes hung everywhere. The trees got bigger and bigger and some reminded me so much of the tree of life as they shot large and grand above the rest.
Finally we reached a small building at the end of the road and next to the river where we had a quick lunch of rice, beans, and bananas. This is an Ecuadorean staple food.
Next we loaded into a long skinny boat and headed downstream and away from technology. For a few hours we went deeper and deeper and the wildlife began to present itself. Vines clung to the trees, grew upwards, spiraled around, and then cascaded like waterfalls back into the water.
Massive blue butterflies bigger than my hands would float majestically across our path and get swallowed into the dense jungle trees. It was nothing short of breathtaking. About halfway through the journey trees right in front of our path shook and brown blobs jumped from tree to tree. Monkeys! Many monkeys! We sat watching them in their own natural habitat and not tainted by humans. It was so different than seeing the monkeys in India, maylasia, and Thailand because they were still living uneffected by humans. I sat in fascination.
Eventually the river opened into a beautiful lake. We crossed and made our way into a small mangrove floating forest. In the between the trees we could see our small camp. It was made up of small huts built on stilts above the ground. We later found out that this was for multiple reasons. One because the water level changes and second because of the cayman!
Next to the dining area we looked into the water and found our first cayman. A pretty large guy he just hung out in the water with a menacing look. We were given very strict orders not to go j to the grass because he is aggressive. Also, during the night to stay on the walkway because the cayman likes to wonder around.
Sure enough one cayman wasn't enough! Under the beds and the bathroom lived another cayman. This took the whole "crocodile under the bed" scare I had as a child to a whole new level.
Fascinated by the cayman the one by the dimmer area quickly became our friend. We watched him for so long and joked around about him. We named him crocophile. The one worker Fernando had a ball attaching meat to a fishing line and letting us watch crocophile attack the meat. Massive creature.
We went out in the evening to spot dolphins and watch the sun. We got to see gray and link knew but we're hard to capture on camera. As the sun went down it was cloudy but made for a beautiful view with the reflection on the water.
That night, exhausted from the day's journey and sights, we all jumped in one bed and watced into the wild on the tablet. Dinner was served midway by candlelight. They tried to start the one small generator but it ran out of gas and was a fail. Back into our small cabin One by one we nodded off and retired to our small bunks and under our mosquito nets!
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