See you lator Alligator

We didn't see any gators, but we did go Caiman watching one night and everyone else in the boat saw caimans. We weren't lucky enough to see them. We did see river dolphins, which was very cool. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures, but we will definitely remember them. I didn't even know they existed before we visited the Amazon. They were the pink variety and jumped up plenty for us to see, though not quite as high as the dolphins we know in the oceans.





In the town, we climbed up onto a big outlook tower and could pretty much see the whole town from here and a beautiful sunset over the river. There was one big open gymnasium looking place that had power hooked up to it, and that was apparently a big deal there. They said they had celebrations here at times. There was a volleyball net inside and some of our group played with kids in there. They next played soccer out in the field next to this building. I saw the cutest little girl at the edge of the building when I had climbed up and took a picture of her so that I could show it when I got back down. I think she was confused at first, but when I took a picture of she and her friend closer up, they just smiled and smiled. They played with my camera, looking at pictures until the battery ran out. They talked to me as well as we could talk with my little Spanish for quite a long time. They were super cute!

It was nice to be out in the rainforest again and see so much green and wildlife. It didn't compare to the things we saw in Costa Rica, but it was a nice experience to be in the Amazon anyway. We did see a couple of monkeys, but only from far away - nothing like in Costa Rica. I'd probably recommend that you use a different group because our tour, though nice, seemed a bit unorganized through the whole thing. We did have a guide who was new to this company, so that could have added to it. I don't remember the name of the tour company, but I will find out and update accordingly.

It was also nice to be so far out there, but the boat ride back was 6 hours since we were going upstream, and then the 2 hour bus ride and again a 30 minute plane ride. Needless to say, we were exhausted when we got back.

A Jungle Town

One day we went to a nearby town in the Amazon that had a population of only 250. On the way there, our guide pointed out this tree, in which this red flower is used by the local people as birth control. They only take medicines that they can get themselves. I don't think it's very effective because they all have lots of kids, but what do I know.

There was a big termite nest that apparently is used by the local people as a bug repellant. If you put your hand on it, the termites will crawl onto and all over your hand leaving a liquid behind. This liquid is supposed to work very well to repel mosquitos and other annoying bugs. I didn't do it, but maybe I should have because these weird blood sucking flies bit me all over that afternoon!


When we got into the town, our guide showed us this fruit that is used by the local people as a dye. He offered to decorate my face and fingernails for me and Scott added on to make me look like this. Aren't I beautiful!? ;-) Scott got his own painting too. :D

There is work here to preserve the turtles that live in the area. There is a pool in this town, where they keep the mother and hundreds of babies before letting them into the wild. One of the local kids got in and took a few out to let us hold. They were so cute! When we put them back, we let them race back into the water.


This is where the local kids go to school. The town is very small as you can imagine, but it is very nice that they have this school available to them.
We met most of the kids in the town also. Here are a few watching a movie on a TV in one big room.

More cool stuff in the Amazon

We saw a really thin, but long snake along one of our treks too. It was amazing how thin the snake was. It was not bothered by us at all, but just kept moving around the trees.

There are, of course tarantulas in the Amazon too, and here is one that we passed by. I was surprised that it didn't look very hairy.

This was another very large, very scarey looking spider that we saw during the night hike.

We went bird watching early one morning up into this high tower. We did see some cool birds from a distance, but nothing very close. Actually, one day we took a canoe ride and saw some really cool birds, but we didn't have our cameras then. Among the birds we saw were parakeets, a Yellow Rumped Cacique, a Hoatzin (which is a crazy looking turkey), and a Greater Ani (which has metalic blue beautiful wings).


One of the cooler things we did was to go Piranha fishing. Two of the boat drivers caught them and we passed them around the boat to get a closer look. Their teeth are crazy! Our guide stuck a leaf in the mouth and the teeth cut the leaf right off. We were fishing with raw chicken and they went crazy over it. Most of the time, they would take it off our hooks and not get caught. But finally, I caught one! I was the only tourist to catch one, so I got really excited! :D

Right after this, we went back to the tent camp and I swam in the very Amazon waters that have these Piranhas. Fun! ;-)

Creepy Crawlies of the Amazon

We of course saw many different spiders all over the jungle, including this one here. It's amazing how much less they scare me now! Of course, I wouldn't go up and touch it or anything.

They also have the biggest ants in the Amazon, called Conga Ants. You would not believe how huge these things are - the picture doesn't do it justice. Apparently, they give a pretty painful bite too!

Huge spiders and tiny frogs. How anyone spotted this frog is beyond me, but you can tell by the hand here how tiny it was.

There were of course beautiful butterflies too!

Our local guide took some palm leaves that we saw along the way and started making something. It wasn't until he finished that we saw it was a broom - how useful the forest is!

We have one crazy Israeli guy in our group who kept leaving the path and running around back in the forest alone. We thought he was nuts because of all the creepy crawlies out there. One day when we was running around, a huge bird flew out of the trees. Apparently, he scared off a Great Tinamou. It was nesting and we walked over and saw the beautiful blue eggs of this large bird. The local guide said that the eggs will likely die because once the mother leaves the nest, she does not usually come back. :(

We did a night hike and saw even more creatures as this is when they usually come out. Here is a huge scorpion and its prey.

Amazon Jungle

Next, we decided to make a trip out into the Amazon jungle. We went WAY out there, meaning that we first had a 30 minute flight from Quito, then a 2 hour bus ride, then a 4 hour boat ride to get to our tent camp. This is one of the houses we passed on the bus. They are all pretty much out in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. There were also oil pipelines all along our bus ride. You can see Scott and I here bundled up under our ponchos for the long, wet boat ride. We then arrived to our tent camp, which is in the next picture, along with our guide. It was basically just a raised platform with mosquito nets and a little mattress inside. It was a nice, though.

On our first hike, we passed plenty of crawly creatures, including this centipede. It had a very hard shell and would just roll up in a ball like a roley poley. It felt weird to have it crawling on my skin!

We had a second guide who was a local person from the jungle and he walked along with us to show us things. He carried a machete with him everywhere we went and used it for everything, including cutting fruit! This was a local fruit from the forest that tasted a lot like coconut - yummy!

We saw these ´walking´ trees that were very similar to ones we had seen in Costa Rica. These ´legs´ are constantly growing and planting themselves into the ground, causing the tree to move over time. The sap that comes out the ends here is used by the jungle people as a sort of Viagra. Our guide called it the Jungle Viagra!

The local guide found this frog, called the leaf frog. It is called that, because as you can see, it looks just like these leaves!

Baños

We next went to Baños, a popular town to visit in Ecuador. The views here were amazing, but unfortunately it rained almost the whole time we were here, so we were not able to see as much. There is actually a volcano erupting there right now called the Tungurahua and it is keeping most tourists away. It is the biggest eruption they have had since the early 1900's. It has been erupting in smaller amounts since the 90's, but while we were in Quito, the big eruption happened. Fortunately, it didn't affect Baños because the lava is only coming down on the other side of the volcano. However, people on that side have been gravely affected unfortunately. We were not able to see much at all because of the cloud coverage, but we did see some smoke coming out the top. Normally, we would have been able to see lava flowing down at night. I guess we just have to imagine it for now.

We decided one day to rent bikes to explore around even though it was raining and the scenery that we saw was absolutely fantastic. It was so green with awesome landscape. We took a cable car type thing across one of the gorges and it was a pretty sketchy operation. It did show beautiful views though of the valley and a nice waterfall.


We came to this one waterfall called El Pailon del Diablo (the Devil's Cauldron). We hiked to it and weren't sure why the guy had ponchos for the walk up. We ignored it, but quickly realized when we got up there. The waterfall was crazy! The devil was definitely doing some work to keep you away! I didn't want to stay away though and got completely soaked so that I was ringing out my socks afterwards. The first picture is me coming back from getting soaked. The second is the waterfall from a bridge below where you don't get wet. The video below perhaps shows the sound and power of the waterfall. I suckered Scott into standing there for a few seconds.

Baños itself was a beautiful town, but pictures can't describe. Here is one picture of a nice church in the center. There was a lot of music here too. Every night when we had dinner, a musical group or person would come in and play a few songs for tips. It was very nice. This group was great, so we video'd for a little while.

Otavalo Market

The day after we returned from the Galapagos, we took a tour to the Otavolo Indian market near Quito. This is probably the biggest of all Indian markets in all of South America. There were some beautiful view along the way, such as this gorge you can see here. This is one of the things that we loved about Ecuador - the magnificant scenery due to the volcanos and sharp peaks and valleys that earthquakes have caused. Along the way, we learned a little about Ecuador's income from our tourguide. The 5 biggest money makers in Ecuador are the following.
1. Oil
2. Money from Expats who have moved away but send money back to their families
3. Tourism
4. Bananas
5. Roses

The textiles in this market were quite colorful and beautiful. The people were great to watch, too because of their dress, but I was too embarrased to take pictures of them and didn't want to be rude. We also went to Cotacachi, which is a big leather town with great quality and cheap prices!



We also went to a small local town where most of the people who live in this town are musicians. They make their own instruments and travel around playing for people. In some of our buses, we even had musicians come on and play 3 songs and then ask for tips before getting off at the next stop. This guy was only one in a big family who played music. He made this instrument while we were there and then played it for us. I took a video so that you can enjoy the music too! You can also see many of the other instruments that they make, as well as the beautiful view from their house. Normally, the whole family plays together, but everyone else was out for a performance.



Driving back, we passed by what seemed to be a parade in the middle of the street. It was a celebration asking for rain or no rain or something like that (interestingly enough it was raining at the time).

Bye bye Galapagos!

You are probably now sick of reading about our adventures in the Galapagos, but there was so much to see and it was truely the trip of a lifetime for us, so I had to tell about absolutely everything! Included in this were the wonderful people we were able to spend these 8 days with. We really enjoyed all of the wonderful company that we had and hope we are able to stay in touch with many of them. If you guys are reading, thanks for the company!

On our last day, when we got off the panga for the last time to walk to the bus, there was a cute little sea lion to say goodbye to us. He was blocking the path and didn't mind at all that we were all walking right by him. I thought this was a perfect image with which to leave this wonderful trip.