Part X - Ecuador -- Exploring the Jungle, Once Again, Yachana Lodge Style
Yes, it's true, I had to go back to the jungle. I wasn't satisfied with my last 6 day trip - I needed more time. Well, I got it... four more days in the Amazon Rainforest, near the town of Coca, finally made me satisfied (for this year anyways).
Somehow, I didn't expected to see so many new things... I thought I had seen it all in the last trip to Cuyabeno, but no! On this trip, we saw;
Many whip tail scorpions (which are actually not scorpions but very intimidating 10 cm diameter spiders with barbs on their front arm-legs)
The wolf spider (I believe it is also know as a trap door spider because it does not spin a web. Instead it waits under leaves for insects to cross its path and then jumps out and attacks them. For the record we didn't see anything jump out at our feet at any time.
Many other new types of spiders, namely the 6 horn spider (not sure if that is its official name) which was bright yellow and black, and had six pointy horns on its back. Also worth mentioning were the five turantulas we saw (at a distance of two to three feet mind you) -- we saw the red and brown species, but did not see the black one)
Poison dart frog (blue and red, almost 3 cm long)
A 30 cm Bat flew around us.
Some fascinating fireflies (one had an orange tummy as it was lazily flying about and, when it felt it was in danger, the orange light would shut off and two bright glowing green lights that looked like eyes on its back lit up. Made quite a fearful impression.)
We saw a huge jungle rat (must have been 50 pounds - this one was small. they can get as big as 150 pounds!!). Yachana Lodge was trying to domesticate them so they can give the local communities another farming alternative. Yes, they would sell this meat to eat.
Grasshoppers and crickets, almost the size of your palm!
Ants. Lots of them. All sizes. Leaf cutter ants, Congo ants (largest ants in the world - typically 2 cm long and black), and Red Army ants (trying to stay away from these, but one bugger got me and bit me at least ten times before I could find him and pull him off me).
Burrowing stingless bees. Sounds horrible? It is, damn it! They dive kamikaze from their nest above into your hair (I had four or five of them fall into my thick hair). Once in your hair, they burrow (somehow) towards your scalp, where supposedly they bite (I got rid of them in time to not have gotten any bites, thank god). But the burrowing, helped by incessantly flapping their wings in your hair, made for an awful noise and feeling. In fact, even when I thought I had gotten them all out and tied my hair to prevent more from dropping in, I found still one more hiding four hours later when I release my ponytail. Though it had laid dormant during that time, it started buzzing in my hair again with its new freedom to move. I was not impressed.
Lots of milipedes... we had them walking on our hands. It was a funny feeling, tickled a little!
So, there was quite a lot of new things to uncover here (and probably much remains to be seen)! All these discoveries were made during day hikes, night walks (with flashlights), and exploring the lodge's nearby surroundings. We even took a canoe ride at night to watch the southern stars (the southern cross and the scorpion).
At one lucky point, we also saw a type of "aurora borealis" at 4pm coming out of a cloud just before a rainstorm. It looked like a circular rainbow above the clouds that was shimmering. It was really unique - I had never seen anything like that before.
The lodge itself - quite the opposite of the wild and unruly world around it - was lavish. It's electricity for all the twenty five rooms and main hall was powered by 8 solar panels, with motion detector lights along the corridor for a safe return to your room at night, heated showers (always a plus), and tap water that you can drink (you can't even safely drink it in Ecuador's capital city!). And every meal, we were spoiled with some chocolate sauce or desert made from local cocao plants. Lastly, the staff was unbelievably service oriented... the best in Ecuador really! They were fantastic and fun loving guys.
And because Yachana Lodge was set up to help the local communities, all the lodge's profits go to setting up ambulance canoes, paying for the doctors (2), dentist (1), and medical supplies, and soon educational centers.
See below for pictures of my adventures in the Ecuadorian jungle (49 pictures):
