To break up our week in Baños (which is a whole other story I tell you about later on) we went on a 2 day, 1 night trip to the Amazon. This is probably one of the coolest experiences I've ever had.
In Baños there are loads and loads of different travel agencies trying to sell different activities and trips. So all we did was to walk in to some of them to get a quote on a price for an Amazon trip to go to on the next day. We found Ivaga Tours to be really good value, with a 1 night Amazon trip for just $70 each, with everything included such as entrance fees, food, rubber boots, rain jackets, guides, transport there and back and accommodation.
DAY UNO
We started off in the morning with that usual wait you get as a bonus here in South America when you're in time for something here. Since it was a Sunday there were many people in our group. We were 18 people, including families with kids (which made us feel slightly suspicious if we were really in the right group. It didn't feel right to have a one year old hiking next to you on a two day trip in the jungle) and everyone speaking Spanish.
Finally we were off in the bus for about an hour before reaching the first stop. This was meant to be a animal sanctuary for wounded animals, who, we had been told earlier, were to be released when they felt better again. In reality it was more like a proper zoo and we felt terrible for being there. The animals seemed anxious and we found out that they were kept here, not because they were wounded, but because they were trying to "protect them" from people who are hunting them. To me that just sounds like proper bullshit and I am still wondering what I can do about this? I am currently researching a bit about animal rights groups in South America, so if anyone knows anything - please give me a shout!
So we didn't at all like the first part of the trip, especially not either when we stopped of at a petrol station for an hour because everyone "had to" load up on snacks and drinks for the remaining hour we had in the bus.
But when we reached the actual jungle, things changed to the better when we got to go in the canoes in the Amazonian Pazstas river. It was awesome but the crazy river stream made it a bit scary and I really thought we were gonna fall in any second (and that Guy was gonna drop his iPhone down in the water so that we would be completely camera-less)
We continued on for a little hike in the jungle, where we got a muddy spa treatment, Amazon style.
After that came the highlight of my day; the death swing! It's probably the most frightening swing I've been on in my life, but it was so fun and really made the adrenaline pump. When I think about it now I can only think how easy it would've been to just let go and fall down in the river far, far below and get really hurt. But I guess that's also what makes it a challenge and it's not every day you get to swing in the jungle like Tarzan!
The sweaty hike through the mud & humidity continued until we arrived to the rainbow in Hola Vida waterfall and finally got to have a very refreshing swim here.
The last stop of the day, was the community of the indigenous people. A tribe called Sacha Wasi, which is one of seven indigenous groups that lives in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We got to play with their cute peccary who loved to cuddle, the children made face paints on us and were told about there history. I think it was probably an interesting story if we knew Spanish. Our guide was almost only Spanish speaking and made attempts to translate to us sometimes. Luckily enough there was a woman in our group who was bilingual and could help us out a lot during the day.
It was around this point that we realised that everyone apart from us were doing just a one day trip. When we told our guide that we had paid for and booked the two day trip, he was so surprised that I thought he was gonna choke on his soup and had to call in back up, from Ruma, another guide who lives around here to help us continue our trip, while he drove the rest of the group back to Baños.
This was of course very unexpected and we still wonder if we were booked in with the wrong tour or if there had been a communication problem between the travel agency and the guides or something, so we thought that we were gonna have to join another group the next morning and thought it was gonna be a big hassle trying to prove that we actually booked the two day trip.
But hey, mañana mañana, right? Things around here seems to have its way of getting solved if you just chill and we couldn't have asked for a better outcome of this whole situation.
Ruma took us back to the cabaña where we had had lunch earlier that day and the dinner table was already set for two people and we were told that because no one else has booked the two day your in our group, it was just gonna be me, Guy and Ruma hiking around the jungle tomorrow. So yay! We got a private tour as a bonus! (Private tours were like double the price otherwise so we felt extremely grateful and lucky all of a sudden)
The day had been really tiring so that night we went to bed at like 8:30pm and slept really well in bunk beds in our little hut with no electricity.
DAY DOS
The next day we woke up by the sound of a rooster crowing, had breakfast and played with this lovely little gang.
Ruma picked us up from his house next door and we started our 3 hour hike for the day. It was a lot of uphill walking in the heat and I really appreciated the stops along the way where Ruma told us about different plants and insects that we encountered. We got to taste sugar cane juice, straight from a sugar cane, found asthma medicine in a leaf and were shown poisons leaves aswell which looked exactly the same as the previous healthy leaf. (yep, Ruma spoke some English luckily enough for us!) He also showed us how to make a long lasting bracelet from a long pineapple leaf. Once again I was reminded of how freaking cool nature is. It's got everything we need and so much more.
It was a really muddy trek this one so I was super stoked to have rubber boots finally. The most fun part of the hike was when we came down to a stream and had to walk waste high in water and the boots to get to the hidden waterfall. It was so slippery and I was so close to fall with all of my stuff in the water many times, but we made it to the powerful waterfall and had the best swim here. It was amazing being here on our own, just hearing our echoes in the lagoon-like place where the waterfall was and to jump around as much as we wanted until it got a bit too cold.
It soon got very hot and dry again though when we hiked our way back to the cabaña for lunch, as we walked through a field just beneath the heating sun instead of small paths under all the trees, with plants surrounding us that Ruma had to cut down with his machete in order for us to get through, like we did on the way to the waterfall.
When we arrived back to the cabaña we were exhausted and felt good about the fact that we didn't have any more activities today, more than eating lunch and chilling out in the hammocks by the river.
All the meals we received were really great and filling. Considering all the confusion with our booking of the tour, we were glad that we were atleast registered to get vegetarian food, but somewhere along the way my request of food without egg and milk aswell must've gotten lost because almost every meal came with an egg.. Even though I tried to explain several times that I didn't eat that.
After lunch anyway we almost fell asleep in the hammocks, since we had to wait almost 3 hours just for our lift back (we had to wait for the day tour of the day to get done with their activities and go back to Baños with them).
This is without a doubt one of the best trips I've ever been to, so if you ever get a chance to visit the Amazon for a night - do it! I definately feel as if a childhood Mowgli-Baloo dream have gone through.
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