The beds of the thatched roof cabanas were really comfy and I slept well. Food is pretty much grown here so we were getting fresh muesli, fruit juice and bread for breakfast. Local coffee too! The view from the lounge is the river and dense vegetation with all sorts of diverse flora plus some spider monkeys messing about in the trees. These ones are a wild variety than don't care too much about human presence. Very rare!
The dining/lounge area the river that feeds the Amazon...
We had 2 rainforest excursions today. One into the jungle around the lodge with a local guide to discover interesting plants of medicinal and culinary value. We were in gum boots, as is normal out here, especially because the rains of last night made the tracks boggy. Plus the guide wielded a machete to break open the path that is constantly closed in by the rapid plant growth. And now, a pictorial walk through....
"Semillas rojos" - this is a red dye used for ornamental purposes. The "Colorado"(means 'red colour') or "Tsáchila"(means 'true people') tribe of the Ecuador coastal lowlands colour their hair red with this dye...
We needed to watch out for these "hormigas" (ants). Some species are very aggressive and inflict up to 3 days of pain!
This ant hive is bigger than a backpack!
Vines ('Liana' in Spanish, 'Huasqa' in Quechua) are used for construction (to bind beams), food wrapping, ornaments and even fish traps! One variety has a fluid that acts as an anti-snake venom serum!
In front of a stout virgin tree...probably over 150 years old!
These tip-toe type trees have "raizes duros", strong roots that make fantastic walking sticks
Playful woolly monkeys at a Swiss-run animal sanctuary
The tourism circus in town.....no wonder those monkeys go nuts (the monkeys, not the tourists)...and checkout 'superwoolly': he is eying those drinks!
Animal conference back at the lodge....
After lunch we were back into our boots and jumped into the lodge motor boat to cross the super-fast river, which was washing down all sorts of debris including tree trunks (i kid u not), towards a river island called Anaconda Island. There aren't any anacondas left as a community live on the island, have cleared a lot of the native vegetation and cultivate. We visited the plantations and the Quechua village there. We sampled some "chicha", a "yuca" (cassava) based alcohol and had a go at hunting using a blowpipe to launch a dart at a wooden parrot (no real targets unfortunately ;-p).
One of the houses at the Quechua village...a typical construction except for the corrugated roof (normally they use palm leaves to thatch a roof)
The palm tree is another all important plant: palm fruit, palm oil and the palm centre ('palmito' in Spanish) are all edible products. The leaves are used for construction, traditional clothing etc. The trunk for timber, construction etc.
It is not pleasant to run through the forest with these spikes hanging around...
Anything grows out of anything anywhere in the Amazon
Marching ants negotiating the cacao fruit route....
I've never seen the real source of chocolate before ......but I'm enjoyin' this first close encounter!
This is related to the banana but it grows upwards and is not edible at all!!!
Pounding the cassava and......
....a couple of fermenting days later, hey presto!
Boots n all.....
K.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing us informative entries.
To everyone else who has read the blogs, I enjoyed writing them immensely and I hope you enjoyed reading them even more!
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