Oh. My. Gosh. The jungle is amazing. Completely different from what I expected but it was great.
Started off the trip bright and early, flew to a town called Coca, took a boat on the Napo river to the Rep Sol station, took a bus where we couldn't take photos because 10 years ago some Colombians took pictures of their operations and they got in trouble. Then we took another 2 hour boat ride on the Tiputini river to the research station. Buried deep in the rainforest is this station where they do research on the large amount of biodiversity that's there. Some say it's the most biodiversity in the whole world. Amazing. Sometimes it felt like a normal forest with some palm trees but other times you could tell it was the rainforest. So hot. So humid. Constantly sweating. I don't know how the researchers stay there for years at a time. There were 2 researchers- Rob and Jackie and they hadn't left the station for 3 months and next week are coming to Quito for a week to retain their sanity.
Most of the trip was walking around the jungle with our awesome guide Jose. He was an indigenous person- Quechua when he was younger but then learned Spanish and is now a guide. He was so cool and seemed to enjoy our eclectic group. We started off breaking fruit off a tree and using the insides of it as war paint. We walked around the trails and saw so much wildlife. Trees that had these natural shield looking things to probably give more support. We saw lots of spiders, frogs, lizards, tons of ants, toads, some saw a peccary (rodent), cayman, lots of birds, macaws, capybera, tapir, river dolphins, king fishers, lots of butterflieslots of pretty flowers, and so much more. It really is a diverse area. Has a little bit of everything. We climbed the canopy tower and did the canopy walk which provided a great view above the trees. So frightening to be 50 meters (150 feet) above the ground but it was worth it for the views.
One time Jose took a little stalk out of the middle of the leaves which he told us was an undeveloped leaf. Told us to take a little piece and chew on it for 2 minutes to get a surprise. The surprise- all of our tongues turned a pretty dark blue color. Awesome, thanks Jose. He also said if you eat enough of it, your pee turns blue. I don't think that happened to anyone, though.
Another time he asked if anyone was tired. We at first said no, but he said he had something to wake us up. So we all stuck out our arms and he stuck us with this leaf that hat little spines on it which was supposed to help us have more energy. But really, it just gave us all itchy, painful bumps on our arms that are still here. Thanks, Jose.
So many aspects of the trip were incredibly interesting and captivating. We learned about the oil drilling that could potentially happen in the area but people are fighting it because of all the biodiversity that they don't want to lose. Apparently there's a lot underground but it would demolish all of the plant and animal species as they would build roads, facilities, drilling areas, houses, etc in those areas. There's a lot about this in the news right now. I want to learn more and need to for a class.
Me and my friend Brian (well mostly him) talked to a worker at the oil company who used to live as an indigenous person until he was 12 when he moved to Quito to learn English and get an education. He had such a great point of view and probably didn't know how much he interested us.
Obviously the biodiversity was interesting. The fact that I was in the Amazon rainforest was enough to woo me. We went swimming in the Tiputini river which is a tributary to the Amazon. Amazing.
I have more to say but have to go do homework :( I'm sure this will be like every other thing that impacts my life in a profound way that I don't understand until after I get back to normal. It was a very cleansing experience since we sweat and drank so much water to clean every impurity out of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment