The Jungle

First of all...sorry to everyone about my delay in blogging. I have been very busy lately and the internet has not been working at our house.

Moving on...I had an awesome weekend in the jungle! More commonly referred to as Tena, Ecuador. We took about a 5 hour busride to the town on Friday. Saturday we went on a jungle tour with a guide named Juan. He was great - really knew his stuff since he grew up in the jungle in a Quechua family. We rode on a long river boat (just like a scene out of Jungle II Jungle) to a sandy shore where we dipped in the water for a swim. It was very pleasant. Once on land, Juan showed us lots of different cool jungle plants. Many of them have been used by Quechua people as herbal remedies for hundreds of years. For example, there was one tree whose juice heals rashes and insect bites. Later, we ate with a Quechua family. A woman cooked yuca (a starchy potato-like food), plaintains, and maita (fish cooked in a palm leaf over the fire). They were all delicious! And served on palm leaves! We also tried chicha (a beer-like drink also made from yuca that tastes like sour yogurt). That was kind-of gross. After that, we went to an old animal-trap museum (located inside a hut) that had different animal traps used by Quechua people to catch jungle animals like wild pigs, rabbits, deer, chickens, etc... Finally, we ended the day at an animal rescue center also located in the middle of the jungle. The animals were pretty neat. We saw lots of tucans, ocelots, water-guinea pigs (the size of real big pigs!), and the smallest monkey in the world. The point of the shelter is to provide a safe home for animals that have been poached and are in danger of extinction in Ecuador.

Day two provided more excitement: We went white-water rafting! Class four (the hardest). We had the same guide from the day before and he made it really fun. The waves were huge, the rocks as well, and we traveled really fast. We had to follow his commands like "adelante" (row forward), "atras" (row backwards), and everyone's favorite: "adentro" (inside) - used when a big wave is coming up and we have to all jump inside to avoid falling out. Everytime we made it past a challenging part of the river Juan would say: "remos arriba" (oars up) and we would put our oars together in a high five and then smack them on the water. It was too fun for words and one of my favorite parts of the trip.