Going to the Amazon

           Eight of us are standing by the telescope, sixteen stories high in the air.  We are up in the emergent layer.  Pure joy is the look on everyone's face.  A sloth is slumbering on a tree, a kilometer away.  The sun beats down on us as we look through the scope.  We are in the jungle.

          We just arrived back in Quito after a trip to the Amazon, also known as the Oriente.  We had a day of travel, two days in the jungle, then another day of travel. The day that we traveled to the jungle, we arrived at the airport in Quito early in the morning.  The plane ride to Coca, a town in the jungle, is just twenty minutes long.  The plane arrived at lunch time, and we waited in a sleepy boat port for an hour.  While in the port, we saw a squirrel monkey.  It was the first monkey, and the best because of how close he was to us.  He acted like a human, lying down and hopping around.  We got on to a large canoe in the port and headed down the Napo river. The canoe was motor powered, with fancy seats.  We had bagged lunches, and rested on the boat for two hours.  In the middle of the ride, it started raining.  Luckily, there was a rain cover, but some seats still got wet.  

Squirrel monkeys 

         The big canoe arrived at a small dock that belonged to the hotel.  Since we were in a tributary of the Napo, we got into tinier canoes.  Our group was our family, plus two others, a native guide, a naturalist guide, and a paddler.  These canoes were not motor powered.  We had another long ride in those canoes, but stopped for wildlife.  Our guide taught us a lot about wildlife and plantlife in the Amazon.  For example, how the Napo river was a different kind of water from the tributary.  The smaller one was black water.  When you see where the two rivers meet, it seems like milk chocolate and dark chocolate mixing in a swirl.

          The hotel rooms were luxurious.  Our family had one cabin, to the side of the heart of the resort.  Oscar and I shared a room, while my parents shared another one.  All meals were served at the hotel.  The next morning, I was woken at five by my dad saying,"Good morning, good morning."  We had breakfast at five thirty, and left the hotel at six.  Our tour group went all the way to the motorized canoe again, and rode it to a clay lick.  The clay licks are places close to the Napo river where parrots and parakeets eat clay.  They eat the clay each morning so that they can digest seeds.  We saw swarms of parrots feasting on their morning clay.

          We were supposed to go to another clay lick next, but it was "canceled" because of rain.  Instead, we went to an interpretation center owned by the indigenous tribe called the Kichwas.  Twenty seven women worked there, and they own it.  We saw traditional dances, and then got to see a traditional house.  We learned about a plant called,  yucca , and all the women harvest it.  When a woman wants to get married to a man, she has to make yucca  for the man's father.  If he likes it, they can marry.  We also saw a variety of tools.  We saw graters, which we later saw came from the root of the walking tree.   The woman also showed us bowls and other tools.  Then, we saw weapons.   There were spears and such, but the best part was trying out blow guns on a target.  We each got to try out shooting the fake bird.

          Next, we went to the Kichwa community.  They had a natural heating and a hot water system, but it wasn't working at the time.  We also saw a school, and solar panels being set up.  The community had gotten a huge grant to set up all of these natural systems.

          Later that night, we went on a night hike.  We saw snakes, which I held, plus tons of other insects and frogs.  We also learned about a lot of plants.

          The next day we woke up later, at five thirty.  We had breakfast and left at six thirty.  We had a short, small, canoe ride to the observation tower.  In the tower, which was sixteen stories high, we saw monkeys, a sloth, and birds.  I looked down at one point, only to see the trees of the canopy, blocking the forest floor from sight.  It was interesting how most trees were shorter than the one that the tree house was built on.  Later, our guide taught us about these trees.  They are called kapok and are sacred in most tribes.  Jóse, our naturalist guide,  told us about how he went to one of the trees, and fasted for four days.  That was a tradition from the highlands.  

            After we had all napped -except for me- around four o' clock, our group went to a small creek. We saw a lot of wildlife, but my favorite part was seeing a group of squirrel monkeys.  Our native guide, Xavier, was really great at spotting plants and animals for us to see.   When it started to get dark, we hopped off of the canoe and took another night hike.  We saw another snake, more insects, and interesting trees.  My favorite part was the baby snake who licked my nose because snakes smell with their tongues.  After the night hike, our paddler met us at the end of the trail.  We got into the canoe. Everyone's flashlights were on because it was dark.  Then, we started seeing splashes all around us.  Splash! Splash!  Here and there.  "Uh oh," our guide had said under his breath.  We all quickly turned out our headlamps, and luckily, the splashes went away.  It could have been fishes or caimans.

             The next day, we got up and took the small canoe to the larger one.  That was the end of our trip.  I felt like the trip was so short, but the first day still seemed so long ago.