Carnaval at JamuLodge in the Cuyabeno Reserve

Just like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, most Latin American countries celebrate Carnaval before the commencement of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Therefore, we had a four-day weekend to do as we pleased! The traditional celebration typically involves freezing water, eggs, flour and foam being thrown at anyone in the vicinity. Since I wasn’t quite up for that, I planned a trip to Cuyabeno National Park in the Amazon rainforest for the weekend with three other ladies with whom I volunteer at Cenit.

So on Friday night, at 11pm, two Germans, a Finnish girl, myself, and another American who was also going to the lodge boarded the bus for the 8 hour ride to Lago Agrio (side note: when we got on the bus, and the person came around for our ticket, we couldn’t find it, so we were going through everything, and then the one girl who was the least likely to have had it pulled it out of her pocket, and we were saved), of which I remember nothing because I was unconscious. But from there on, this is a quick look at our weekend:

Day 1:

We arrived at the Lago Agrio bus station at 7am, groggy and hungry. We decided to find the hotel where we would meet up with the Jamu Lodge people. After a quick taxi ride, we grabbed some breakfast (and a milkshake, I splurged) at the hotel. Once we’d gathered everyone from the tour group, we started the two hour drive to the entrance of the Cuyabeno Reserve. Along the way, we were stopped only once by the military checkpoints to check identification, since we were in the northeast part of the country.

At the entrance to the reserve, we grabbed a quick boxed lunch, then boarded the lancha, which is basically a motorized canoe-shaped boat. Our group consisted of two Ecuadorian couples, two (unrelateded) people from Basque Country in northern Spain, and the five of us volunteers, with our guide Darío. Since it’s the dry season, the boat got stuck a few times, but never enough to need pushing. We saw squirrel monkeys, yellow handed titi monkeys and capuchins (and later nocturnal monkeys), in addition to a few beautiful butterfly species (Morpho Menelaus and Morpho Achilles, I think) and birds. [This is where it becomes clear that I’m far more interested in the reptiles, mammals, insects and amphibians than the plants or birds. Clearly my father’s daughter.]

Entrance to Cuyabeno Reserve

On the lancha to the lodge

In the Gran Laguna (it's dry season)

The footpath that tried to challenge my last name daily

The lodge dining room

  

The boat ride took about 2.5 to 3 hours, stopping to point out animals along the way. When we got to Jamu Lodge, we brought our stuff up to the room. Because it is an ecolodge, there is only energy for one hour a day, with cold water and no lights and a water system developed to avoid chemicals, so they have a biodegradable shampoo, which was pretty cool. In any case, we went to the Laguna Grande in the late afternoon, which was more like the “plot of land” grande, since the dry season makes the water level drop so significantly that the laguna essentially ceases to be. We walked around and saw the sunset, though, and tried to look for a few caimans along the way back.  Back at the lodge, we ate dinner and went to bed.

Jamu Lodge

Day 2

We woke up and had a delicious breakfast (who’s going to turn down a chocolate bread?!) and then took a brisk shower before heading out in our long pants, long shirts, and boots, with ponchos at the ready. We took the lancha to the jungle and hiked for about 3 to 4 hours. I got stuck in the mud once, and three people had to pull my boot and me back out, but it was really a ton of fun. We went on the search for a 5m anaconda that the previous group had seen about an hour earlier, but were unsuccessful, meaning that the anaconda was there and watching us secretly.

Even the dry season, it pours rain in the rain forest

Mud.

Mud mud mud.

MUD!!

The group from the ONG

We went back to the lodge for lunch and a siesta in the hammocks, then headed out in the lancha in the late afternoon to go piranha fishing! Our group only caught 2 piranhas (all catch and release, don’t worry), but we got about ten catfish. I didn’t catch anything, but it was fun nevertheless.

Tanja and her catfish

Galo and his piranha

That night after dinner, we went on the night hike around the back of the lodge. We saw tarantulas, wolf spiders, scorpion spiders, a king fisher, an hilo frog, and a variety of other nocturnal insects. I must say, the number of spiders that close to the lodge made me appreciate my mosquito net just that much more.

Day 3

On the third day, we visited a local community within the Cuyabeno Reserve. On the way, we saw a couple of pink river dolphins as they swam by, though they don’t jump out of the water. We watched and help make a tortilla-like bread (Casabe) completely from yucca, and then went to see the shaman up the river. It was interesting to listen to him speak out his experiences and decision to because a medicinal shaman, still utilizing the hallucinogenic drinks that used to be much more common, and the medicinal plants of the region. We ate a boxed lunch in the community before heading back towards the lodge.

The group from the weekend

Grating yuca for Casabe

On the way back, we stopped for a swim in the river in front of the community. We played makeshift volleyball with a soccer ball, and generally just hoped that the pink river dolphins were closer than the piranhas. On the way back, we caught sight of a small anaconda in a tree near the water! There was also a sloth in a different area, but I didn’t ever find it.

Tanja and I in the river

Back at the lodge, we rested and then had dinner before going out on a night search for caimans. We saw a couple caimans around 2m long and some that were much smaller, one of which was viciously annihilating a fish. We also found a little yellow Amazonian tree boa in the tree beside us, which was cool because it reminded me of the Christmas photo from years ago where my family held a giant one just like that!

Day 4

On our last day, we woke up at 5:15am to get ready to go out on the river by 5:45. We had the chance to go kayaking and canoeing on the river. I opted for kayaking most of the time. Because of the nature of the sport and the water fights (it was Carnaval, after all), we ended up drenched. This was fine, except at one point, my kayaking buddy turned around and announced that my headband had turned me blue! Apparently the dye had started to stain my face and neck, so I basically looked like a smurf. Oh well, it was worth it.

After kayaking, I looked like a smurf.

After breakfast, we finalized our packing and started out in the lancha back to the entrance of the Reserve. Even with all of the rain in the previous days, the water was a bit low to be going up river. We got stuck a couple times, and people would have to abandon ship and help push. Luckily, we made it there eventually, ate lunch, and started the ride back to the bus station.

Once at the bus station, we found out that the next available bus wasn’t until 5:45pm, three and a half hours away. In the mean time, we went to grab a little bite to eat in town. Given the Carnaval holiday, we had to keep an eye out for foam and water and eggs, all of which can be used for some fun. I managed to avoid it, but some of the group did get drenched by a passing truck.

By the time we boarded the bus, we were tired and ready to head out, but we still had an 8 hour bus ride. About 45 minutes into the journey, we had to pass a military checkpoint, given the proximity to the Colombian border. For foreigners, there was a special line (this meant we took longer, but did avoid the truck with Carnaval water being thrown from it). When my turn came, I pulled out the copies of my documents and handed them to the guard. Originally, he looked at me and asked if I had the original. I said that I hadn’t brought it because the travel agency told me a copy would be sufficient. Imagine my surprise (well, not really. I already knew this, but I wasn’t about to travel around with my passport) at this information. Luckily, given the generally nice nature of all 4 of us and our ability to speak a decent amount of Spanish, we managed to get around the fact that having an un-notarized copy of a passport is actually illegal. Thank goodness for being able to keep our cool. It was a bit of a frightening moment. Later, there was a small break to grab some food and drink. We arrived in Quito at 1am, and from there I caught a taxi, got home, and went straight to sleep so I could rest for class the next day.

*Critters*

Here are some photos of the critters, though not all are represented here!

Beautiful teal butterflies (far away, sorry)

Red Piranha

Scorpion Spider

That little circle of light in the center is focused
on a King Fisher bird

Centipede

Toad

Butterfly

Ferocious wild beast aka harmless puppy

Squirrel monkeys

Hilo frog

Nocturnal monkeys

Toad

Baby anaconda

Tarantula--I was relieved this wasn't on my building