This past weekend I spent four days and three nights far from civilization in the Cuyabeno Reserve of Ecuador deep within the Amazon rainforest. I travelled eight hours on a night bus to Lago Agrio where I met the tour guide and my fellow Amazon adventurers. From this small town we travelled a couple of hours to the cuyabeno river. From here we loaded our packs into a long, narrow canoe with a small motor. Right off the bat I got a taste of what I was going to experience for the next four days. Within minutes of leaving the dock area we saw an enormous snake! It was about seven feet long and about the same girth as Hulk Hogan's legendary pythons. It moved through the water extremely fast for it's size and dissapeared into the thick foliage of the jungle within seconds.
The canoe ride to our lodging took about two and a half hours. Along the way we saw white beaked toucans, squirrel monkeys, cappuchin monkeys, large hairy monkeys and extremely small monkeys that I forget the names of, along with at least a dozen other types of birds.
The whole experience of being in the Amazon was amazing. You could feel the immense amount of pure life in the jungle. Everything I could see or touch was alive. There was never a quiet moment with the unending calls and songs of birds, insects, monkeys and who knows what else.
The ecosystem was the definite highlight of the trip, but we also visited some indigenous people who still live in the jungle. Honestly though, they really didn't seem too different. Sure they eat different things and speak a different language (although they speak Spanish as well) but they were also wearing modern clothes and playing volleyball when we arrived. I was glad they didn't put on a show by dressing up just when we were there.
There were too many cool things to describe them all here so I'll just make a little list. Spiders bigger than my hand, trees that can walk (albeit vey slowly), huge caimans, swimming in the lake, and pirhana fishing.
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