The Amazon

So I have spent the last 4 days in the Amazon rainforest, not far from a small town called Tena. Admittedly I was a little apprehensive when I booked the tour, mainly as I didn’t know what to expect apart from lots of creepy crawly dangerous insects! 

We got a 6 hour coach ride from Quito to Tena, then a local bus for another 45 minutes before we reached the local homestay where we would be spending the next 3 nights. I am sure if I had been less travel sick the journey would have had some amazing scenery but sadly my attention was focused on trying to not be sick rather than looking out the window! The roads were very windy and at times I was slightly worried for my life with the speeds at which the driver was going around the bends! But I guess this is something I’m going to need to get used to while travelling in South America.

We stayed in little wooden huts in the heart of the jungle, below our hut was the chickens house so you can imagine how noisy that was at 5am! There was no hot water or electricity, which was a nice detox. The jungle was so humid that most of the time a cold shower was what you wanted!! Apart from our luggage we brought with us everything we used or ate was either made or grown there in the rainforest. Breakfast, lunch and dinner was selection of rice, chicken, vegetables and eggs, apart from one day when we got banana pancakes which of course everyone was very happy about! 

The host family arranged various activities for us over the 4 days, such as jungle trekking, waterfall canyoning, white water rafting, chocolate making and learning all about the traditions of rainforest life. On our final night we had a traditional wedding and we all did shots of this hurrendous alcoholic mixture made out of a rare plant in the jungle. It tasted 10x worse than absinthe! 

Of course there was a lot of creepy crawly insects, including scorpions, giant spiders and cockroaches! But luckily I had a mosquito net to sleep in at night to keep most of the bugs away. 

I don’t have many photos from the last few days as I didn’t have my phone on me very much but below are a few snapshots of jungle life either that I took or that friends on the tour with me took.