I ate live ants in the jungle, y'all!!
The morning of Monday the 17th I took care of business. Namely - I bought tickets for the night bus to Lago Agrio ($8) and broke down and booked a trip to the Galapagos Islands. Everyone I have met who's been there has been strongly encouraging me to go, saying I'd be kicking myself in the ass for essentially the rest of my life if I didn't go. Hmm...hope they're right! For the price tag, it had better surpass my expectations!
I met my jungle traveling buddy, Clare, at 8 pm and we went out for dinner at the Magic Bean Cafe. She raved on and on during the meal about her Galapagos trip and showed me a few of her pics. Looks promising, oh yes indeed! Clare and I caught the Esmeraldas night bus at 11 pm and agreed to sleep in shifts so we could keep an eye on our belongings. I stayed awake until almost 3 am passing the time by watching Glee and Beatles videos on my iPod and iPad respectively. We reached Lago Agrio at just after 6 am and once availing ourselves of the bus station's relatively clean toilets, hoofed it into town to the Hotel Imperial where we were
supposed to be picked up for our rumble in the jungle.
There we met Steffi and Ariane. One of them is Swiss and the other German and I can't remember which is which as they are both Nordic blondes. There was also a sweet young Aussie by the
name of Will. All in all a decidedly friendly group which bodes well for the trip. We were met
by our indigenous guide, Patrick -two enthusiastic thumbs up for him too. Very friendly and
with a sense of humor guaranteed to have us smiling and laughing. He comes from the Quichuwa
tribe. We were driven for about 2 hours first off to the entrance of the Cuyabeno Reserve
where we then traveled by motorized canoe for another 3 hours until finally reaching Samona
Lodge. At first we didn't see much of anything on the river and I feared we wouldn't get
lucky but WAIT!! WAIT!! Is that an anaconda I see?!? Why I do believe it is! It was somewhere
between 3 or 4 meters long and had recently eaten something due to the bulging mass in it's
belly. Other animals we spotted from our canoe were 3 different kinds of monkeys (squirrel
monkeys, white-fronted capuchins, and monk sari monkeys), camera-shy turtles, vibrant blue
butterflies, and hoatzins (aka "stinky turkeys") which can't fly but due to their inedible
taste are in little danger from discerning predators.
In the evening we rode in our canoe to the nearby Laguna Grande where we watched the sunset.
Ahhh...ohhh...niiice...Dinner was served at 8 pm and was fairly yummy but the true
"dessert" was going for a nighttime stroll in the jungle. We saw some pretty cool creepy
crawlies including 2 highly poisonous spiders, a centipede, and a moth which showed absolutely
no fear of humans as it kept landing on us. It even perched itself on Steffi's forehead for a
minute.
everywhere including our rooms, toilets, the dining hall, etc fucking etc! I don't know how I'll bear it but bear it I will.
October 19-20, Samona Lodge, Cuyabeno
I can definitely tick off a few more things on my crazy stunts list after having visited the
Ecuadorean Amazonian jungle. First of all, I ate live ants!!! This is perhaps a no-no for a
vegetarian of 21 years but who could resist licking a lemon plant offered by one's guide even though it was riddled with ants?! I didn't actually feel anything crunchy going down my throat
so the gross-out factor was minimal. The dare devil in me has been unleashed on this trip and
I've flushed the key to all my inhibitions down the toilet.
Okay so over the past 2 days we did a number of activities put together by our lodge. We went hiking in the jungle (where I made gastronomic history chowing down on the aforementioned
ants). Another cool thing to happen which also coincidentally involved ants was that I
voluntarily allowed a fiery red ant to bite me on my index finger after being forewarned by
our guide that the pain would only last 10 minutes. Since this was the Amazon jungle and all,
the pain from the bite was waaaaay more intense than any other ant bite I've received and the
pain went on for more like 20 minutes but who's counting?
We went on a two-hour canoe trip that had us paddling furiously and exhaustingly due to the intense heat of the sun. While paddling, we spotted a 3-4 meter white cayman (crocodile to
those not hip to the lingo) that emerged from the depths of the river. I managed to get a
decent photo of its head-yippie!
Another highlight was fishing for carnivorous piranha in the Laguna Grande using raw beef and Australian blood for bait! Okay I confess the blood was purely accidental as Will, the Aussie
fellow in our group, was cut when trying to dehook one of the piranhas he caught. He found out
firsthand how sharp those cantankerous buggers' teeth really are! I am afraid I didn't turn
out to be much of a fisherwoman. I only managed to catch ONE the entire time- they just kept
eating the meat off my hook.
and not as tasty. A slightly traumatic incident occurred, however, while at the village. You
see there were these gorgeous blue butterflies flittering about and they would gather together
on the ground but one of the local dogs had apparently acquired a taste for them. He kept
coming along and scooping them up in its mouth and chomping them up into itsy bitsy blue
pieces! It was really heart-wrenching to watch something so beautiful be destroyed
but...sigh...nature is cruel, no?
The last thing of any significance to occur happened late in the evening of my last night while I sat around pleasantly visiting with my tour group and nursing a beer. The worst thing I could possibly imagine to happen happened. I shudder to think about it, let alone write
about it. Before I tell you what happened though I should explain that I really only have 2
big phobias in life. #1 is a fear of heights in man-made structures. So I feel petrified when
standing on a balcony of a 20-story building but it's no big deal for me to go hiking in the
mountains. #2 is cockroaches!!! I absolutely abhor these disgusting creatures and the idea of one of them crawling on my body is enough to send me into a catatonic state of fear. So guess
which one of these phobias was realized while in the jungle?? Ding, ding, ding! Those who
opted for #2 are spot on! as I said I was having a grand old time hanging with my fellow tour
members when SPLAT!!! Something flew fast and hard into the side of my neck!! I stood up and
shrieked, slapping it away from my body and everyone started laughing at my extreme reaction.
I said, "it was a big cockroach!" but they pooh-poohed me saying, "no, it was just a moth."
just when I started to relax and believe them, it flew back and landed smack dab in the middle
of the table and let me tell you without the slightest bit of exaggeration- this was the
biggest mother fucking cockroach I have ever laid eyes on!! Pardon my French, but if ever
harsh language was deemed necessary to describe something...THIS...WAS...IT! I am sure to have
nightmares about this for years. Even when I die and am possibly reincarnated, I am sure this
event will haunt me for it has scarred my soul.
Nasty buggers. Yuck!
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