The Amazon Jungle
This 5 day jungle trip was much more interesting than the one I did in Ecuador in December, the main reason being the number of exotic animals I got to see. While in Ecuador we saw almost none, the list of exotic wild animals that I saw here is amazing : several species of monkeys, white and black Caiman, caiper, Giant tarantulas, Jungle otters, many species of ants and termites, and many many species of large and small birds, which most of their names I already forgot. The most amazing animal citing I had though, was a 2.5 meter black Caiman (A kind of alligator), the guide spotted it while we where navigating a swamp in a boat, the Caiman was resting between the grass, about 1.5 meters from the boat, we could only see the eyes and part of the tail, I was in the front of the boat, and the guide told me to come to the back to get a better look at it, I moved to the back and took a good look at it, then raised my camera to take a picture, but that seemed to alert the Caiman , it twisted its body and disappeared under the water, but when it did that we got to see its whole black body, unfortunately my reactions and my digital camera were not fast enough to capture it on a photo, and all I got with a picture of disturbed water.
Another interesting animal was the caiper it is the biggest hamster in the world , it can weigh 200 kg, and it is the biggest animal in the jungle, they had one as pet in the Lodge. I also saw the dangerous fire ants, and the very dangerous giant ants. The fire ants live inside a small tree in symbiosis, the fire ants protect the tree and the tree provides them with a home, the tree is called by the locals ¨justice tree¨, because they used to punish people for crimes, the tied them to the tree in the night, and in the morning they would come back to find them dead, not a nice way to die. As for birds there are a lot of big colorful macaws, but the most bizarre bird have to be the ¨horned screamer¨, a large black and yellow bird, very loud and honks like a donkey.
It is difficult though to take good pictures of animals in the jungle, for starters it is often cloudy there, and even when it is sunny not much light goes through the thick jungle. Further more, except for the monkeys at monkey island, these are wild animals , and you can only watch them from a distance, you would need a camera with a very high zoom to make decent pictures of them, which I did not´t have.
The guides are were very good, they knew a lot about everything the jungle, and they spoke clear English, and they were great at spotting animals and birds. They explained to us about a lot of plants and trees and their uses, one very interesting plant is the Ayahuasca, anyway this is hallucigenetic plant, which has a vine form (as opposed to a tree or a bush). The indigenous people life style revolved a lot around using this hallucigenetic plant, the shamans prepare a kind of drink by boiling pieces of this plant, then the Shaman would then drink it , other people can drink it as well, but only under supervision of the Shaman. After twenty minutes the people start having hallucinations, which last four hours. According to one of the guides, which already drank it 15 times, it shows him things about his life, he also claims he met the jungle spirits and they thought him things about the jungle. During the hallucinations the Shaman is supposed to watch over the people to protect them from the demon which will try to hurt them. They make many more claims about the spiritual powers of this plant, and I don´t know what to believe or what not. Going to the Shaman to take this hallucigenetic stuff used to be free, but now a days it is becoming a business, people are paying 100$ for a hallucination session with a Shaman, they told me that in June they are having a group of 120 Americans who are coming to the lodge for the sole purpose of participating in a hallucigenetic session, the session will be conducted by four shamans, since according to them each Shaman can control up to 30 people , but no more.
In the night they had caiman watching trips, we would go down the river under moon light, with the engines of the boat turned off , and try to spot caimans, or just listen to the sounds of the jungle. The white caiman eyes would glow in the dark, when they pointed the light at them.
Some of the evenings at the lodge were fun as well. A group of 8 people arrived at the same time as me, all girls except one guy, they were a mix of Canadian, America and Australian. The second night I shared 3 bottles of red wine with one of the girls, and the next morning I had to wake up at five, I managed to wake up and do a seven hour tour, then come back and have launch, after launch I went to take a short nap, the next thing I remember was somebody knocking on my door to wake me up for dinner ! I met a lot of nice people during my four night stay in this lodge. And The lodge it self was quite nice place as well. I just don´t understand why the shower water in the middle of the jungle is so cold.
Another interesting animal was the caiper it is the biggest hamster in the world , it can weigh 200 kg, and it is the biggest animal in the jungle, they had one as pet in the Lodge. I also saw the dangerous fire ants, and the very dangerous giant ants. The fire ants live inside a small tree in symbiosis, the fire ants protect the tree and the tree provides them with a home, the tree is called by the locals ¨justice tree¨, because they used to punish people for crimes, the tied them to the tree in the night, and in the morning they would come back to find them dead, not a nice way to die. As for birds there are a lot of big colorful macaws, but the most bizarre bird have to be the ¨horned screamer¨, a large black and yellow bird, very loud and honks like a donkey.
It is difficult though to take good pictures of animals in the jungle, for starters it is often cloudy there, and even when it is sunny not much light goes through the thick jungle. Further more, except for the monkeys at monkey island, these are wild animals , and you can only watch them from a distance, you would need a camera with a very high zoom to make decent pictures of them, which I did not´t have.
The guides are were very good, they knew a lot about everything the jungle, and they spoke clear English, and they were great at spotting animals and birds. They explained to us about a lot of plants and trees and their uses, one very interesting plant is the Ayahuasca, anyway this is hallucigenetic plant, which has a vine form (as opposed to a tree or a bush). The indigenous people life style revolved a lot around using this hallucigenetic plant, the shamans prepare a kind of drink by boiling pieces of this plant, then the Shaman would then drink it , other people can drink it as well, but only under supervision of the Shaman. After twenty minutes the people start having hallucinations, which last four hours. According to one of the guides, which already drank it 15 times, it shows him things about his life, he also claims he met the jungle spirits and they thought him things about the jungle. During the hallucinations the Shaman is supposed to watch over the people to protect them from the demon which will try to hurt them. They make many more claims about the spiritual powers of this plant, and I don´t know what to believe or what not. Going to the Shaman to take this hallucigenetic stuff used to be free, but now a days it is becoming a business, people are paying 100$ for a hallucination session with a Shaman, they told me that in June they are having a group of 120 Americans who are coming to the lodge for the sole purpose of participating in a hallucigenetic session, the session will be conducted by four shamans, since according to them each Shaman can control up to 30 people , but no more.
In the night they had caiman watching trips, we would go down the river under moon light, with the engines of the boat turned off , and try to spot caimans, or just listen to the sounds of the jungle. The white caiman eyes would glow in the dark, when they pointed the light at them.
Some of the evenings at the lodge were fun as well. A group of 8 people arrived at the same time as me, all girls except one guy, they were a mix of Canadian, America and Australian. The second night I shared 3 bottles of red wine with one of the girls, and the next morning I had to wake up at five, I managed to wake up and do a seven hour tour, then come back and have launch, after launch I went to take a short nap, the next thing I remember was somebody knocking on my door to wake me up for dinner ! I met a lot of nice people during my four night stay in this lodge. And The lodge it self was quite nice place as well. I just don´t understand why the shower water in the middle of the jungle is so cold.
posted by DiagonalMind at
2:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home