The Selva

Despite the various bug bites, having my mole mistaken as a bug on my face, sleeping under a musky mosquito net, parasites in our tap water, cockroaches and frogs in our room, and the unknown rashes on my body, the jungle was an experience of a lifetime.

Wilson and I spent 5 days and 4 nights in Cuyobeno, a part of the Amazon jungle outside of Quito. The first night we got there, we went on an evening night tour. Unfortunately, we didn´t see much due to the rain. However, when we returned back, we saw a tarantula on the roof of one of the huts. This was the first time, I had ever seen a tarantula outside of a glass case. I thought I would have been freaked out but the tarantula, well, was a tarantula.

We saw a number of exotic animals that made this trip worthwhile. On our second day, we were pleasantly surprised to see an anaconda resting in a tree during our canoe ride. We also saw finger monkeys (you can literally put these things in your pocket), toucans from a distance, birds that looked like turkeys, spiders and ants of all shapes and sizes, a gigantic grass hopper, jungle cock roaches, a dart frog that is poisonous, and various other insects. It was also interesting to see how all the rich vegetation throughout the jungle.

The guide pointed out that the wooly and holler monkeys are often hunted for their meat because it “tasted just like beef” (not chicken!). Unfortunately, we did not try any of these monkeys during our meals in the jungle.

On the food front, Wilson was brave enough to eat some mini ants that apparently tasted like lemons. And the guide had everyone try this type of plant that he claimed would whiten your teeth. We questioned why indigenous people would want to whiten their teeth (isn't this more of a modern-day thing)? After he had us chew on a piece of plant for a couple seconds, he had us all stick out our tongue to see if it was blue. Unfortunately, no one in our group except for one gal and the guide had a blue tongue. I guess that was interesting...It was the chlorophyll in the plant that caused this reaction.

The guide also showed us a tree that was used to treat malaria in the jungle. You are supposed to boil the bark and drink it twice during the day to help cure this disease. Fortunately, none of us had to drink the potion!

We also visited a “shaman” (also known as a medicine man). We ate our boxed lunches at his house but unfortunately, he was not home to cure our bad spirits or sicknesses. So we went over to an indigenous community to meet some of the local folks and meet another medicine man who is 90 years old and in awesome shape. Unfortunately, he was a retired medicine man so he wasn't able to see us for remedies but instead, he showed us how the city yucca was harvested in his community.

On our last day in the jungle, we canoed upstream to the lake in a 5-man canoe. Canoeing is a lot harder than one may think. It took us nearly two hours to go upstream to the lake, which takes a mere 15 minutes in a motorized canoe. Our treat was we got to jump out of a tree into the lake.

This was definitely a trip we would take again. We saw a lot of different jungle things, met a number of great people and really enjoyed the overall experience.