It's not called a rain forest for nothing

     On Februaury 26 we got up from our hotel in Quito and met our tour guide Chris who drove us down to the Amazon. We did not know that we would have a personal guide. We thought we would be in a bus of Amazon goers. Our guide started the tour the second we got in the car. He has a degree in tourism and therefore knows a lot of history and flora and fauna facts about Ecuador. Just east of Quito you are on the east side of the Andes that drain into the Amazon. We drove through a high pass, cloud forest and then into flatter rain forest. We stopped at a lovely thermal springs at Termas de Papallacta for a soak and lunch. They had 15 or more pools from ice cold to almost scalding in depths of 1 foot to six feet. Each pool had seats, some were made of natural rock and others of blue patterned tile. The place was many leveled with nice trees and bushes.

     We continued our drive and it got warmer and much more humid. We stopped for a few minutes in the first town along the Napo. We wandered around until we could see the monkeys that lived in the city park and feed them raw eggs. 

     We then stopped a few more villages down the Napo where we got into a skinny river boat with Hector (we had this same boat and pilot the whole time) and cruised the rest of the way to Casa del Suizo Lodge, which was super fun. It is a palm covered house that sits up on a bluff beside the Napo. It is in the last little town that has road access in this part of the jungle. Further east requires a boat.

     The lodge is really nice with clean accommodations, great food, a fantastic view and nice people. However, any extra thing is separate including drinking water and Internet. So watch your dollar. Otherwise I would suggest this place. There are fancier places and places deeper in the jungle; this place is a nice middle road.

     That afternoon we went into town to see a local who carves balsa wood into animals. The lodge has hundreds of them as fish and birds. Then we watched a heated soccer match between local teams on a covered concrete pitch. The guy who was bad mouthing the ref got a yellow card. Later he was the bartender at the lodge! Then the kids played in the pool while Steph and I had piña drinks at the swim-up bar. I always wanted a drink at a drive-up bar. At night bats come out for laps over the pool eating bugs attracted to the lights.  

     The next morning 2/27 we took our river boat and hiked up to the top of the forest. We saw old and recovering (primary and secondary) rainforest. Every day we also have a local guide Jairdl (pronounced Heidle) who described the flora, fauna and people. There are many different palm plants with many different uses. There are tons of bugs. One type of termite can be crushed and used as bug repellant. I tried this. We should have tried it on Lumia, who has at least twenty bites per leg right now! We did not see many animals except bugs as they are usually hiding or have moved further into the forest. 

     Then we went to an animal rescue center where we saw lots of animals - tapirs, macaws, monkeys, cayman, rodents, snakes - and it started to rain, heavy fat rain, and we had left our rain gear in the boat. It's not called the rainforest for nothing as it cleared by noon but we still got soaked. 

      Animal rescue centers are usually pretty sad but even sadder when given the tour by a grumpy German volunteer. It is quite sad to hear about animals that were only fed rice their whole lives or see macaws with their wings cut off. Moral of the visit is this: don't buy exotic animals for pets. You don't need them and can't provide them the enviroemt they need. Please don't even think about it. If you do, call us up and we'll tells you the horror stories to convince you differently!

      The best animals we saw were a cayman, monkeys and a lost flock bird that did not have a flock so followed us around. Now very soaked we headed back to the lodge for lunch. 

     In the afternoon we went to a tiny rainforest village up on stilts where we met Carlotta who showed us how to make chicha, a drink of fermented yucca. We tried it and it was meh, we tried the aged version and it was much better and stronger. We were shown many of the traditional things that made up her house, her village and her family. We got our faces painted with acheote. Then Jairdl showed us how to use the blow darts. Cael was the best and hit the target twice. (He might have had a little help from Jairdl with the aiming.) We went to the town by the lodge where a woman showed us the traditional pottery The rest of the afternoon was spent at the lodge swimming pool. We think the kids might recall the pool as their biggest experience in the rain forest...

     It rained overnight but the next morning 2/28 we were up for another hike. We hit the jungle and saw many more plants and bugs. We saw a huge centipede and leaf cutter ants. We rode on a little zip ine for fun. Lumia was starting to love our guides and walked with them. We tried the lemon ants, which tasted just like lemons (and, truly, you can only find limes in Ecuador). Then we build a raft of balsa wood and rafted back to the lodge. This was super fun. The kids took turns jumping off the raft. It was also nice to just drift down the river quietly. That afternoon we panned for gold and found a couple of tiny specks then we went to a butterfly farm. The coolest had bright blue insides of their wings but when they sat still, they closed their wings. I did not get the perfect pictures but I got some pretty good ones. Then we walked through the school but they were not in session so we did not see the kids. We went back for more pool time and a good grill dinner. There was a group there from North America, so we talked to some of them.

     The Amazon was great. You don't see as many things that you see in a Hollywood movie about the Amazon but it was beautiful and fun to learn about. I think the whole family would vote the boat rides up and down the Napo as our most fun part, including the raft trip. The next morning we headed back to Quito for part 5, the final part of our adventure. We are all getting pretty ready to be home. See you in less than two weeks.