Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Ecuador and the Equator, Part 2: Coca, the Amazon Jungle and Guayaquil

Before we leave Quito, a few general thoughts  The town is full of graffiti, worse than any city I've seen.  According to Marco, this is fairly recent; he attributes it to military service becoming voluntary rather than mandatory, leaving a bunch of young men at an impressionable age with not enough to do.

Geraniums are the ubiquitous flower....

Oh, and the name of the fancy restaurant we ate at was Aciota (for those of you who keep track of that sort of thing),  And my coconut fish comes highly recommended.

And a note on Ecuador's economy.  Activities of importance, in order of importance:  oil (did you know that Ecuador had oil?  I didn't.); shrimp; bananas; roses (ditto); and tourism.  Apparently, between the Amazon Jungle, the Andes, and the Galapagos, the country is quite the draw. Who knew?

On to Coca (a half an hour flight east of Quito).   Truth be told, we didn't see much of the city, just taking this "bus"....


...to the nearby dock, where we were issued our life jackets....




and boarded the motorized canoe for the ride to Yarina Lodge, our home in the jungle, led, as always, by Marco, our fearless leader (who, we now find, is a trained biologist).


...our first sight of the lodge......the lodge isn't run by OAT - they share their tours among several different lodges along the Napo River in the Amazon River watershed - but it does meet with their ecological standards...


......it may be a jungle lodge in the rain forest, but, as you can see, we were not exactly roughing it...


We watch for birds and monkeys (among those seen was one nicknamed "stinking turkey", white herons, howler monkeys, and many more)...







.....this was my cabin.  (I had singled accommodations throughout.  One of the nice things about OAT is they have a number of single accommodations at no extra cost, and I was lucky enough to snag one of them).  And I should say, having been instructed to bring mosquito repellent, I did so, but never once used it, nor saw a mosquito.  In the jungle.  In the rainforest.  Go figure.  




In addition to the canoe rides pictured above, we did walks every day, full of discoveries of flora and fauna, large and small...


.....below is Johnnie....

.....who was always there to help me over the rough and muddy spots, after I was the first (although I will say not the only) to slip and fall in the mud.  (Luckily, by this time, we were back at sea level, so I didn't have altitude sickness to add to my general clumsiness and failure to be sure footed...)









Evolution pops its head here too, with lots on animal specialization.  For example, the "stinking turkey" has claws under its wings so it can crawl back to its nest.  Another survival example is the communal nests of some birds, where four or more mama birds share a nest and cooperate in mothering duties...






.  There are, of course, people living in the Amazon River watershed, and we got to interact with them as well.  OAT's foundation (The Grand Circle Foundation) sponsors a school - the kids on this side of the river were previously unable to go to school as they were unable to get to the school, which was on the other side of the river.  We visited the school,




.....and sat in those annoying little chairs that adults shouldn't sit in, to meet the kids and the teacher, who taught seven grades in the same one-room hut.


I've got to say, though, that the kids were pretty smart, and, as you can see, very cute....



...there's always a dog.....




......once again, we have to participate...




and rainboots, ponchos and all, had a good time.  We then went to a nearby family farm,





,,,,where Christina showed us how she collects produce...


(yes, she's barefoot, and yes, that is her machete...)


........that's her family (conversation translated by Marco - funnily enough, I was the only person in the group who spoke Spanish...


......next, the cooking lesson.....



........which included the eating (I have to say, by my fellow travelers, not by me) of raw larvae...


Then, back to the lodge for a rest, and, before dinner, a lesson on cleaning cocoa beans and making chocolate,,,,,






.....with lots of good conversation before and after dinner, including the devastation wrought in the Amazon Basin by the oil companies, the alcohol problem, etc. 

Next day, after breakfast, another exploratory canoe ride......





....and back to the lodge for goodbyes to our hosts...




,,,,,,as well as a lesson in preparing and shooting poison blow darts....



....and a motorized canoe ride back to Coca, where we have time to stop and explore an indigenous market...







........including herbal remedies made from local flora.....

..


.........before flying back to Quito.  Dinner has been set up for us at a local museum.........







.......Which was delightful (both the museum and the food....)

The next day, some of us chose to take a bus to a spa in the Andes, to Papallacta Hot Springs.  I, for one, was surprisingly tired after the jungle, and very much appreciated not only sitting on the bus and seeing the views, but also relaxing in the 5 hot tubs, and the yummy lunch.  

And, the next day, on to the flight to Guayaquil and the Galapagos, and the next part of the adventure.... To be continued

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