http://picasaweb.google.es/marc.buergi/Ecuador_Oriente#
Esther taming the monkey:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpedPppU7dw
After some days in Quito we took off to explore the amazing rain forest of Ecuador at the Cuyabeno Reserve which belongs to the Siona Community. We drove seven hours by bus to Lago Agrio - an oil city close to the Columbian boarder – from where we took antother bus two hours deeper into the jungle and eventually a dug out canoe for another two hours down the Cuyabeno River to the Samona Resort.
How to describe the jungle: wet, green, green and green whith a myriade of animals that creep and crawl arround and into every hole and crack. In the air a summing and a constant sound of birds, monkeys and cricks. And from times to times a loud cry by a tourist that stumbelt over something (!) in the bedroom – might be a Tarantula under the cussions, a Frog or a huge Coackroach in the shower or a snake chilling in the warm bed..
Together with our guide Gilver and the Spanish speaking group we went to explore the secrets of the jungle...
- uncountable plants and trees including old giant trees which were used by the tribes to communicate by hitting them to morse (the sound is really loud!),
- hallucinogen herbs which are used by the tribal shamans to connect with other spheres,
- Ants, small ones to rub onto the skin as mosquito repellent and others that live in symbiosis inside a tree with a citron taste which we eat alive (!) and poisonous big ones which we were fooling around with (posing very nice for the camera!),
- Termites that house a paracite inside which again houses a bacteria to transform wood into building material for giant nests. A wonderful symbiosis – a three in one solution – to creat „casas de mierda“ (houses made of shit),
- Hummingbirds (Kolibris) of which two babies in a nest are in the pictures,
- bloody poisonous red / brown frogs with a skin so toxic that an adult human would die within minutes after the secretion entered the bloodstream. Combined with the natural arrows from a special leave (see picture) its an effective hunting tool,
- Marching Wasps which are very much fun. How to do: Apporach their nest and make a loud noise e.g. you shout „March!“ and the wasps begin to rub their wings inside the nest to produce a loud (!) sound of a marching army to defend their nest. But one shouldn’t drive it too far for the next step of defense would be an attack...
- baby Boa (Snake) and a Cayman (small Crocodile) caught by Gilver at the night excursion to show us and to later release again into the wild,
- 7 of 10 kinds of monkeys living in the neighborhood eating and fooling arround in the trees,
- pink sweet water dolphines which were hard to find in the morning mists,- and many, many more..
- uncountable plants and trees including old giant trees which were used by the tribes to communicate by hitting them to morse (the sound is really loud!),
- hallucinogen herbs which are used by the tribal shamans to connect with other spheres,
- Ants, small ones to rub onto the skin as mosquito repellent and others that live in symbiosis inside a tree with a citron taste which we eat alive (!) and poisonous big ones which we were fooling around with (posing very nice for the camera!),
- Termites that house a paracite inside which again houses a bacteria to transform wood into building material for giant nests. A wonderful symbiosis – a three in one solution – to creat „casas de mierda“ (houses made of shit),
- Hummingbirds (Kolibris) of which two babies in a nest are in the pictures,
- bloody poisonous red / brown frogs with a skin so toxic that an adult human would die within minutes after the secretion entered the bloodstream. Combined with the natural arrows from a special leave (see picture) its an effective hunting tool,
- Marching Wasps which are very much fun. How to do: Apporach their nest and make a loud noise e.g. you shout „March!“ and the wasps begin to rub their wings inside the nest to produce a loud (!) sound of a marching army to defend their nest. But one shouldn’t drive it too far for the next step of defense would be an attack...
- baby Boa (Snake) and a Cayman (small Crocodile) caught by Gilver at the night excursion to show us and to later release again into the wild,
- 7 of 10 kinds of monkeys living in the neighborhood eating and fooling arround in the trees,
- pink sweet water dolphines which were hard to find in the morning mists,- and many, many more..
Gilver our guide knew so much about the jungle for he grew up here and still he mentioned that he learns something new every day and on every excursion. Other than on the Galapagos here it was allowed to touch things. One night Gilver carried out a big Tarantula from one of the guests room by hand! As a result the spider - for it not only bites - shot many of its poisonous hairs at him which causes an allergic reaction. But don’t worry he knew what he was doing an got rid of the toxic hairs after placing the (living!) spider on display for the guests in the cuboard of the bar..
Very sweet was the house monkey with the name Pancha which used to fool around the visitors acting like a three year old - we very much fell in love with her. See the YouTube video how she is trying to steal food from the table like she used to do all the times and it was very hard not to let her steal something occasionally..
One day we visited the Siona Community further down the river and we were welcomed by the eldest (92 years old!) shaman of the community. We went into the backyards to pick Cacao-Fruits, Oranges and Yuca (a root) which we then processed toYuca bread. Marc got really addicted to the Cacao-Fruit which is the very sweet part arround the ceed which back home we know as Cacao after it is dried and processed. While grinding and baking the Yuka bread the shaman told stories about maneater communities (yes, people eating other people!) he knew by personal experience. Later we practiced shooting with the blow gun but most of the time we didn’t hit neither animals nor humans..
That’s it so far. In the next days we take off to explore the Andes south of Quito down to Cuenca and then head for the beaches of Montanita to warm up a little bit. We are looking forward to your blog comments or E-Mails....
- Esther & Marc
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