Welcome to the Jungal

And yes I know that ¨Jungle¨is misspelled, although someone should mention that to the ¨Jungal Tours¨outfit that we came across in Quito. So we´ve survived the Jungle having braved Caiman Crocs, frogs that could kill you within 24 hours just for kissing them, red and white pyrahanas, a tarantula that guarded our dinner table, and two giant spiders that made sure that no butterfies disturbed our beauty sleep. From Mindo we took a 2.5 hour bus to Quito, then a 9 hour bus to Lago Agrio (Neuve Loja if you work for the oil industry), a 3 hour truck ride into the jungle and finally a 2 hour boat ride through the swollen rivers to our lodge on one of the many temporary lakes in the Cuyabeno reserve. Our lodgings were of course basic, but the ambience and sounds made those silly ¨rainforest¨audio tapes sound like... well... silly. The birds and insects were amazing, and the monkeys that we saw everyday were furry and monkey-like. Our first night was spent swimming in the lake with the sunset as a backdrop. The next day was taken up with a long walk through the jungle, listening to our Death Metal Ecuadorian guide enthuse about the medical properties of all the trees that he was hacking with his machete. After surviving the mud pit that our guide tried to get us stuck in (hey he needs some entertainment too I guess), we motored over to a river to do some pyrahana fishing. Alas, Kate and I didn´t get any fish but Kate got some bites on her hunks of steak that we were using for bait. Luckily we had a Dutch couple with us who were real fishermen and we were able to check out there toothy catches (although when Hans dropped one in the small boat things got a little tense- those things are FAST). The next day was filled with a visit to a nearby Shaman where our guide wouldn´t stop talking about his ¨flying¨experience using some of the Shaman´s local plant life, and ended with a peaceful sunset over one of the other nearby lakes. Later that night we visited the nightlife of Cuyabeno, and shared some laughs with the local wolf spiders, cicada´s, giant ant colonies, and countless other bugs straight out of an 80´s horror flick. On the last day we woke up at the butt crack of dawn for some bird watching from a paddle raft. It was a beautiful sunrise through the fog on the lake, as we winded through meandering waterways. And then... we did all of those bus rides in reverse, and are now back in Quito getting ready to head out to Otovalo, home of the expensive trinkets. Hope everyone is well, and we´ll see you soon.