Ecuador - The Jungle (4th to 8th October)

After a week in the mountains it was time for something completely different - the jungle. In Ecuador a trip to the jungle involves visiting the Amazon Rainforest. We left Quito on the night bus and headed for the town of Lago Agrio to meet our jungle guide.  However on the way a torrential rainstorm struck and caused a landslide that blocked the road. We were worried we would miss our trip but the local people were prepared and 6 hours later we were on our way again! We finally arrived and for the first time this trip it was hot enough to put on my shorts and flip flops.

To reach  our lodge deep in the rainforest, we had to take a bus to El Puente then a canoe trip down the Cuyabeno River.  The journey to the river took us past oil refineries and showed how important it is to protect the rainforest from oil companies who want to cut the forest down to get to the oil in the ground.  More than 25000 species of Amazonian plants contribute 20% of the oxygen in our air and 66% of all the worlds fresh water can be found here.  The canoe journey down the river showed us what a special place the rainforest is  - beautiful and untouched. We even saw our first dangerous animal - an anaconda. Our guide explained that it was only a baby at 1 metre long, apparently they can grow up to 9 metres  in length!

Two hours later we arrived at Samona Jungle Lodge, our home for the next few days.  The lodge is made up of lots of wooden huts with thatched roofs. There is a gap between the walls and roof which bugs can  get through, so you sleep under mosquito nets.  Our room was visited by cockroaches and ghekos during our stay, but nothing worse (we think!).  The tarantulas prefered to hang out in the dining area whilst we ate dinner. Apparently tarantulas only bite when they are threatened or they sense fear, at least that was what our guide told me when he convinced me to hold one. It felt really soft and feathery as it walked across my hands.

We spent our first evening back on the river in our canoe. We were searching for caymens (related to crocodiles and alligators) in the dark. To find them you have to look out for their eyes glowing in the dark, just above the surface of the water. Our guide had excellent eyesight and spotted them from a long way off.  We got to within a metre of the caymens and got some great photos, until the the boat brushed against one and the people at the front of the canoe thought they were caymen dinner! (We were at the back).

The next day started with an early morning paddle in search of monkeys.  Mr Greenhead wasn't impressed with the paddling skills of our group, but after a bit of encouragement we made our way down river.  The monkeys were incredible, chasing each other and leaping huge distances from tree to tree. We also saw a large and very colourful Toucan flying in the tree tops.  Next on the itinery was the hunt for anacondas.  We had to go on foot for this activity, so we put on our wellies, smooothered ourselves in deet (insect repellent) and set off through the squelchy mud. Most people ended up with mud and water in their wellies, but one poor girl kept falling over and ended up covered from head to toe. Unfortunately all the anacondas were hiding but we did find an electric eel and the skin shed by an 8 metre  anaconda.

On our way back for lunch we saw some more monkeys whilst we were taking a dip in the river. At this point I didn't realise piranhas lived there, though apparently you need to be bleeding alot for them to attack. The afternoon was spent relaxing on the hammocks at the lodge and finding tree frogs who seemed to like hanging round the huts. Then another evening trip down the river to watch the sunset over the laguna and spot more caymens- one of which was 6 metres long! We also saw lots of jumping fish, one of which jumped into our boat and had to be fished out admist lots of screaming.

We woke up to a torrential rain storm the next morning, which sounded amazing on the roof of our hut. You can understand how the rainforest is so green and full of life when you see the rain pour down. It carried on pouring as we headed in the canoe to a local village (Tarapuy Siona Community), but our ponchos kept us dry and finally the rain eased. We were met at the village by the pet monkey called Nacho.  He was extremely cute and was very happy to pose for photos.

We were given a tour of the village and shown how to make yam bread, which we had for lunch. We also met the villagers pet parakeet who thought Mr Greenheads fingers were rather tasty. The local shamen (witch doctor) was next on the tour. He claims to cure illnesses by chanting and waving local plants over the patient, I am not convinced it works. Then we went for a walk through thick rainforest where we saw huge conga and army ants.

Our next activity was piranha fishing. On the way to the fishing spot in the laguna, we saw lots of cute turtles diving off the logs on the banks of the river and into the water. Piranhas swim  about a metre below the surface, so you have to drop the baited line into the water and wiggle it around. Mr Greenhead was the first to catch a piranha, which it turns out is the easy part.  You aren't allowed to keep the fish,  but getting them off the line whilst their sharp teeth are snapping at your fingers is scary.  When I finally caught one I had to get Mr Greenhead to throw it back for me! Once we had run out of bait we headed back to camp for night walk in the jungle, the trees were full of huge spiders and other creepy crawlies.

Sadly our trip came to an end the next day, with a canoe trip back to the nearest road two hours away. We saw another anaconda on the way and lots of colourful birds. The full list of animals seen (though not all caught on camera) is as follows: Tamerine Monkey, Squirrel Monkey, Common Woolly Monkey, Moonsaki Monkey, Noisy Night Monkey, Anaconda, White Throated Toucan, Tree Frog, Tarantula, Black Cayman,White Cayman, Jumping (dog) Fish, Red Piranha Fish, Kingfisher, Stinky Turkey, Yellow Spotted Turtle, Amazon Forest Lizard, Tiger Heron, Green Heron,  Cockroach, Electric Eel, Sangrene, Grey Winged Trumpeteer, Conga Ant, Army Ant, Black Vulture, Woodpecker, Blue Morph Butterfly, Laughing Falcon, Parakeet, Black Caracara, Macaw, Jay, Two-toed Sloth, Grey Fishing Bat and Long Nosed Bat. Pretty impressive for a four day trip,  we would have loved to have stayed longer and explored further.

Ecudaor - 25th September to 3rd October

Wow, what a week I have had.  The volcanoes of Ecuador certainly lived up to their reputation as tough mountains!

We started with Cotapaxi, whose peak is 5897 meteres above sea level.  Our guide (Diego) picked us up from the Papa Gayo hostal and drove us to the base of the volcano.  We left the hostal in sunshine, but by the time we reached the start of our climb the wind was howling and it was sleeting!  The volcano was covered in cloud and stayed that way during the whole trip.  However our time climbing in Scotland had prepared us for bad weather and we weren´t going to let it put us off.  We put on our waterproof clothing and headed 200 metres uphill to the Rivas Refuge (4800 metres).  The refuge is a building that has a kitchen, an eating area and bunk beds for sleeping.  We spent a few hours here eating lots of carbohydrates (spaghetti bolognaise) to give us energy, spotting wildlife (foxes) and trying to get some sleep in preparation for the climb.

The climb has to start at 1am because the snow gets soft when the sun comes up and the mountain becomes more dangerous, so you need to be back down before lunch time.   After managing to get a couple of hours sleep, we got up for breakfast (a yoghurt) at midnight.  By the time we woke up the wind was even stronger and icy snow was falling.  However we had all the gear (ice axes, crampons, warm clothes) and were up for conquering the mountain.  Within 15 minutes of walking we were covered in a layer of ice, but we carried on plodding up the mountain.  Our training had helped and we were coping with the altitude very well.  In fact apart from cold hands and the wind making it a bit tricky to catch you breath, we were feeling good.

Then 2 1/2 hours into our climb disaster struck.  We had reached the deep crevasse field (deep cracks in the ice) and couldn´t find a path through.  Normally there are snow bridges, but they had collapsed after heavy snowfall and there was no way across.  Our guide tried lots of different routes but he couldn´t find a way through.  It was so frustrating because we were all keen to get to the top.  So unfortunately at a height of 5400 metres, we had to turn round and head back down - all feeling very disappointed that our hard work hadn´t led us to the top.  We headed back to the refuge for a cup of tea and tom collect our sleeping bags, then headed back to our hostal.  It rained the whole way back which made for an exciting journey because our windscreen wipers didn´t work and the first 10 miles were on pot-holed dirt roads.  Fortunately our guide had a plan, he tied shoelaces to the wipers and our friend Elias (a Swiss guy who climbed the mountain with us) had to pull them back and forwards!

After a days rest, we tackled volcano number two - Chimborazo which is 6267 metres above sea level.   This time we left our hostal in cloud but by the evening the skies were clear blue, the wind was very gentle and we could get some great photos of the mountain at sunset.  There are two refuges on Chimborazo - we drove right up to the first one at the base of the mountain (4800m) and had some lunch (potato soup), then headed up to the second refuge for dinner and a bit of sleep.  The second refuge is called the Whymper Refuge and is 5000 metres above sea level, which had no affect on our appetite for dinner (spaghetti bolognaise again) but we did struggle to sleep.

For Chimborazo the climb starts at midnight, so we had to get up at 11pm for our breakfast.  Thankfully the weather had remained excellent and it was pretty warm for 5000m (about 0 degrees), so we started out with only a few layers on.  The first part of the climb is up a scree (loose gravel) and rock slope, then you put your crampons on for the start of the ice.  The slope was pretty steep, but we felt good and within 2 hours we were past the part most dangerous for falling rocks.  It is very icy in places, so you have to kick hard with your crampons, so that you don´t slip back down the slope.  Once you reach the rock formation called El Castillo (the castle) then you head up the ridge onto the Thielman glacier.  This is bascially a narrow snow slope and is pretty steep (60 degrees angle).  Before starting on the snow slope, we paused here for a break and checked the altitude - it was 5500metres and the highest we had ever been.  At this point we were feeling really good and keen to get to the top in a good time.

Then disaster struck again, this time in the form of altitude sickness.  I started to feel worse and worse as I got higher.  I kept on having to stop because I thought I was going to be sick.  Mr Greenhead said I turned grey in colour, even my lips! However I was determined not to stop Mr Greenhead from reaching the summit (he was still feeling great), so I kept pushing on.  But by the time we reached 5850 metres, I was stopping every 25 steps and our guide said it would take 3 or 4 more hours at such a slow pace.  He was very encouraging and wanted us to go on, but by now I was feeling sick and dizzy.  So with much regret and disappointment we turned round and headed back down.  The 6000 metre barrier still hadn´t been broken, but there will be other mountains and we had reached our highest ever altitude.  Our trip back to the hostal was under clear blue skies so we saw lots of mountains and wildlife.  We even saw Cotapaxi - the mountain that was covered in cloud when we tried to climb it.

The last couple of days have been spent recovering and getting over our disappointment.  We haven´t done anything too active, but we did decide to do something very touristy and visit the middle of the world (Mitad del Mundo).  This is place where there is a monument and a line painted on the floor to mark the equator, so you can stand with a foot either side of the equator.

Our journey there was rather eventful and involved us taking 3 wrong buses.  The first wrong bus was when we attempted to go on Saturday, we ended up 1 hour south of Quito instead of 1 hour north.  So we gave up on our Saturday attempt and tried on Sunday instead.  Our second wrong bus led us in a circle which was a pain but no big problem.  However our third wrong bus almost led us to the middle of nowhere.  We tried to get off at the right place but our bus driver told us we were wrong and needed to stay on.  We presumed he was right and sat back down, however we started heading into the mountains and the journey was lasting longer than the guide book said.  Eventually we persuaded the driver that we had missed our stop and needed to get off.  He wasn´t impressed, took our return ticket and left us by a roadside toll booth (like the Dartford toll crossing but much smaller).  We later found out that we should have paid 40 cents not 2 dollars each, so who know where we were headed for that amount of money.   We waited by the toll booth for a taxi, but after 20 minutes none came, so we had to resort to sticking our thumbs out and hope that a kind local would give us a lift.  Hitchhiking is not something I have ever done before and is not a great thing to do, but we were stuck.  Thankfully a kind man with a pick up truck stopped and let us jump in the back.  He was a very fast driver and gave us an exciting ride back to the monument for free (we offered money but he said no thanks).

The monument and equator line are in a walled park which is full of shops, restaurants and people.  We had a quick trip to the top of the 30 metre monument and then got our passports stamped (we think this is legally allowed) before heading back out of the park to the real equator line.  It turns out that when the French did their measurements in 1743, they were a few hundred metres out.  When GPS was invented and used to measure the equator, they found it was actually 300 metres further north.  At the real equator line there is a museum where we had a great tour about the history of Ecuador and watched some experiments to prove it is the real equator.  The highlight of the history tour was the rainforest section where we saw giant spiders (dead), huge snake skins and shrunken human heads that had been created by rainforest warriors.  However the experiments section was even more fascinating and showed how forces change on the equator.  We watched water spin down the plug hole clockwise (south of equator), anti-clockwise (north of the equator) and straight (on the equator), we balanced an egg on a nail head and we tried to walk in a straight line (very hard).  Myself and Mr Greenhead both balanced the egg, so we got a certificate!  After an eventful day, our journey home was much more straight forward and we managed to get all the right buses for a fraction of the price.

Now we are waiting to take a night bus to Lago Agrio for a trip to the jungle, then we will be heading to the beach for some surfing.  I will hopefully be reporting again on our adventures in a couple of weeks.