The Amazon

Driving through a cloud.

Tena, Napo, Ecuador

So we got back from the coast Sunday night and I left with Maggy and Giovanni Monday afternoon for the Amazon or the "oriente" as they sometimes call it. Maggy told me we'd leave at 1pm, so that's when I got to the MAP office. We left at 3pm and then had to stop for lunch...at this point I know things won't ever happen at the time I'm told, but it can still be a little frustrating, especially when I still try to be on time. We drove through more curvy roads, ascending and descending mountains. I really hate the roads here - I never get car sick, but on these roads I don't know how people don't. Plus, you can never sleep because the car is constantly changing directions and you  

This sign is entirely too accurate.

get rocked back and forth. We finally arrived in Tena, the capital of the province of Napo (Ecuador has 23 provinces) around 8pm. I had a full day Tuesday and I never knew what was coming next. Maggy and Giovanni had some workshops to give in the community Ongota, but I went as a tourist. So they asked Dorian, one of the health promoter's husbands, to be my guide for the day. He took me for a short walk to see some little waterfalls - we had maybe a 5 minute walk in the "jungle" right near the community. We had to cross a river by taking a canoe since the bridge that had once been there washed away in a flood. After that he asked me what I wanted to do and mentioned that we could go see monkeys. It turned out that to get there we needed to go on a 45 minute motorcycle ride! Definitely a cool way to see the Amazon, but I'm glad that I'd ridden once before with my dad... We arrived and there were monkeys all over the shore of this river, which I think feeds into the Amazon. They were running around like squirrels and there was a group of ecuadorian kids trying to feed them onions - I learned that monkeys do not eat onions. They would also play with the stray dogs that were around. After, we went back toward the town and stopped at the plaza where there were a bunch of guys walking around with giant 

I love these tails!

boas and anacondas. For a dollar put it around your shoulders so you could take pictures. Then the next part of our adventure was really exciting. We went to a cave! Now this was nothing like the experience I've had visiting Kartchner Caverns State Park in Arizona. There the cave is super protected and regulated: you can't touch anything, you walk through several doors to enter so the cave's temperature and moisture remain the same, etc. This was exactly the opposite. First, there was basically a river running through the cave - no one told me to bring any type of clothing for activities involving water, so I went in wearing jeans and we practically had to swim through one part. We also had to wear head lamps becuase it was completely dark. We touched everything to keep our balance as we really splunked through this thing - there were a couple of narrow passages. And instead of going back out the same way we came in, which I was really glad we didn't, we exited out the top of the cave! We had a guide, but the whole thing was pretty sketchy...but I made it out! It was a long day of adventures. We left the next morning to return to Quito - which meant another lovely car ride. 

It just seemed like one of those things you had to do.

Dorian and I splunking with our head lamps.