June of the Jungle....

...watch out for those trees! I played Jungle June in the Cuyabeno Reserve east of Quito for four days. The same day I returned from the Galapagos, I took an overnight bus to Lago Agrio and then another bus for 3 hrs to a river and then a canoe for another 2 hrs before finally reaching the Samona Lodge. My lodge came complete with tarantulas, snakes and creepie crawlie cockaroaches in my cabin. Yuck!


My guide packed those four days with activities. One day, we caught piranhas. I caught the most at four and the second most caught was two and the rest of the group caught none. Thought I would just brag a bit here. We let them all go except the biggest one I caught, which we fried up for a tasty appetizer.


Since the river is the only means of transportation through the jungle, we spent a lot time canoeing. While canoeing at night, we spotted a large cayman and the boatman decided to throw it a big piece of raw meat using our piranha fishing pole. Well, when he threw the meat towards the cayman, the meat inadvertently hit the cayman and he lunged towards us. We all screamed, even the guys. Thankfully, the cayman went on his merry way after that. We didn't try that stunt again.

On our day and night hikes through the jungle, we saw plenty of monkeys, snakes, lizards, poisonous frogs, and even a sloth.




My guide spotted a night owl monkey in the morning and I took a photo of it through his super magnified telescope. This is the same type of monkey that I cared for at the Bolivian wildlife refuge, but of which I was never able to take a photo because I was always scared to go into his dark cage.

Nearby villages line the river with indigenous people. We visited one community and I learned how to make yucca bread with the locals. We also visited a shaman who blessed us with leaves and removed any bad spirits. He told us that he spent 30 years studying to be a shaman and for his final exam, he had to consume a very deadly hallucinogenic plant. If he did not prepare it properly, he could die, but since he survived, he became a shaman.






Every afternoon, we went swimming in the lagoon as we watched the sunset. As you can see, even I went in the water, but only because they gave me a floatie.