Amazon Day 4 & 5

The treat for staying an extra day in the jungle was a paddle upstream - I know most people will not think that as a reward, but the current is not strong at all and we got to see loads of animals a birds as we traveled slowly and quietly along the river. One downside to being a small group - the Shirley Express! Now we have not mentioned her before (not sure why) but she was a complete pain in the rear. The first three days she had complained about silly things like the juice at breakfast (it was really nice blackberry juice) and the fact that Pancho would not climb on her for a photograph (wise monkey) and during the hikes she kept getting lost and straying way behind the group. Lucky us to have her in our boat of four. She positioned herself at the front of the boat and basically found any excuse not to paddle all morning e.g.
- looking at a bird though her binoculars that was not there...this was the most popular one, complete with 'oh, what was that?'
- putting suncream on for the 9th time in 30min
- changing her paddling side without any notice and then splashing us.

In the end I called our morning on the river the Shirley Express. And when we did get to the lake and did a spot of Piranha fishing, she moaned the whole 20min that it was so cruel and 'as a vegetarian she was opposed to what we were doing'. Good news is that we finally caught a Piranha, only a baby one, but one none the less.
For the 6km we paddled along the river we were rewarded with sightings of lots of monkeys in trees over the river (Red Howler, Woolly, Squirrel, Pygmy) and stiff arms the next day!


Vicious little blighter!!


We were definitely being watched


Scarper!!

Shirley opted out of the afternoon jungle trek and we headed off at a good pace in search of more wildlife. We found lots of mud, short-nose bats, the equator (marked on a tree) and ate lemon ants...but no big animals sadly. The best way to finish our time in the jungle was a final swim in the lake, but we would pay for this treat...as swimming at sunset means there will be lots of mosquitoes when we get out! Below each knee we averaged 70 bites per leg!


A hot Simon at the jungle equator line...GPS is quite handy tool.

Day 5
We opted for an early transfer out of the jungle as the journey back to Quito was 2hr by boat, 3hr by van and 8hr by bus. This did mean we had to depart at 4.30am!
Simon had wished for a thunderstorm in the jungle the whole time we were there and it finally came - at 3am the morning of our departure. We have NEVER heard such loud thunder or seen such dramatic a storm than we did this morning... great timing! We left camp in the pitch dark, pouring rain and did our best to huddle under ponchos and an umbrella all the way back upstream...soaked through was our final outcome.
The journey from Lago Argio was horrid. Firstly our sandals were wrecked as there is so much crude oil on the street of the town that they were covered in a black stickiness. There is a very interesting case that is being tried in Lago Agrio at the moment where the local indigenous people are taking Chevron to court over terrible oil extraction pollution. link

This time we could also see the road we had travelled in the dark 6 days earlier - single dirt track winding high into the mountains without any barrier (and they go at break-neck speed) over a 4300m climb. Getting stopped twice by men with guns wanting to see our passports was also a little scary. Esp as we don't know much Spanish and the bag search and check were conducted through a series of gestures. Boy were we glad to be back in Quito and safely at the Secret Garden (best hostel so far) Our weary bodies were soon saved by some great Thai Green Curry and a chocolate brownie.