Friday 5th May 2017
Quito to Coca.
Flight to Coca, then bus to the shore where boarded a large motorised
‘canoe’ style boat. Fast trip down the Napo River, with the current, avoiding
all the sand banks and pieces of floating detritus from fallen trees and river
bank. After a couple of hours, walked
across a piece of land to a parallel river/lake system. This time we had a
smaller canoe, hand paddled through a beautiful winding river, narrowly missing
the banks either side. Eventually made it to our private lake belonging to the
La Selva Amazon Lodge.
The Lodge was an eco-lodge, so we had a briefing on trying
to conserve the environment as well as a talk about the Amazon basin (enormous
– the USA would fit into it completely). Then after being supplied with Wellie
Boots, we went off for an evening walk through the jungle with our guide Jairo
(pronounced Hyro) and Hose, an indigenous guide. Most of the flora/fauna they picked out, we
would have completely missed. Cicadas
that looked like leaves, praying mantis, frogs and toads etc. Also weird fungus that get ingested by small
insects then act as an hallucinogen eventually making the insect climb to a
high point before killing them and using the carcass as a basis for growing. Yuck.
Very nice dinner on our return – three courses after
Ecuatorian Caipirinhas. Our room was just outside the restaurant area, past a
tree with a large tarantula as resident host.
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