Life in the Jungle

We are absolutely loving the experiences we are having in Ecuador. It's a lot of rewarding hard work and there are a few things about the jungle that many of you might be interested to learn. 

Bug Bites and Itching

At any particular time, we can count well over 100 red dots on our bodies. No joke. 

They are certainly more concentrated near our ankles, and these little buggers are often itchy. We've been told the majority of bug bites are from stealth little sand flies. They are nearly invisible, but they really bite!  Most of the time you don't even know when you're being bitten - you just itch like hell later and see a red circle with a darker pin point in the middle. Recently some of the red dots have developed a white head much like a pimple. It's hard to know if these are bites or something else. Awesome. I guess we hope they are bites, and that they will subside in a day or two. 

As if that wasn't bad enough, in our second week a new volunteer, Skye, said she had a whole whack of ticks on her chest and back. We hadn't seen any, so didn't think too much about it. A couple days later - WITH GLASSES ON - duh - we found one. With a head lamp and glasses on, Paul found about 20 little monsters on Gayle just before bed. Needless to say Gayle didn't sleep so well that night! They are much smaller than the Canadian style we are used to, but just as gross. A couple days later,  we found at least 40 on Paul - they were so tiny they just looked like a speck of sand or a tiny mole.  Tick checks are now a regular nightly occurrence. It's good to have routines!

Dirty and Smelly

Every day starts with clean clothes that have been thoroughly hand washed and air dried (for at least 2 days!) At 7 am we walk up 100 stairs to start our cleaning and feeding routines. Everywhere we go requires going up and down stairs. By breakfast at 9 am it's usually 29 degrees and we are drenched with sweat. Add to that the fact that we've cleaned old food, animal waste and dirt from the feeding cages -- we're starting to smell. On our first trip to town body spray was high on Gayle’s list, but perfume and deodorant really do not help much. By lunch at 1:00 pm, we've been working at other tasks like raking or giving tours (more stairs) and it's now 32 degrees. We are always hoping for an afternoon rain storm. We visit the animals (yes more stairs) again for enrichments and feeding and finish the day around 3:45 - completely and utterly filthy. Descending the 100 stairs for the final time, usually means a swim, then a well needed shower! The reward for all of this is that the after work routine also includes a trip to the outdoor lavanderia, or clothes wash station. It's a daily reminder of how much we have accomplished (and another opportunity to interact with sand flies).

Creepy Crawlies

I have just typed the title to this section - inside the Grand Selva Lodge lounge - and a bat flew right past me! It's the jungle, so there are spiders, bugs and lots of other crawling things everywhere. We have seen countless tarantulas! Before putting on any foot wear we shake and dump it to make sure there are no scorpions or bullet ants (they bite so hard it feels like you are getting shot - don't worry it only lasts for 6 hours!)

Being assigned to Night Watch (feeding) is particularly fun because so many things come out at night - walk slowly - keep your hands to yourself and kick the food buckets before you pick them up!

Hot and Humid

You've already read about the temperature - now add humidity. I has rained for a least a few minutes almost every day. It takes about 2 days for clothes to "dry" after washing. Clothing, money and even passports go moldy in our rooms. Paul’s wireless mouse stopped working because the battery contact corroded badly. After nearly 3 weeks, we have grown accustomed to being sticky all day long. We really notice it when giving tours. Most of the visitors struggle - the first 100 stairs takes a lot out of them - and then we drag them up and down stairs for over an hour watching them "melt" steadily. Most relish the cold drinks at the gift shop when we are done.

We’re here for a few more days so if you want to stop by for a quick visit to see for yourself, let us know. 

How to Poop in The Amazon

After our winter excursion and the post about "How to Poop in the Woods", you probably suspected this one was coming. You were right. Here is what I've learned so far about pooping and not pooping in the Amazon.

Before going any further, let's just remember we are working with animals in the jungle and poop is everywhere! We clean poop from animal enclosures everyday and Paul was dumped on by a rather large wild macaw while guiding a tour of Canadians! Ok, back to the story...

From what we've observed, flush toilets are common in Ecuador. However, in most places septic or city sewage systems are not robust enough to handle flushing toilet paper. The solution - put the tp in the waste basket next to the toilet. As you can imagine the crappiest (pun intended) and my least favourite volunteer chore at AmaZOOnico is "Basura" because for this job you empty all garbages - bathroom toilet paper baskets included. Gloves are a must, as is hand washing every 5 seconds!!!

You will be pleased to hear that 2 bathrooms in the tour reception area are "toilet paper positive." If you know it's going to get messy, you'll want to head there! Nuff said.

Now, for my bathroom travel reality. Often when I'm new to a place, I get a little "bunged up", as my parents used to say. This is probably due to different food and lack of hydration, which is completely my own fault. Full disclosure - I recently got a little constipated and after 4 days of struggle, I had an epiphany, "I'm in the Amazon, so there must be a medicinal plant to help with my ailment." I went to our Admin, bared my soul. Having no answer, what did she do? She went to the local Indigenous Kichwa staffers, of course. The general consensus was to eat papaya and in more severe cases, eat papaya seeds. Easy. We feed papaya to almost every animal so there is no shortage of these slimly little round seeds.

I went directly to the "bodega" and soon I was crunching down on a tablespoon of papaya seeds. If you've not tried them, I recommend it. They are quite tangy, with a fair bit of spice and crunch. I took another tablespoon of seeds later in the day, just in case. I'm not sure if I ate the fast acting seeds, but in about 10 hours things were moving and I POOPED!!! Big sigh of relief.

I think I'll leave it there. If you have any specific questions, email or text. I'm happy to share more. But something tells me I've already shared too much.

Days Off in Ecuador

Just to let you know, it's not all "work hard an no play" here in Ecuador. Since there are up to 21 volunteers and a wide variety of tasks at Amazoonico, on Sundays a new schedule of rotating assignments is released for the next week. This includes animal feeding stations, extra tasks (cleaning, cooking, etc.) and our days off.

Each volunteer has 2 days off each week - kind of like a weekend, but since the animals need to be taken care of every day, days off are unlikely to be on weekends and are not necessarily consecutive. How we use those days is up to us. Many volunteers take days off to visit Tena, the local city to eat and pick up treats (alcohol). It's a bit of a haul to take the canoe and then a bus - anywhere from 1.5 - 2 hours each way. Additionally we are surrounded by tourist-type opportunities that are likely going to be worth experiencing (waterfalls, Indigenous communities, rafting, tubing and jungle hikes to name a few).

Canoe Ride to Catch the Bus

Our first two days off were quite uneventful as we stayed at Amazoonico for both days (Saturday and Sunday). We were able to sleep in a little, do some laundry (hand washing of course), catch up with some blogging and other things that needed internet access (which we can find at the local school when the kids are gone). We even took some time to throw a disc at the nearby school. (The "field" is not very big and full of pot holes and long grass.) 

By the time Sunday rolled around, you will not be shocked read, that we were pretty well done with resting so we began looking for more productive ways to use our time. During the previous week, volunteers had reported that the water in the Spider Monkey feeding enclosure had been leaking. So I decided to check it out and discovered that the cement around the drain had started to deteriorate. I recruited Gayle and we went to the Carpenteria to look for some cement to create a patch. A little while later, the fix was in place (and the next day, I saw a monkey drinking from it). We did have the pleasure of attending a true Ecuadorian wedding, and were so grateful to see many interesting customs and traditions. 

On our second day off Gayle decided to bake a banana bread - which was a huge hit with the volunteers and staff at the weekly Sunday afternoon meeting. Still looking for tasks, we took on the highly glamorous "bathroom cleaning" chore to replace a couple of the volunteers who were off sick (so far there have been 1-2 volunteers out every day due to some form of illness - wash your friggen' hands people) All in, our two days were restful, but a little too slow for us. And honestly, we need to take advantage of the local opportunities a bit more.

We decided to use our next days off differently. In our second week, we had Thursday and Friday off. That means we worked a whole 3 days before taking a break. We booked a canoe to pick us up at 7 and take us to the Puerto Barrantilla. (You can try to look it up on Google Maps but it rarely shows up. It would be more aptly named Playa Barrantilla, because there is nothing there - just stairs to the water.)

From there we walked 2 minutes to the road and waited for a bus.  We’d heard that busses can be unpredictable and to our surprise we hoped aboard an air conditioned bus bound for Tena about 15 minutes later. It must have been an express, because we arrived in just over an hour.  

We had a quick breakfast in a bakery and then hit the busy streets to pick up a few things that we needed (well, mostly wanted). Gayle was hunting for a new shirt but got pants instead. We avoided buying any chickens (alive or dead) and had no desire to purchase the giant grubs at the market. We picked up some food at the grocery store as we wanted to make something special for the volunteers when it was our day to cook. The most important part of our day in Tena was, of course, lunch.

Since we’ve been eating a lot of rice, beans, and lentils, I’ve been hankering for a hamburger for a while. We found "Crazy Burger" on the map and made a bee line at 11 am - the opening time.  Upon arrival, we helped set up the 2 tables and chairs.  The lady worked really hard to explain things in English. I pretty much stopped listening when she said, “is big” and she used a hand gesture to show about 6 inches!

I was not disappointed in my double cheeseburger with 2 patties, 2 fried eggs, 2 slices of cheese, 2 slices of ham, 2 slices of bacon, tomato and lettuce.  It was so huge that I had to eat it in two parts.

Bellies full we boarded the bus for the Grand Selva Lodge.  We weren’t expecting anything too “Grand” as the Booking.com price was just 19 USD - including breakfast.  However, we were pleasantly surprised by a very nice place with a pristine pool and warm showers. We shared the entire place with a French family and joined them on their night time jungle walk - which was an unexpected treat. Gayle turned out to be the "eagle eyes" and spotted more interesting creatures than the guide! The next day we negotiated a late checkout and walked an hour back to meet the canoe to take us back to Amazoonico at 4 pm. Arriving back we learned that the power had been out for two days! 

More days off are coming up and you can expect to read about a waterfall hike.

The Pool at Grand Selva

Fresh off the bus

 

A cool frog that Gayle found