The Amazon

I just got back today from a 4-day trip to the Amazon rainforest! Can you believe it!!! The first thing I noticed was that the Amazon smells exactly like you would expect it to: like wet dirt. It wasn´t actually that hot, but the humidity was intense!

We stayed in a remote setting called Sani Lodge, which is owned and operated by the indigenous community, the Hoaranis. Their tribal lands span 37,000 hectacres (91,400 acres) of primary growth rainforests. This part of the Rainforest is considered one of the most biodiverse locations in the world, because it was never touched by the last ice age, making it a refuge for species old and new. Oddly, the government gave this land to the native people about ten year ago, but only the surface of the land. The minerals underground (ie crude oil) still belong to the government. In some areas, there is a struggle between the indigenous people, who want to preserve their ancestral homeland, and the government, which wants to sell the of the oil beneath the rainforest. Saddening fact of the day: During peak oil extraction of 100,000 barrels a day, for every barrel of oil excavated, 9 barrels of toxic water would enter the surrounding rainforest.

The lodge is located on a lagoon near the Napo river, three and a half hours by river from the closest town. I think I can still feel the boat rocking a little. We stayed in two person cabañas with palm leaf roofs. The mosquito nets hanging of the beds made me feel like a princess! The lodge has limited electricity provide by solar panels, and no hot water (which I didn´t really want anyway, with the heat).

Each morning, we were awoken for breakfast by a bamboo horn at 6:00 sharp. Every day, we went on three trips with our guide, Javier, a member of the Hoarani community. In addition to speaking three languages (Kichwa, Spanish, and English), Javier knew the common and scientific name of every plant and animal, as well as the potential medicinal uses of many of the plants. We went looking for Caiman (alligators) at night, climbed into a tree house in the upper canopy to birdwatch, took daily hikes in the rainforest, and went swimming in the pirhana-infested lagoon.

It´s still hard to believe that I was actually in the rainforest, that rainforest we always talked about in school. In some ways, when we were hiking around, it felt very familiar, like any other deep forest I´ve hiked through, except all the plants and animals were different. I could have used at least another few months in the rainforest. Coming back to Quito, with the smoggy air and honking buses was hard.