Last night in Quito then headed up the Amazon Basin. Magic, sheer magic

And to continue from my last post.....Dinner was at a local fast food type joint. Immaculately clean, styrofoam plates, plastic knives & forks and a massive plate of fried rice, fried plantain and a delicious pork chop with a fresh juice for $4.10. Best meal I’ve had here.

My alarm jolted me awake early, time to pack, grab coffee and get downstairs to be met by my guide. I hear drums. It’s the Liberation Day parade (the actual day is today -25th - not yesterday like I thought) so Senor Luis takes me downstairs to watch. All school kids doing their thing. Some kid dropped his drum in the middle of things. Poor blighter, he will never live that down. No one on the street was taking any notice of it all but I grabbed a few pics so I could say I had seen it.

The Parade was along my street which was of course blocked off and so my guide/driver arrived on foot. He had parked a couple of blocks away. Poor guy was stressing. The ride to the Airport was a little different to that with Senor Patricio in that it was on a motorway the whole way and not up the backstreets.

Dotted white lines on the road usually mean you keep between them, not here, where straddling is the way to go. The clicky light things on the corners of the vehicle are for what purpose? Obviously none, as no one uses them! You just drive wherever you want!

The roads are great, the scenery mind blowing with houses at the top of each hill, each hill bigger than the next and the houses on each more colourful than the last. I wish I had longer to explore.

Arriving at the airport I’m left in the capable hands of Senorita Gabriella who gets me checked in and organised. There are a few other independents going to Sacha Lodge and we have been allocated a couple of minders who will be our ‘leaders’ while we are there. Very well organised and professional so it all bodes well.

Going into the domestic airside was a breeze, quite one of the nicest domestic terminals I have seen. New, lovely shops, plenty of amenities and food at each gate. Plus wifi at the each gate that actually works well. Our ‘developed’ countries could learn a lot here.

A short flight, a short bus ride, a few snacks and a intro pack before we walk down to the jetty. Here we boarded our motorised canoe and set off. Our two hour ride up the Napo River, the largest tributary to the Amazon and about 490 miles downstream, was awe inspiring. It’s so wide, but when I asked about the width of the Amazon Im told you cant see from one side to the other,  so I guess that makes it not so wide after all. The vegetation was mind blowing. Ive never seen such green. I have to pinch myself. I really am in the mighty Amazon Basin. It is the worlds largest rainforest covering about 2.5 million square miles, with just 2% of that in Ecuador.

The Napo is known as a white water river and begins high up in the Andes bringing rich mountain sediment down with it. The sediment gives the water it’s brown colour and the sediment acts as fertiliser along the banks of the river where crops are sometimes grown.

It started to rain so we were given oilskin ponchos and just as well as it started to get quite cold as we zoomed along, the captain swerving the boat every now and then to avoid obstacles in the water.

Arriving at our pier we then walked for about 30 minutes through some sludge and then along a boardwalk, taking in the stunning fauna and the monkeys up in the trees.

We arrive at another pier and piled into some dug out canoes for the ride up the stream. As we progressed along the stream the fauna became less dense and then suddenly as if by magic we were at a lagoon and that ooh ahh moment really happened. Sacha Lodge was in the distance and as we approached we saw our swimming pool - a caged off area in the lagoon where we would be safe from pirahnas and Cayman to have a cooling swim. Maybe I wont try it, but maybe I will!!

The property manager Fausto gave us an intro and filled us in on our activities for the next few days and then our guide Anna took us to our rooms. Mine was a distance from the main complex but my deck, complete with hammock, looked straight out onto the rain forest. Heaven.

Sacha Lodge is an eco lodge set in a 5000 acre reserve set on the Pilchicoha lagoon, a black water lagoon where the water originates from the rainfall in surrounding areas. There is all sorts of wildlife in the water and the jungle so hopefully we will see heaps.

It started to absolutely bucket down just in time for our walk!!!! But armed with my rain jacket, a brolly and the gumboots they provided I set off to meet the others. I could hear the sounds of the jungle from the trees en over the sound of the rain smattering on my roof.

And for my first jungle walk we donned our poncho’s, slipped our feet into the gumboots they provided and took off. Although it was bucketing down, the ponchos kept us dry and also kept us suffocatingly warm and when not wondering where we were putting out feet to avoid the tree roots we managed to see this amazing eco system up close. Thank heavens fir ye gum boots as the water and mud were over our ankles in some places. I remembered when Les bought me my first pair of gumboots when we were on out honeymoon and I spent ages seeking out puddles so I could jump into them. I resisted the temptation to do just that today. My chance will come I am sure.

There was so much to see and hear: trees from which they make drinks, little lizardy things, birds, 400 hundred year old kapok trees, ferns, millipedes, little mushroom like flowers all in just over an hour close to the lodge. Imagine what the rest of the basin has to offer.

A cold shower was next on the list and then dinner, a lovely three course a la carte meal, of a divine calamari salad and then baked sea bass. It was delicious. Considering that there are no roads coming here and everything is bought in by boat (the same type that bought us here and along the same route, its pretty amazing.

Dinner done we went out on the lagoon to look for Cayman sighting a wee baby in amongst the reeds. We saw a few bats but not much else but just being out on the dead still water with the only sounds the sounds of nature was just beyond description. Pitch black except for the lights of the lodge in the distant, which appeared to be doubled by the reflection in the water, magic, magic, magic. 

As I write I am sprawled on my bed listening to the cacophony that is the Amazon Basin jungle. What a dream come true. And so this special day comes to an end.  Buenos Nochas!