March 2009
10 posts
3 tags
Typical Day at the Reserve
6:15am - Alarm goes off
6:30 - 7:00am - Breakfast in the dining hall. (Actual time of breakfast: 6:45ish) Usually consists of hot bread rolls (and the molasses table syrup, complete with at least a dozen bees greedily hovering), occasionally will be pancakes or something mushy. Always fresh juice. (Except for the when the juice looks suspiciously like jello.)
7:30 - 11:30am - Depart for the...
1 tag
“Ecuadorian time: it’s late, it’s early, but it’s never on...”
Night Walks Further in the Amazon
There is a herpetologist here who goes out on night walks several times a week looking for snakes and frogs with a head lamp and a snake-catching stick. I had accompanied his group once and enjoyed it so much that when I heard they were planning a backpacking trip further into the Amazon Rainforest, I jumped at the chance to join.
The only thing I knew is that we’d be traveling for a long...
5 tags
Filet Mignon and a Sloth
One of the favorite restaurants around here is a place that sells $6 filet mignon steaks and has a sloth as a pet. Yes, the restaurant has a pet. I don’t know why this isn’t more common in the States since it’s a nice diversion when you are waiting to be served your food. The sloth is a very cute, slower-than-slow-moving creature that seemed to resemble a cross between a monkey...
3 tags
The Bird Tower
The bird tower can be described as both amazing and terrifying.
It’s 30 meters tall (about 100 feet) and resembles a radio tower: just four metal posts in the ground connected together with some zig-zagging metal, climbing high into the sky and finally stopping above the treetops of the rainforest.
I won’t lie: I was climbing at a sloth-like speed and clutching the bird tower as...
A Word About Vanity
In case you thought otherwise, vanity has no place in the jungle. For example:
I have been compelled to wear “practical” clothes for the jungle, which include fashionable ensembles like quick-drying elastic-waist hiking pants that cinch at the bottom to keep out the bugs (ha!) and a (quick-drying!) shirt that looks like it belongs in an Indiana Jones movie. Oh, and the Teva sandals...
2 tags
La Cocina (The Kitchen) (Or, What I've Been...
A lot of people have been asking what I’ve been eating while in the Amazon Rainforest.
Well, that depends on where I am. If I am at the station, and it’s a regular day, then I am eating with the other volunteers and there’s a very good chance that the meal includes a giant serving of rice, pasta, or potatoes. Additional frequent guests in the ingredient department are bananas...
3 tags
2 tags
Machetes are Everywhere
Machetes are as common as mobile phones here in the Amazon Rainforest. They’re used for hacking away at the rampant vegetation growing on the trails and even used to clear weeds in gardens. I’ve seen them for sale in the front of most of the stores in Tena.
Last week, while walking along a river path, I encountered a Kichwa woman holding a baby in one arm and carrying a machete with...
Welcome to the Jungle
When I started volunteering at the biological reserve in the Amazon Rainforest, I didn’t understand how going on a walk through the forest was considered a “task”, or why it had to be done every day. Now I understand that the forest walks are an important part of the daily tasks for both the forest guides and the volunteers. With such an expansive area of the forest to protect, the reserve needs...