Baños

HOLA!!

OH.... MY... GOD....!!!! To say I saw some nature yesterday was an understatement!!! I was right there in the thick of things... Let me explain...

On Wednesday we caught the LOCAL bus from Quito to Tena (four hours) and then another one about one hour away into Amazon jungle territory... The lodge we stayed at (Cottococha) was really nice and right on the river so after so long on the bus we thought we´d have a swim only to be warned not to piss in the river coz there´s those wonderful little critters called Penis Fish swimming round... Noice... We also got a ¨safety briefling¨of sorts at the lodge as there´s TARANTULAS and snakes and stuff getting round as theres no electricity and you´re walking around by candle light, you need to be VERY careful...

Anyways.... More about yesterday...

It all began with a humungous grasshopper on our doorstep which had mysteriously lost half his legs... Micky and I debated over whether it was more humane to leave it to nature or kill it and put it out of its misery.... Five minutes and one squashed hopper later we mosied down to the river to go tubing... The tubing was pretty cool but the rapids were pretty tame. The freakiest thing about it was having someone crank up Men At Works ¨Downunder¨as we floated past... After disembarking our tubes it proceeded to piss down for about an hour while we motorcanoed further down river to an animal rehab centre. While on the boat no less than three spiders thought it would be fun to crawl up my leg and have me scream my poor little heart out... The last one got squished on the side of the canoe as a reminder to all others not to venture near me... Then, as soon as I got back on land another one scooted up my legs...

At the rehab centre we met toucans, macaws, ducks, capiburras (?), wild boars and a few different types of monkeys before heading on down to the ocelot (like little cheetahs) cage... Well, this was where it got interesting... Have you even seen a tiger mark its territory by spraying some wonderful piss??? Well, the Ocelot decided I was gonna be his.... Soooooooo fowl!!!! I was covered from head to toe in cat piss!!! The guide said she´s never seen it before so I guess I was lucky... somehow...

BUT, that wasn´t the last of it... On the way out of the rehab centre all the other animals could smell me... The birds avoided me, the monkeys went a little crazy and an anteater thought my toes would taste nice... Icky... Then, at lunch I got attacked by a ginormous wasp before heading on to a local tribe and having their dog think I was his next meal... All this time all I could smell was cat piss and even now my bag has a nasty odor I dont think I´ll be rid of for some time... I pity my fellow travellers for having to put up with the stench too but they´ve been very nice about it seeing as it was such an entertaining time...

Even after all that my adventure in the Amazon was pretty cool. We saw a little snake when we got in last night and I think we saw a tarantula in hiding but wasn´t too keen to investigate - just in case...

Today we got into Baños after a five hour local bus ride and my backpack has been soaked thanks to the Amazonian weather and our bags being on top of the bus... hopefully I´ll have dry clothes tomorrow as we´re off horseriding and canopying (like a flying fox). Should be fun!

My spanish is getting better everyday altho the locals generally speak too fast to understand what they are saying. Fingers crossed I´ll be pretty fluent by the time I get to Mexico and I´ll left to my own devices for a while... eeek....