Amazon Trip

One of the biggest holidays in Ecuador its Carnaval. Every city has parties, concerts, parades, shows, etc. They also have the custom of throwing water at everyone walking by. They use water balloons, buckets full of water, water guns or even a hose to soak everyone that passes by. This is one of the reasons why during Carnival all the preaching groups are cancelled and mostly everyone goes away for the long weekend. 

We had been thinking about going to "Oriente" since we arrived to Ecuador, so we took advantage of the Carnaval holidays back in March for this little get away.
We took a route by Gualaceo. Drove on dirt roads for 2-3 hours. As we came down the Andes, we witnessed several land slides due to the heavy rain. One of them we had to wait 30 minutes to get through. With the help of specialized equipment we made it. Once on the paved road the road trip was very nice.  

On our way... 

As we got closer to the amazon we felt the weather changing. The heat and humidity kept on getting worst per minute, and we kept on taking off layers of clothes. The vegetation, the views and even the bugs were different. We drove by Macas, Suqua and Puyo. Finally made it to Tena at 10pm. Thankfully we had already made reservations cause every single hotel was booked due to the holiday.

Our first official day in Tena was a Sunday. Right after breakfast we attended a meeting at a local congregation. Right after the talk was done, they started speaking a language i didn't recognize, quichua from Oriente (sounds like Chinese)....the watchtower conductor? An American brother that has learned the language to help out there. Since there's not a lot of brothers to help out, two young sisters were in charge of the sound system.



Watchtower conductor

Sisters in charge of the sound system

After meeting we headed to Jumandi, a cavern with beautiful formations and an underground river that goes on for miles. The water was anywhere from a couple of feet to 16 feet deep. Once in the cavern its hard to go back. A lady in our group had a panic attack, she started crying asking the tour guide to take her in his back across a deep water hole. It was a bit scary, it was dark, one couldn't see what was under and the whole place its surrounded by bats. The cave was amazingly beautiful! Sadly we don't have any pictures, we couldn't take our cameras since we had to swim through several swimming holes. 

Our second day in Tena we got to visit Misahualli, a beautiful little town hidden in the forest, close to Tena. This was my favorite place. Not that i didn't like Tena, but it was too much of a big city and i didn't expect that in the Amazon. I wanted to see pure nature, woods, forrest and Misahualli's got all of this. 
There we went to see the "Huaorani", an indigenous tribe that lives deep in the Amazon. They speak "Wao", only the kids understand a little bit of Spanish. After making a typical tribe dance for us, they showed us their little hut and painted our face. They really liked our clothes, our hair, hats and even our sandals asking to leave them. Now I know what to bring next time... lots of sandals and chocolate cookies (They even licked the wrapping paper)

Ben was able to show them the JW video about the creation. By the end of it, all the girls had gathered up to look at it. They were impressed and astonished. 

The Huaorani tribe was very nice and friendly. Nothing like other tribes that are aggressive and even dangerous. 

Huaorani Tribe

   

After visiting the tribe, our tour guide took us around the river on a canoe. Out of the whole trip, this was the scariest part for me. As he rows, the canoe moves giving the feeling its going to flip. The water was so dark one can't see nothing under. We did know there was a Cayman near by and probably a lot of snakes too. It was beautiful but I was terrified just thinking about all the snakes and weird creatures that could be right under me. I was relieved after it was over. 

Oh we also got to taste, "Chicha" an indigenous Amazonian drink. It used to be made with saliva fermented Cassava. According to the lady preparing it, now its fermented a different way (lets hope its true). Anyway, Ben thought it needed sugar, I also though it was really bad, but we had to try it just for the experience lol.  

                 

At last, we visited Cascadas de Latas", also in Misahualli. After walking next to the river in knee high mud for about an hour, we got to this breath taking waterfall hidden in the forest.  The waterfall was so strong it hurt to be under it. The water temperature was cold just like any river, but perfect. It felt refreshing since the weather was so hot and humid. Later on we found out there were snakes all over the place, we just didn't see any because they tent to hide when its rainy and muddy like it was. 

           

Below I'll post a video, just a quick summary of the things we did. This video contains graphic images from the Huaorani Indian Tribe. Some people might find some of this images offensive.