Three Days in Paradise

Wow, the last days have been one big experince - simply not able to put it into words! The Amazon jungle, just amazing! We're gonna try anyway...

We took an overnight bus (10 hours) from Quito to Coca; a small oilworker's town right at the river Napo in the Ecuadorian Oriente. We landed at 6 in the morning in heavy rain and had no plans of what to do. Found a hostel at the riverside an placed our bags there. Then we went wandering around watching the town wake up in the streets. We crashed into a hotel and asked for jungle trips at the counter. They called a man that came a couple of minutes later, who offered us a three-days trip into the Amazon. He told us that two young American girls were going aswell, so we thought it would be great to meet some girls at our age.. He picked us up in a truck an hour later and here we met the American girls - who turned out to be guys! Ups, we guess our Spanish is not that great yet ;-)
Well, we jumped in a banana-boat in the river Napo and our jungle adventure had begun. After 2 1/2 hours in the tiny boat on the different big rivers we arrived to what we thought was our final destination. We were quite chocked and disappointed when we saw a Chevrolet truck at the mainland - was this the wild jungle!? But then we were thrown on the truck and drove for about half an hour, stopped to buy some Ecuadorian beers "Pilsener" in a little bar in the middle of nowhere. Then we came to a new riverside (which turned out to be a lake) and here we took an even smaller boat (though with engine) about 40 minutes in the green water. The "Limon Cocha" was a true little piece af paradise it seemed. Arriving from the lake, many stairs (made from palmtrees) took us from the water to the cabin. Placed between Banana, Papaya and true rainforest this was our home for the next days. Completely made of wood, with no electricity, open windows and roof only sheltering the straightdown rain this cabin made us feel like true Tarzan and Janes :-)
After a nice meal quickly cooked by our fabulous guide Braulio, we went in two small canoes paddling up the silent lake. The limon lake had truly green water, completely still in the bright sunlight so it was like a miror to the tall rainforest surrounding us from all sides. On our way we saw several different types of beautiful birds and we were swedding like pigs from the tough paddling (trying to keep up with the guys, yes). After asking Braulio several times about snakes and crocodiles we finally overcome our fear and jumped in the water from the canoes in the middle of the big lake. Ah, wonderful to be cooled down in water! Though it was a bit unpleasant because the water was so green that we couldn't see anything beneath us. The trip back to the lodge was breathtaking (in more than one way), the sunset was stunning and in the end our road was only lighted by the moonlight and the lightening bugs, while a big group of bats filled the sky above us.
The dark evening was spend with a great dinner and poetry reading in the candle lights. And if you got your mind rolling about us and the Americans - don't do so.. We just got some great friends there! ;-)
Day two started early with a walk into the jungle, between spiders and quicksand we found our way to an amazingly huge tree (more than 1000 years old) and took a swing in a lian over a valley like true Janes :-)
After lunch - and a little nap - we went in a canoe fishing piranas (pirat fisk) with a stick and a line. These little basters were too smart (at least smarter than us) so we only catched a couple - luckily for us the rest of the team were better fishermens, so they saved our dinner :-)
In the night we jumped in a small, wooden (motorised - yes!) canoe to look for crocodiles. Before leaving our guide gave us the command "no horsing around and keep your hands inside the boat at all times!" This gave us a chill since the boat was so small that there was only about five cm from the top of it to the water... With flashlight in the darkness we spotted a lot of fascinating crocodiles - some up to 5-6 meters long and one of them sticked its head above the water just a meter from us! We were completely amazed and a bit terrified since this was were we went swimming just a day before. In the water with piranas, crocodiles (and later snakes)!!! Now we understood why we went swimming on the first day ;-)
Our last day started with a canoeing trip to a native community where they showed us their selfsufficient agriculturing. Among others coffee beans, avocatos, chickens running around, haengekojer/hengirúm and several medical plants. We took the trip through the jungle home to our cabin. The plants were so tight that we had to cut our way through it.
Sadly after lunch we headed back to Coca - a 6 hours trip arriving at 8 in the night. On the way in the motorised boat we layed down on our mochilas (backpacks) and watched the bright sky above us (with several shooting stars) and lightnings+thunder surrounded us from both sides of the river. Here the two "cosy cousins" (what the guys calles us) layed hand in hand and had a moment to reflect on life.

Saturday night in Coca we took a glance at the nightlife and danced our buts off. The following day we took a bus to the mountain smalltown of Baños and this is where we sit right now, ready for the upcoming adventures. Tomorrow we are going to hike one of the mountains and relax in the nearby hotsprings.

Hope you are all great in Iceland, Denmark or where ever you are!

We send our best thought to you! Kiss kiss :-)