Into The Jungle

There is something magical about the Amazon.  I am not referring to the common tendency to paint the “unknown” as mystical in our minds; I really felt the magic, like that commonly perceived only during childhood. 

On the first night of our 4 night Amazon Expedition at Shiripuno Lodge, we had the opportunity to go on a night walk with our guide to view some nocturnal creatures. In the rainforest, because of the dense ceiling created by the canopy, only a dim light reaches the forest floor during the day.  At night it is truly pitch black, which makes for an interesting introduction to the life in the jungle. 

Equipped with headlamps, we saw very unusual spiders, cool tree frogs, strange insects, and Ferdinand, a very poisonous snake, curled in the middle of our path.

In the darkness our other senses are more alert and the sounds and smells surrounding us were all very foreign.  About 1/2 hour into our hike, Jose, our guide, asked us to form a tight circle in the path, turn off our headlamps, and look up through the canopy to the stars.  There was some reluctance amongst the kids, but they quickly complied. (At the start of the hike Yoda, had clung to Kiko’s leg and asked to go back; so this was quite a change of heart) After a minute or so experiencing the darkness and the sounds around us, Jose asked us to look down at the ground.  At first it just looked black, but as our eyes adjusted we started seeing stars on the forest floor all around us.  It seemed our eyes had retained the images of the stars but Jose proceeded to pick up these “stars” and put one in each of our hands.  I felt as if I had been transported into the movie Avatar.  The jungle magically lit up around us.  It turns out it wasn’t magic, but phosphorescence, similar to those found in the sea, that grow only on one particular leaf in the jungle.  But those images and the feelings of complete awe and that anything is possible, will not leave me; that is the closest thing to magic I have felt since childhood.

Over the next days the jungle sounds, smells, and inhabitants continued to keep us engaged.  I had a general plan that we would be using “world schooling” as a format of education for the kids this year but it was nothing I had actually researched, just a general idea.  After these five days it is no longer a vague concept but something that has become self-evident.  All four of us are continually learning in our daily travel experiences, but it more pronounced in environments like the Amazon.   Immersed in the environment, the kids were soon able to identify birds as they flew overhead and eventually, for a few species, upon hearing their calls. They drew pictures of what they saw and joined other guests looking through the scientific books, identifying animals seen that day.  Zuki quickly identified a small poison dart frog and stopped Yoda from catching it just in time.  They asked questions of the guide and even conducted their own experiment, never overtly aware that they were learning at ton.

Above, Zuki and Yoda, who, when not not accompanied by a guide, were restricted to the center grassy area of camp for safety reasons, found some leaf cutter ants and quickly set up a makeshift experiment to see which leaves the ants liked to collect with the hopes of seeing the ants’ create a fungi garden which they had leaned about during that morning’s jungle hike. 

Another I-can’t-believe-we-are-able-to-do-this experience was standing under a great Kapok tree, believed to be over 600 years old.  The kids have grown up having the story of The Great Kapok Tree read to them and here we all were actually touching it, crawling around it, and feeling as small as an ant next to its mightiness.

Things like discovering you just missed stepping on a tarantula in the dark or having another one on the rafters over your mosquito net are not experiences likely to be forgotten.  Pulling up a piranha with a simple stick, string, hook and raw meat at age 6 is a true personal growth experience; His pride was evident from Yoda's face and his every movement.  

Who can forget the Quita calzon or “take off your underwear” ant, who come out in the hundred thousands when their nest is tapped on.  They don’t bite, but cover your body and clothes, creating a intense tickle/itch that is said to be truly uncomfortably.  Hence the given name, as the one effected needs to strip down naked to get all the ants off.  We were told that this was used as a discipline method for children that were misbehaving in ancient times.  Hummm....

We all chewed the sap from a bubble gum tree, from which the original chewing gum was invented.  When it comes out of a tree in the Amazon, somehow it doesn’t need any of the sugar and color to make it entertaining. 

And that reminds me of another tasty niblet we had from the inside of a tree. Yoda, our most finicky eater of the family, was asked to lick his finger and put it inside the small branch that Jose was cutting open. Those were the only instructions.   On the count of three, Jose lowered the branch with the slit cut into it, to Yoda’s eye level and he stuck his finger inside.  He hesitated when he saw that his finger was crawling with ants, trying to wipe off the ants, but Jose kept saying “lick your finger”, at which point we all tried it and confirmed it was good.  He licked his finger and loved it and proceeded to lick the rest of the ants out of the branch.  If I didn’t see it I would never have believed that our picky-eater ate live ants and went back for more!  They did taste just like fresh lemon and we were a little hungry hiking for hours through the jungle...

On our last day in the Amazon, we were able to visit a Huarani community whose ancestors have lived in the jungle for thousands of years.  This community is located just an hour boat ride from Coca,  which has a unique boarder-town feeling of two entirely different worlds colliding.   A grand modern bridge looms over the ramshackle buildings and official looking oil industry managers walk the same streets as the Huarani tribe members.  I gave up even trying to it figure this town out upon seeing this huge old plane on a big float in the water. !?

Given that the first contact with the tribe we visited was approximately 50 years ago and their proximity to Coca,  many of the younger members no longer follow some of the ancient traditions.  Only the older members still have the large holes in their ear lobes, the size of which signified status level in the community.  The elders wear minimal to no clothing, while the young wear modern clothes and have stylish haircuts. 

Still, the tribe’s main food source is directly from the jungle. The Chief demonstrated how to use the poison dart blow gun, the traditional hunting weapon about 6’ long made of  ironwood, weighing at least 30lbs.   We all gave it a try and were surprisingly accurate.  Kiko of course got every dart straight through the plantain used for target practice.  The tribe eats monkeys, birds, caimans and fish and grow yuca and plantains, mainly supplementing only with rice, salt and cooking oil from town.   They obtain money by selling traditional items made out of fibers and natural plant dyes to the tourists and working as guides and cooks at the Ecolodges.  

For the kids the best part of the community visit was the pet monkey that immediately took a liking to them.  He jumped up and hugged Zuki within a minute of seeing her.  Yoda engaged it with a game of tug of war with a piece of palm leaf, which the monkey continually won.  The monkey then followed the kids through the rest of the village. 

I think this may have been when Zuki declared she would like to live forever in the Amzon Jungle with the Indians. 

We heard stories during our stay of the untouched tribe that lives only 1 hour further down the river from our lodge.  They have chosen to remain isolated; they want nothing to do with the outside world.   This really intrigued me.  I am aware that I tend to idealize self-sustaining cultures, free from processed foods and the fast pace of the life as we know, but I also realize I can’t possibly grasp what daily life is like for the members of these groups.  So After hearing stories from a few Ecuadorians, it was interesting to see that in general locals, both Latinos and members of the different tribes, don’t idealize them but are in fact scared of these untouched tribes. 

We were told that about 6 years ago the untouched tribe attacked and killed a number of loggers, who were illegally taking wood from their protected territory.   A couple of the loggers survived and floated down in a boat until they came across an ecotourism group.  The guides left the tourists in a safe spot on the riverside and drove the men with poison darts sticking through their bodies to town for treatment.  Could you imagine being those tourists, left alone in the forest, thinking the untouched tribe was maybe going to come after you?  Our lodge had an established trail 30 minutes down the river but one day, after seeing the barefoot prints of the untouched tribe, the lodge permenantly discontinued any hikes to that area, to be safe.   As we walked and traveled by boat through the jungle I couldn’t help imagining Indians in the jungle and wondered what life is really like in those un-contacted communities.  

So many stories of the Amazon continue to swirl through my mind.   I was not the only one to feel the power of the magic in the jungle.  When I was awakened early the first morning by the crazy sounds of the jungle waking up, I saw a leaf placed on the top of Zuki’s mosquito net and I realized she had taken the phosphoresence covered leaf with her from that first night walk and placed it above her to keep the magic while she slept.