Hola Everybody:

I don't have too many more of these to put together since our trip is slowly coming to an end.

When I last wrote we were still in beautiful Banos. On the day before we left the sky cleared up magically and allowed us to have a good view of our first active volcano. We had to hike for about 45 minutes but what a view when we got up there. One side of the volcano still had snow on it and the other side was spewing thick black smoke. If it had been at night we would have seen lava flowing down as well but as it was we were quite happy to have seen at all. It was a fitting end to our time in Banos.

We left for Puyo the next day and only stayed one night. We did visit an animal reserve in Puyo where they are in semi-liberty. The monkeys hang around but some of the birds have had their wings clipped. Sad, I know. We pressed on towards Tena and our final destination which was a tiny jungle town called Misahualli right at the junction of the Misahualli river and the Napo river, population maybe 500. It really felt like the end of the world with jungle all around us and what incredible abundance of vegetation and flowers like bird of paradise, bromeliads, and too many others to list them. Misahualli also has its resident monkeys. A group of about 37 Capuccin monkeys, just like the one I had. They were so mischievous and quite entertaining. One jumped on my bag and stole my cigarette pack right out of the pocket. Luckily there were only 2 left but they proceeded to share them and EAT them. One was really pissed when Stan attempted to retrieve the pack. They are beloved by the town people and treated like naughty children.

We were staying at a wonderful hostleria and paying only 14.00 U.S. for both of us. We had a balcony overlooking the rio Napo. Through this hotel we arranged a tour to the jungle, just the two of us. We paid a little bit more for this privacy but it was worth it. We set out in a long dugout canoe, pirogue in French, with a cover on top in case of rain. The Napo river is the longest river in Ecuador at 1,400 kms. from its source to when it throws itself into the Amazon.

It was just like in those movies about South America that are set in the jungle. The boat, the trees, the guide, the whole thing was quite spectacular. We arrived at a beautiful lodge. We had our own cabin with private bath and cold shower. Our cook prepared all our meals and the setting was the cooking and dining lodge in company of 2 delightful and one not so delightful parrots. We went for a long 2 hour hike in the jungle and surprisingly very few mosquitoes were present. We learned a great deal about medicinal plants and I will write more about that in Episode 2. We also visited a family of Quichua who are the indigenous people who still live in remote areas of the jungle. I don't want to write it all now because it will be too much to read and I don't want to try your patience. On another note the day before we left we walked quite far to attempt to go to this place called Amazoonicos, a refuge for animals. We had to walk, take a one hour bus and waited for more than an hour for a pirogue to take us to the other side of the river, all this in the pouring rain and it poured like it can only pour in the jungle. I needed to go to the bathroom and fell on some slippery mud and gashed my arm pretty badly. The good thing about it was that we learned about this salve called Sangre de Drago or blood of the dragon which is quite miraculous. It comes from a tree in the jungle which literally weeps these gooy tears that resemble blood. My wound dried up in just a couple of days. I will write again about some of these amazing and not so amazing plants sometime this week.

Josiane