I was anticipating this to be one of the highlights of the trip, and it sure did not disappoint. After our bus arrived at the bus station in Tena, several trucks arrived to take us to our community in the Amazon. It was located outside the town of Tena, on the Napo River. The Napo is a major tributary that eventually joins with a few others to form the mighty Amazon River. Being in the upper Amazon, it is not nearly as wide as it is downstream. It looks exactly like you see on the nature specials on TV. Thick undisturbed rainforest on both banks, with an occasional small village or hut.
Our community is unusual, in that it is run by 22 women. GAP is trying to give women more opportunities, so all the money we spend goes directly towards helping this community.
Like the closing song to Gilligan's Island, there are "no phones, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury...". Well maybe some luxuries, but no electricity and only cold running water (not a problem in the steamy tropical heat).
It is amazing how they can whip up fantastic meals with no refrigeration, and only a small primative kitchen.
The first afternoon we headed out in motorized canoes, heading way down the river for about an hour. After about 20 minutes, it was just us and the jungle, as I said, just like the nature specials deep in the Amazon Rain Forest.
Our eventual destination was a special Wildlife Rescue Centre, where they try to rehabilitate animals, and re-introduce them back to the rain forest. We had an amazing tour by a lovely German woman, who was amongst the volunteers at the centre. They had all kinds of exotic animals in huge, well designed habitats. I said after Africa, I would never go to a zoo again... this was definitely no zoo. We learned the story of each animal, and what was being done to try to rehabilitate it. Some, unfortunately, would never return to the wild (often because they were kept as pets). It was great to know that they would live out their lives in this wonderful place, cared for by such wonderful people.
We were so involved in our tour that we left the centre quite late. That made for some amazing scenery at dusk, as the sun sank over the rainforest.
It also made for an interesting situation when our boat ran out of gas (due to a leak) in the total dark on the banks of the Rio Napo. We started flowing backwards with the swift current, but our guides got us close to the banks, and tried to paddle us upriver. The current was way too strong, and the other boat was so far ahead, it could not hear our shouts.
None of us were very worried, our guides knew the area well, and we just knew that a rescue was imminent. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes, the other boat arrived, having dropped off the rest of our group, and we locked on in tandem, and he powered us up the river back to the community.
After a delicious jungle dinner in the open air dining room, it was up to our lodge to get under the excellent mosquito nets, and fall asleep to the sounds of the Amazon Jungle.
No comments:
Post a Comment