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The night sky lit by the full moon before me; I gazed out my bus window at the outline of the Andes mountains. Soon that picture-like view turned to jungle as far as the eye could see. This is the part of travel that I truly love; getting back into raw nature. Witnessing the beauty of God’s creation; untouched and thriving on its own. We made our way ten hours down a road that changed from mountain to jungle, pavement to dirt, winter temperatures to summer. Rest stops were made few and far between; wherein the men lined one side of the bus and the women the other. Unable to sleep, I simply stared out my window, listened to my favorite tunes, and thought about the unknown which lied ahead.

Into the Unknown

Jeremy Curl
2006-08-28 12:28:09

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Then to beat all, Marcos sends us off with two young kids and stays behind to fix the other boat. He promised, as he shoved the boat from shore, that he would meet us shortly. Extremely ticked off, Phillipe and I could not wait to have a word with him later that day. Putting that behind us, we took the boat past the military check point and on into the park. The Yasuni National Park (largest in Ecuador) is a World Biosphere Reserve and home to thousands of different species. We made our way back into the swampy jungle for an hour until the Yasuni River opened into a small lake. We set up camp along the shore and prepared a fire to cook lunch. We had skipped breakfast, so we were completely starved. Digging through his bags for food, all we found was rice, bread, platanos, and a few vegetables. Now we were piping hot. Our guide had sent us out it to the jungle with a couple of pre-pubescent kids and scraps for food. Trying not to let this ruin our day, we ate what we had and then headed out to explore our surroundings. We spent hours trolling around the lake and on into the rainforest. The landscape was made up of swamp and lush jungle vegetation. The waters beneath were dark and dirty, and it was unknown to us what lurked below. We cut off the engine and switched to paddles to avoid scaring away the wildlife. We eased our canoe down narrow channels through the forest. Our eyes were constantly scanning for hidden creatures as we coasted our way; weary of making a sound. We could hear splashes as we neared and saw bubbles; but the wildlife stayed hid well during the day. Returning to camp, we were reunited with Marcos and three more high school kids. To make a long story short; we set Marcos straight on what we expected out of a guide, and even got back a little bit of our money. It is funny what two men welding machetes can accomplish - just kidding. Following the scolding, everything went great. The kids went off fishing for our dinner and Marcos took us in search of ...