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My time in the amazon was easily the most extraordinary time of my life. nothing that i have ever done can compare to that time in adventure, uniqueness, and pure incredibleness . . . i imagine that this is what travel was like 100 years ago. there were many times that i felt like a national geographic explorer truly discovering the ways of the ecuadorian amazon.

La Amazonía: The Village of Wachimak

Andy Wunder
2007-04-19 22:35:13

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a bit freaked out. at one point along the way we had to climb over a log. i went to put my hand down to give me a grip and i looked down just in time. my hand was headed directly for the largest scariest spider i have ever see. it was easily the size of a large male human hand. i think it could have eaten me. along the way we passed birds sleeping in trees right at eye level and heard monkeys swinging in the branches above the river. it was a good time.

my last night in wachimak, the village threw me a party to say good bye. they dressed me up in the clothing their parents wore and we all danced to their traditional music played with instruments of the jungle, notably, a turtle shell. sometime into the night, someone brought out the jungle alcohol. it was all they really drank (sometimes they cracked out a box of wine) and it was horrible. it was stored in old 2 liter coke bottles and tasted worse than any alcohol i had ever put to my lips. so what did i do ... i drink it every time someone passed it to me. we had a good old time. people gave me gifts and hugged me. one man gave me an old incan indian axe he estimated to be 10,000 years old. my mother cried and told me that even though there had been ones before me and would be ones after me, i was her favorite. many people came and shook my hand and told me i was the most sincere person to stay in wachimak. it made me feel really good. i was ready to leave but i was leaving on a good note.

that night we drank and danced until 2 am. the next morning they woke me up at 5 am ... i was sick. to much jungle booze. i started throwing up immediately. the last thing i needed was to hike for an hour through the jungle with my bags. my mother and father along with myself and tito started the journey. luckily for me, tito switched bags
with me and relieved me of my heavy one. almost immediately i noticed my dehydration and my mother quickly ran back to the village to get me some water. unfortunately, ...