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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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the market contained eggs, sugar, salt, batteries ... the basic. it was interesting. the trip to the market for some eggs took the whole morning and went into the afternoon. one day they took me to a huge tree. its branches reached into the sky and it towered above all the others. it took four adult male bodies to reach across its base. one time they took me to a waterfall. it was one of the most beautiful waterfalls i have ever seen. it was hidden in the middle of the jungle and apparently only a few visitors and not many of the tribe had even seen it. it was amazing.

my father's daughter (one of his 12 kids) married a guy that lived in the next village over. so one day myself, along with another 6 from my family, made the trek to see her and her village. the night before, the rains had been torrential so the journey wasnt as easy as it normally was. the path crisscrossed back and forth over many rivers. with the raised water level we had to take off our boots (oh yeah, i almost forgot, everything is done in rain boots in the jungle) and forge the knee high water. a bit into the hike i noticed that the mom was carrying a huge shot gun. i had been in the jungle long enough to know that you dont go hunting on a trail with the whole family. i asked why we had brought a gun for this trip. i was shocked by the response. i was told that the gun was brought in case a large puma or an armed peruvian or columbian guerrilla attacked us. hmmm, interesting. i think it was at that time i was ready to turn back around and go swing in the hammock. we eventually made it to the other village after 2 and a half hours. as the closest village, it was not very close. once there we hiked down to a swamp and went fishing for lunch. it was a beautiful swamp with beautiful fish. brightly colored birds flew over head the whole time. i was told that nocturnal alligators roamed the swamp at night and luckily for
one day we were supposed to go on a hike but it was raining hard ...