We spent the last couple of days at a lodge on the Napo river in the Amazonian province of Ecuador. The 'eco' lodge was pretty nice, though the only eco part I could discern was the fact that the cabanas didn't have electricity so we had to use kerosene lanterns at night.

Got to visit a couple of local Amazonian villages (the Quichua tribe) and saw how they lived, the bits I really liked were seeing how they hunt with blow pipes (3 meter long hollow rods) and poison darts and seeing how they pan for gold in the river. They are self sufficient in most things either growing or gathering/hunting in the forest (it was amazing seeing the different uses for various plants) and they sell the gold ($18 a gram) for cash to get anything else they need. I had a bash at panning for gold and I was shown to be a rank armature by a local lady - give me a pump and a knelson and I'd shown these villages a thing or two.

The second day in the jungle we went on a day trip down stream to a wildlife refuge. We tubed for a couple of hours which was cool (aka the Christmas HASH run in Timika) and then all got in a long boat for a very interesting ride, which included getting out and pushing the boat over rocks at several spots. The refuge had some amazing wildlife in the form of monkeys, birds (including South American Toucans (which are sooooo cooool), the largest rodent on earth (whose name escapes me), ocelots (wild cats) and funny native pigs. It made for some great photos and a good day out.

Boating back up the Napo I had a moment. I was thinking about the fact that the water we were floating on would be flowing into the Amazon about 24hours after it passed us and about three weeks later it would have flown the full 4,000km to the mouth of the Amazon and the Atlantic Ocean. Made me feel kinda insignificant in the scheme of things.