Tena

22nd – 26th September 2006

We are up pretty early (ok, about 8am but it’s still early for James) and very nearly miss the 9.30am bus to Tena (which we’ve booked tickets for) as James and Mog nearly forget their passports and money.

It’s a pretty bumpy and twisty ride with some very impressive scenery from the right hand side of the bus. Unfortunately the road is so bendy and the driver such a maniac that Mog feels a bit unwell and has to sit in a quiet area of the bus.

As we descend towards Tena once again it gets noticeably warmer. Stu, Amy and James have a game of scrabble and needless to say Amy wins with James doing well to come second.

We arrive at about 13.30hrs and check into a nice hotel (30 dorrar a night) and then head off for lunch at the tortoise café. After much deliberation we book a white water rafting tour for the following day with an onward taxi to our retreat in the jungle.

Stu’s not feeling too great at this point with a stinker of cold so he goes for a lie down.

Our hotel overlooks a muddy, brown river with virgin jungle just over the other side. It’s no surprise then as we play cards in the evening that moths the size of a small football pitch decide to come and join us. We walk into the center of the little town and go for a Parrilla meal. The food is excellent and very filling but the highlight has to be the resident sloth who climbs down from her hiding place and waits to be taken to the toilet by the chef! Bizarre? Just slightly.

The following day we are up at the crack of dawn to watch the footy (Liverpool vs Spurs, no need to ask the score) before heading down to the café to meet our guide for the white water rafting.

The river we will be rafting down today is the upper Rio Napo (grade 3) which is one of the main tributaries of the Amazon. Our guide, Gino, is great and really looks after us shouting and calling for us to paddle and jump “inside”. We practice showering the other boats with water and pretty soon they get their own back and we are totally soaked.

The rapids are excellent and there are plenty of big waves to cool us from the burning sun. After every rapid we do silly things like jumping into the river or onto rocks and it’s just a really great day.

We have Burritos for lunch after which Stu and James play footy on possibly the hottest sand in the world.

We then head off for more rapids before a welcome beer at the end of the trip. We catch our taxi to the Casa del Suiza and are shown to our room. It’s huge and so it should be for 150 dorrar a night! (all inclusive, it’s time for a bit of luxury!)

As all meals over the next few days, it’s a buffet followed by a couple of cocktails and a bottle of red.

One of the most disappointing things about the Casa del Suiza, we soon realise, is the early starts, 8am for breakfast and then we head off for our first tour of the day.

This morning it’s a trip to Amazoonico, an animal reserve set up with the aim to re-introduce certain species into the jungle. We see Spider Monkeys, Furry Monkeys, Coatis, Jaguati, Ocelots, Tucans, rainforest Parrots and lots more. This is followed by a walk through the rainforest where we see Army ants and lots of scary looking spiders.

After lunch we take a walk to an “indigenous village” which is a basically a tourist trap but we still have a bit of a go on the ‘blowpipe’ at which James is excellent and Mog terrible. In the evening we play a few games of cards and spend some quality time at the bar.

Day 2 of our jungle ‘adventure’ consists of an extended walk through virgin rainforest which is extremely interesting. We see armadillo footprints, a tiny frog and a tarantula. It’s very hot and humid even though the sun isn’t shining and our guide (Jose) bedecks us in headwear and floral attire.

After our walk, Jose then builds a log raft for us and we float down the Rio Napo getting very wet in the process. The sun comes out in the afternoon and it’s totally roasting, we pay a visit to a butterfly farm and then relax by the pool.

The following day is our last at the Casa del Suiza and Stu, James and Mog spend the morning floating down a river in large rubber tubes (Amy is afraid of anacondas so she doesn’t come with us). Even though it rains hard we still have a good time and getting back into the canoe is good fun with Jose doing his best to pull our arms off.

We have one last buffet lunch before catching our “fast” connection taxi to Quito which turns out to take 6 hours, equal to the time taken by the local bus but at 10 times the price. What a bargin.

We arrive in Quito at 8pm and go out for a great last meal and a few bottles of Malbec. Stu and Mog get their own back by winning the last few games of pool and we have one last celebratory cocktail.

It’s been fantastic to see James and Margaret and we have treated the last 8 days like a holiday away from a holiday. Ecuador is turning out to be a fantastic country with many different environments, we have already been down to the beach and into the Jungle and up in the mountains.

Next we are off to the Galapagos Islands. It has to be the highlight of any tour, and frankly it’s what has kept us going for so long.

We’ll keep you updated, naturally.

Lots of love

Stu & Amy.