So I survived my time in the amazon and in true Bear Grylls fashion it came with a mad dash through the forest to catch the last truck back to civilisation... you can´t script this.
Well to summarise normal activities, I finished my teaching after 2 months and in Ecuadorian tradition, the end of a program came with a hearty meal for the students and their certificate of attendance presentation. I would like to think they have increased their learning in English and Computing, they were confident to use English words to greet me, say please and thank you and such like (so their manners are much better than mine) and they were more confident on using Microsoft Word than at the start... so I´ll take that as a win. On the flip side my Spanish has also improved in the past 2 months, whilst I can´t understand if they talk fast, I can understand conversations where I´m leading it (i.e. asking the questions). My vocab may be limited but they say the phrases differently (more basic) if I don´t understand first time and I can get the meaning even if I don´t understand every word.
I was introduced to a new animal, a guanta. This one (like the aforementioned capybara) was adopted after its parents were taken for meat. It is rather like a gerbil/hamster in its activity (it is of the rodent family) but with a pointy face, deep black eyes (it is a nocturnal creature), thin tongue, long whiskers, leathery padded feet with 5 claws, white under belly and similarly coloured stripes down its sides on an overall brown wiry haired body. Its body was roughly the size of a cat’s but legs in line of a rodent’s proportions and no obvious tail. It was sad that it had lost its parents but as it snuggled in the crook of my arm, I would happily have kept it as my own pet… but there are luggage restrictions (and it’s not mine to take).
The weather every day was like a good British summers’ day (even when it rained it was still warm). The variance in temperature can be measured in sweat levels. A cloudy day meant only excessive sweat in the middle of the day, a clear day meant heavy sweating from morning to evening. Yes it really is that hot here!
n the final full day in the Amazon one of my students (a year older than myself and a member of the local Urwani tribe) invited me to their weekend house (during the week they live in the town) which is a 10 min drive into the Yasuni National Park. The location was stunning, a collection of houses owned by different members of the family on highest parts of the land surrounded by a forest of all kinds of trees and plants with a river cutting through and one road out. Pretty sweet weekend house hey!
2 young girls took me on a short tour and in that time I came across snakes, one was a bit too close for comfort, hiding in a small stream, whilst the other one was in some vines overhead so a quick dash underneath was needed.
We had lunch under a woven roof of leaves (the barbecue area) consisting of chicken, rice and grilled bananas (so nice). As a pre-snack we had sugar cane (caña de azucar), this was my first time so I had to ask how to eat it. They first cut away the hard outer shell with a machete then you bite into it suck the sweet juice between the nodes (not actually eating the plant itself), it is delicious and I would highly recommend you try it if you get the opportunity to.
Post lunch we went fishing in the river after been taken through the jungle and crop fields. I caught nothing except branches that were submerged in the water, but a few others caught some small fish for eating. They also hunted for big fat yellow larva to eat (same as I ate and spat out in Coca) in the dead wood around the place.
We kind of forgot about time so when they got a call from the guy who was taking them back to the town, who had to leave in 10 minutes, we had to run through the jungle to the road to met the car as it pulled up, piled into the back and then were driven away. Fun times!
So yes that wraps up the end of the amazonian adventure, next blog will see me in the deep south of Ecuador and gringo town... coming soon to a (computer) screen near you!
Well to summarise normal activities, I finished my teaching after 2 months and in Ecuadorian tradition, the end of a program came with a hearty meal for the students and their certificate of attendance presentation. I would like to think they have increased their learning in English and Computing, they were confident to use English words to greet me, say please and thank you and such like (so their manners are much better than mine) and they were more confident on using Microsoft Word than at the start... so I´ll take that as a win. On the flip side my Spanish has also improved in the past 2 months, whilst I can´t understand if they talk fast, I can understand conversations where I´m leading it (i.e. asking the questions). My vocab may be limited but they say the phrases differently (more basic) if I don´t understand first time and I can get the meaning even if I don´t understand every word.
I was introduced to a new animal, a guanta. This one (like the aforementioned capybara) was adopted after its parents were taken for meat. It is rather like a gerbil/hamster in its activity (it is of the rodent family) but with a pointy face, deep black eyes (it is a nocturnal creature), thin tongue, long whiskers, leathery padded feet with 5 claws, white under belly and similarly coloured stripes down its sides on an overall brown wiry haired body. Its body was roughly the size of a cat’s but legs in line of a rodent’s proportions and no obvious tail. It was sad that it had lost its parents but as it snuggled in the crook of my arm, I would happily have kept it as my own pet… but there are luggage restrictions (and it’s not mine to take).
The weather every day was like a good British summers’ day (even when it rained it was still warm). The variance in temperature can be measured in sweat levels. A cloudy day meant only excessive sweat in the middle of the day, a clear day meant heavy sweating from morning to evening. Yes it really is that hot here!
n the final full day in the Amazon one of my students (a year older than myself and a member of the local Urwani tribe) invited me to their weekend house (during the week they live in the town) which is a 10 min drive into the Yasuni National Park. The location was stunning, a collection of houses owned by different members of the family on highest parts of the land surrounded by a forest of all kinds of trees and plants with a river cutting through and one road out. Pretty sweet weekend house hey!
2 young girls took me on a short tour and in that time I came across snakes, one was a bit too close for comfort, hiding in a small stream, whilst the other one was in some vines overhead so a quick dash underneath was needed.
We had lunch under a woven roof of leaves (the barbecue area) consisting of chicken, rice and grilled bananas (so nice). As a pre-snack we had sugar cane (caña de azucar), this was my first time so I had to ask how to eat it. They first cut away the hard outer shell with a machete then you bite into it suck the sweet juice between the nodes (not actually eating the plant itself), it is delicious and I would highly recommend you try it if you get the opportunity to.
Post lunch we went fishing in the river after been taken through the jungle and crop fields. I caught nothing except branches that were submerged in the water, but a few others caught some small fish for eating. They also hunted for big fat yellow larva to eat (same as I ate and spat out in Coca) in the dead wood around the place.
We kind of forgot about time so when they got a call from the guy who was taking them back to the town, who had to leave in 10 minutes, we had to run through the jungle to the road to met the car as it pulled up, piled into the back and then were driven away. Fun times!
So yes that wraps up the end of the amazonian adventure, next blog will see me in the deep south of Ecuador and gringo town... coming soon to a (computer) screen near you!
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