Thursday, January 6, 2011

Day 2: Journey to Yachana Lodge

January 5, 2011

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”  Mohandas Gandhi

By: Caitlin Elling

Good morning!  Due to internet availability in the Amazon, our blog posts may be a day (or two) behind, but we'll do our best to post daily!

Today’s journey started early, at around 6:30 or a little later most of the group was gathered in the small dining room of the Casa de Sola, enjoying a breakfast of fruit, rolls, and Blackberry Juice.  From there everyone piled into the bus that we would be taking to the Yachana lodge, a journey expected to take five hours up through the mountains and down into the Rainforest.  The Bus itself was a magnificent journey through rolling mountains and very windy roads.  We stopped at one of Ecuador’s many volcanoes.  At that point we were about 12000 kilometers above sea level.  A few hours, bathroom stops, and a few thousand beautiful pictures later we hit an unfortunate roadblock at a small bridge less than an hour away from our destination.  The bridge was impassible and elicited a four-hour detour through Tena in order to get to the river.

The team at 12,000 feet in the Andes.
With little complaints we headed off again, stopping about 45 minutes out from the Impassible Bridge to get snacks for our extended journey.  The road was long, with many nauseating bumps, but we were all in good humor and persevered.  However in our amazing race to get to the river before the sunset we hit another roadblock; while moving to the side of the road to let another vehicle go past the bus got stuck in a bit of a rut.  The front wheel was stuck in the ditch, and it took a while to get it out, we all helped by gathering in one place or another on the bus to rearrange the center of balance.

After that there was relatively smooth sailing, we got to the river in good time and to many cheers and we immediately got into the long canoes for the short trip down the river to the Yachana lodge, another trip with beautiful landscapes. 

 
When we reached the Lodge we were given a wonderful and huge snack of beets, potatoes, and lentils, as well as some watermelon as a desert.  After that we were shown our lodgings for the night, the Boys in one room, girls in another, and the faculty in another room.  From there we had a small amount of time before dinner at seven and the group split into two, one group going on a walk around the site, seeing a very impressive spider, and the other going to the river to swim, though not so far out as to be caught by the extremely strong current.  


Beautiful sunset over the Napa River from Yachana Lodge.
 
Dinner was delicious as well and towards the end of dinner we were visited by the founder of the lodge who informed us of a change in plan, tomorrow they will be getting some new roofing for a broken roof and we are going to help transport the bulky material up to the school where it is needed.  But right after dinner we got into our borrowed rain boots and were led on a tour into the rainforest to see the wildlife.  We saw many animals, a Hopping Spider and Cayman, a couple of Tree Frogs, Banana Spider, a Trap Door spider, Walking sticks, a huge colony of ants and termites and wasps as well as a number of Caydidids.  At the end when we were in the middle of the forest we turned off all of the flashlights for a minute, in the dark forest, the only light being the huge amount of stars in the sky. 

Our friend...
After the outside tour we went back for a reflection, and then off to bed for the 10 pm lights off and a busy day tomorrow.   

1 comment:

  1. You guys are sooooo awesome!!!!! Thanks for creating this blog!!!! Especially for my mother who is having hyperventaling attacks to see Damaris so far away from her...lol...such beauty and its for such a great cause!!!! My husband is from Ecuador and he is so excited for you guys!!!! Rock on!!!!!! Keep it coming!!!!

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