Amazon jungle continues

I have 50mins so lets see how much more i can write.

So we left the animal shelter by changing into our togs and floating down the river on tubes back to our lodge. It was awesome, we had competitions to see who could stand on their tube for the longest, spinning competitions, tested out all the possible ways you can float on a tube and even threw the tubes away and swam for a bit. Officially it wasn´t the amazon river we were in but one of the smaller rivers that forks off the Amazon. We all swallowed a bit of water accidently but so far we seemed to have gotten away with it. We got back quickly got changed and then had lunch. This time we had broadbean soup, sounds bad, tasted great. and then cucumber salad, tuna cassarole (and i actually ate it mum) rice, lentils and fruit salad for dessert. We all felt pretty sleepy after that meal and an active morning so we had an hour to nap and relax before our afternoon activities so i chilled out in the hammock.

We headed back out at 3 down to the river where we used the canoe to get to the other side which is called Anaconda island. we went for an hour walk where we were hoping to see a stinky chicken. It´s not actually a chicken its a large strange bird but it is stinky. And unfortunately we didn´t see one. We tried seeds from a cacao tree, which are kinda gooey and sweet but taste nothing like chocolate. We learnt the process of how they turn this plant into chocolate which basically was drying or roasting the seeds then turning them into pulp, then add cocoa butter and sweeten it. (at lest i think that was it). We also found a plant they use for war paint and this was demonstrated by painting Anthea´s face. We were shown a vine that is used as a drug that can get you high for 12 hours, we didn´t get the try that one funnily enough. The natives use it more as a painkiller.
We saw the banana plantations and learnt that each banana plant only ever grows one bunch and then dies so they need to continuously replant them. David demonstrated a nettle plant that causes a bad reaction on the skin by rubbing it on a small patch on his arm. 30mins later he had about 5nasty litttle red lumps on his arms. Apparently it was completely numb in that area so he couldn´t feel it though. The native people use it as an anesthetic and also as a punishment for people who lie or steal. if you softly rub the plant over your arm it doesn´t hurt but the skin goes numb but if you do it hard it stings and becomes irritated. The island was beautiful and looked just as i had imagined the Amazon would do.

The walk ended up at a villager´s house and we were invited inside for chicha which is a traditional drink. David told us about how the houses are built and the roles of each family member and then we passed around a bowl of chicha. It didn´t taste fantastic, kinda yeasty. Originally it was made by chewing the chicha plant for hours to ferment it, then spitting it into a bowl then drink it and it was quite potent. fortunately the stuff we drank hadn´t been fermented with saliva. After our drink we went outside and tried using the blowgun to shoot a target. i was hopeless at it and my dart went into the forest somewhere. A few of the group managed to hit the target but none of us girls.
That evening we had drinks at the bar before dinner, i tried a passionfruit and rum drink and they actually went and picked and pulped a passionfruit while i waited. Doesn´t get much fresher than that! we sat on the swingchairs next to the river and had our drinks.

Dinner wasn´t as nice that evening, the meat was very salty and tasted like mustard and there was tamarillo which was very bitter. The soup was very nice though, this time it was mushroom. We had a flan type dessert with a strange fruity cream that seemed to be egg whites. It was actually quite nice.

That evening we played jumbling tower, more commonly known as jenga, we only lasted 3 games and then we sat out in the dark by the river for a while, the moon gave off alot of light but i still managed to put my hand on a MASSIVE bug.

Today we got up at 7 as we had to be out by 8am. I was sad to leave because i really loved the amazon and that lodge. We caught one bus to Tenna and then another from there to Banos, which is where we are now. Banos means bathroom in Spanish and its written on the side of all the toilets in South America so we associate the name with toilets. But its meant to mean Bath of the gods, or something like that anyway. It´s a really nice town, surrounded by mountains and theres plenty of adventures sprots to do. Tomorrow we are hopefully going paragliding and going for a walk/cablecar to a waterfall. and if there´s time quadbiking. And then on saturday we´re going white water rafting which i´m pretty excited about because i´ve always wanted to try it.

We didn´t do alot today, settled into the hotel and went out for lunch at a pizza place. There´s a cafe on the side of the mountain so we tried to walk up to it but we must have taken the wrong path cos the track got steeper and narrower til there was pratically nothing left to it so we turned around and went back again. We found a different path but we were concerned that it was going to get dark soon and we didn´t want to be the stupid tourists who got lost on a mountain at night. So we wandered around town and got dinner.

And that´s about it.