Semi-cama to Atacama: Ending it all

It’s close to 6pm as I write this, sitting on the verandah outside my room at the Explornapo Lodge. Its getting dark but the sky is a magnificent blend of ink blue and flaming orange. It’s really quiet – and what sounds there are get amplified. I hear crickets all around me, the shouts of local boys as they play football and the engine of a motorised dugout as it chugs away into the distance. It feels good just to be here – and it seems appropriate to close my journal right here; although I have a few days to go in Santiago before I fly back to Sydney.

After a restful afternoon nap yesterday, we went piranha fishing (I watched while the others fished). The boat ride itself was wonderful – it was early evening and the air was cool. We swung onto the Rio Napo and then dove into a narrow waterway, the Rio Negro – a river that was literally black because decaying leaves release tannin into the water. We were surrounded by dense foliage and overhanging trees and it was all very atmospheric. Everybody caught at least one piranha (the bait was raw meat and of course, they couldn’t resist that, poor things). We also had a rather stereotypical German (he was a tour guide who was here to see the ‘facilities’) – who caught half-a-dozen and said “Gut!” I figured he wasn’t giving instructions on how to clean the fish…

On our return, I got talking to one of the 'schoolbook' volunteers – who’d been doing this for 7 years. She had also worked with Rotary International on their polio programme so we got talking for a while. Looks like the school supplies programme is not targeting just bored college students who want this on their CV but seems to have a fairly broad spectrum of age and occupation. The main organiser was this big guy who worked at the Chicago zoo (discovered he worked in the accounts department – a bit of an anticlimax!). A local guide however told me that despite their good intentions, it was the same old story. The villagers didn’t send their children to school claiming they didn’t have school books – but though they now have no excuses, they still don’t want to send them to school!

After dinner, we went on another boatride through the dark tributaries of the Napo. We saw butterflies disguised as owls (guess what – they’re called owl butterflies), sleeping hummingbirds, spiders, bright green frogs and other tiny creatures – under a crescent moon and a sky lit up by stars. Just the experience itself was magical.

Woke up early this morning (so what’s new) and went for a walk up the canopy walkway. It’s a narrow rope (dacron actually) walkway about 100-120 feet above the ground – above most of the trees. The walkway itself is quite long and connects 8 trees – with an average length of 75-100m between trees. Its nice to see the jungle below – but was surprised we didn’t see (or hear) many animals. No sloths, no macaws, no toucans. I suppose the Amazon is about anacondas, frogs and spiders rather than other fauna…

We did go for another long boatride this afternoon (must say Iam getting addicted to them!). After navigating through dense overgrowth, we finally came onto a clearing which was basically a bright green bog. We spotted the hoatzin – locally known as the stink bird for obvious reasons. It’s a prehistoric bird – and its name is presumably the reason it hasn’t become extinct. The bogs around here are infested with anacondas and electric eels but we didn’t encounter any (much to the chagrin of the good German).