From Saturday, 5/13 to Tuesday, 5/16, we ventured into the depths of The Amazon Rainforest to stay with one of the many indigenous tribes called the Waoranis. In order to get there, we had to take a 6-hour motorized canoe ride through the rainforest. It was definitely as awesome as it sounds, both the way there and back.

At 9:30am on Saturday, we took a one hour bus ride from our lodge to the part on the river where some of the tribe was waiting for us in the canoes. They were wearing normal clothes and spoke Spanish, even though we were told that the tribe spoke their own language. They even had a few little kids working and they were awesome at their jobs. We got into three large motorized canoes, one had a hole in it so it was constantly leaking and they had to use a cut-in-half water bottle to scoop the water out. The boats were very muddy but we were wearing boots so we didn’t mind.

We left at 10:30, and I couldn’t believe where I was. The entire time we were surrounded by lush forests and lots of bugs and animals. We saw a bunch of parrots flying overhead, some hawks, 2 beautiful blue and yellow macaws, turtles, toucans, and even some small spider monkeys swinging through the trees. Skip gave me his pair of Snapchat glasses called Specs that have cameras built-in, and I used them the entire way which was a lot of fun. We passed a bunch of indigenous people along the way, and they stared at us and waved. We were very entertaining.

The entire ride I sat on the front of the boat on the edge and had a blast the whole way. A bunch of people fell asleep but I was entertained the entire time. I would stick my hands and feet in the water, and even my head when we stopped. At one point when we were refueling, I got out of the boat and was surprised when the middle of the river was only about knee-deep, with a very rocky bottom. The water felt really nice and warm. 

We stopped halfway to eat lunch, and the point where we stopped at was actually the tribe that last year’s group stayed with. We stopped on their beach and hung out playing catch with apples, and the entire time they were just watching us, heavily amused. We waved and the kids ran away in embarrassment. 

For the way back, we woke up at 7am on Tuesday for an early breakfast and to be picked up by the boats at 8. We said our goodbyes and thank you’s to the tribe and Todd, who was staying behind, and boarded the boats. I got one of the smaller boats with John, Skip Olivia and Izzy.

I was super excited to be on the boat ride with Skip, and it was definitely worth it. We talked for hours about the trip so far and all of our thoughts about it, and it was cool reliving it through his eyes. He told us more of his awesome stories that he seems to have endless amounts of. I told him he should start a podcast. Every time we saw a bird or butterfly, he would immediately tell us exactly which species it was and point it out in his birds of Ecuador book, and let us look at it with his binoculars. The boat driver stopped whenever we saw something cool so that we could take time to admire it and hear its call. We saw some pretty cool toucans, swallows,  hawks and eagles, vultures, guans, bright colorful butterflies, and even a group of squirrel monkeys swinging from the trees. I bet I would’ve missed a lot of it if I wasn’t with Skip. 

The first couple of hours was pretty cloudy, which was nice because we weren’t burning in the sun, but then it started to rain. What started as a drizzle eventually turned into downpour, and we were all soaked. We had to keep scooping water out of the boats with the cut water bottles. We were slightly outrunning it, but every time we got out of it we’d end up stopping to refuel or for lunch and we’d be back in the depths of it. Although annoying having boots and bags full of water, it was kinda cool to finally be experiencing some actual rain in a rainforest. 

It’s a 70 mile trip, about 6-7 hours depending on the current (we were heading upstream going back). Skip was tracking the time and distance on his watch so we knew where we were. He also said his watch has a GPS tracker that will show him the route we took on a map, which I hope he sends to me. It stopped raining in the last hour so we were all in better moods. To pass the time, we started singing some songs while John and I pounded on some coolers as drums. That was a lot of fun.