Last week our group left for the Amazon on Sunday, July 20^th on a flight from Quito to Coca and then got on a motorized canoe from Coca up the Napo River to the Yachana Lodge near the community of Mondana. It was a two and a half hour canoe ride with sights of people in dugout canoes and the edge of the rainforest. We arrived at the lodge and were given hot towels and fresh grapefruit juice. After unpacking our backpacks in our cabins, we took a walk through the jungle with our guide, Juan. He showed us the plant used to make panama hats as well as the palm used to weave hammocks. He also found a poison dart frog whose poison is used on the tips of blowgun darts. At a lookout point, there was a large hole in the ground and excrement from a 1 meter long earthworm. The food at the lodge was excellent- we had soup and chicken curry for dinner. After dinner, we went back to our rooms to take advantage of the electricity from the generator that ran from 6-10pm.

On Monday morning, we started off with a canoe trip across the river to a primary growth forest. We walked through a farming area, which looks very different than traditional American farms as the banana, plantain, coffee, and cacao trees are planted among native growth. We tasted the flesh that grows around a cacao seed (chocolate) and it was very sweet. After trekking though lots of mud (the lodge provided gum boots), we encountered katydids, frogs, millipedes, and toucans. Juan showed us a dragon’s blood tree that has blood red sap used for medicinal purposes as well as a Clarissa tree that produces super sticky sap that hardens over time and is used to glaze ceramics. We found a jaguar footprint fresh in the mud! After lunch, we went to a healer’s house where I received a cleansing ceremony involving tobacco smoke and dusting with leaves. We practiced our blowgun skills in their yard as well as spear throwing.

Tuesday was an interesting day as we toured the Yachana Technical High School campus and working farm. It is a boarding school where the teachers live in the same lodging as the students. The students work on the farm in the morning with many innovative techniques such as collecting pig excrement and using the methane gas produced as a source of power. In the afternoons, the students take classes such as English, computers, and math. The computer lab was fascinating as they have to have computers that are durable and do not break down in high humidity. The computers are tiny with 8 GB of removable hard drive space. There are no moving parts and flat screen monitors that hold up in the environment. The school has wireless internet capabilities. Unfortunately, we were only able to meet a few of the students as they are on summer break and a couple of boys were around completing summer internships at the lodge. They were hard working kids trying to learn skills that will give them more choices in life and skills that they can bring back to their rural communities. We had a cooking demonstration with our lunch that included wrapping tilapia in banana leaves and cooking it over the fire as well as fried yuca and boiled stinging nettle. The highlight, of course, was the grubs! They are a very fatty larva that tastes like bacon when cooked. The heads get especially crunchy when cooked and do not have an unpleasant texture. I enjoyed trying them, but would not suggest that they go on any menus. After eating, we had a “behind the scenes” tour of the lodge and how it runs. They have their own wood and metal shops because most items have to be produced on sight. There is a large recycling effort that includes composting, feeding food waste to pigs, crushing glass to be mixed with concrete, and burning paper waste. We were also offered a tour of the local clinic where two recent medical school graduates, Maria Fernanda and Victor Hugo are working as a year long rural assignment. The clinic is open 7 days a week and they work 22 days a month with one other doctor to cover all of the hours. Besides their hours in the clinic, they also each visit several rural communities once a month in the jungle. All of the care and medication that they provide is free through a government sponsored program. They have formula and vitamin drinks that any family can come and get once a month. One of the major health problems in the area is malnutrition and underweight children so they educate parents on proper nutrition and dietary needs as well as expecting mothers.

Tomorrow, I will post narrative about the rest of the week. Check back soon!