Welcome to the jungle : )

Posted on October 8th, 2006 by Jess.
Categories: South America.

The place we’re staying in for the next two weeks (Chichico Rumi) is possibly the coolest place imaginable. The Rainforest is picture postcard beautiful and we’re still half expecting to bump into David Attenborough or Michael Palin and their accompanying film crew at some point! We’ve been temporarily adopted by the most welcoming indigenous family who have loads of exotic pets and children running rampage throughout the day.

As well as maintaining the land as an educational spot to teach tourists and fellow Ecuadorians the fast-dying native traditions, the family are also striving to create a small nature reserve, which currently comprises a caiman (mini crocodile), two terrapins, a mini monkey, a baby owl, wild boar, two chickens, two dogs and dozens of hallucinogenic plants in their ‘medicinal garden’ (which we’re definitely hoping to sample).
We did actually arrive with a gift of two baby chicks to add to the animal empire, but sadly one died on the first day from a mystery sickness and the other rather unfortunately was trodden on by one of the volunteers ending in a rather messy head explosion.

We’ve been helping the family thatch roofs, lug canoe loads of heavy rocks (I’m still not entirely sure why), harvest ginormous palm leaves and build bamboo bedding… we’re complete beef cakes in the making. There’s also plenty of time to play though and we’re enjoying daily splashes in the Amazon, and kick arounds with the locals. They’ve been so kind to us since our arrival and despite the language barrier always have a joke to share (cue lots of confused smiles all round!) The grandmother of the family treats us exactly like the rest of her brood, whipping out homemade ointments and potions at the merest mention of illness! One of our crew came down with the runs this week and was ushered off at regular intervals to sit in an incense fume filled hut and be wafted with leaves!
It was my birthday yesterday and probably the best one to date. The other volunteers had organised a cake and mostly food-related prezzies wrapped in banana leaves…it was quite a breakfast spectacle! I was bestowed with handcrafted jewellery and decorated with tribal patterns on my face using the natural paint from a bizarre prickly plant grown in the medicinal garden!
We worked a bit in the morning but then visited a stunning waterfall in the afternoon (although I nearly killed myself a number of times on the treacherous trek there). By coincidence they were also holding a big fiesta in the main village in aid of forthcoming elections, so we gatecrashed that and showed them how to party Brit stylee…oh how the tequila and embarrassing salsa moves did flow! The whole Leap team is utterly embracing the jungle filth and I have apparently already gained myself a not-so-secret nickname of sweaty…to be expected I suppose. This is however probably doing little in my favour to woo some of the hot local men, although the fact that they are generally less than half my size doesn’t do much for the cause either!
Can’t quite believe we’ve only been here one week, it feels like so much longer but we’re both really excited about the rest of our time here, possibly helping in the local school and with the elusive piranha…although we may have our work cut out with the current brood of animals!!

Keep you posted! xx

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