My 2 day jungle tour

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This morning I met up with the couple I was going on the two day jungle tour with. They are from the Chezk Republic. And knowing my luck on this trip, 15 minutes before we were supposed to head out I go to clean ym glasses and the lense and screw on one side pop out.. I caught the lesnt but the screw definatley had to bounce right dead centre into the sewer grate.. GREAT!! So I frantically run up to the only two optical stores in town and what do you know.. closed.. So luckily my tour guide had a paper clip that was strong enough to wrap around the hole and keep th lense in place. So far so good! So we took the 1 hour bus ride to the gas station whwere we waled for about half an hour or so until we reached the resort on the river we would stay at for the two days. We were shown to our cabins then headed out right away for a two hour walk in the jungle. We were shown many cool species of trees and vines. There is a tree called the walking tree or ironwood tree that has its roots above bround in a multiplied tripod shape. The roots constantly change and hencly the tree can move up to half a meter each year. Our guide also hacked away at the trunk for about a minute straight and when he was finished you could barely see that he had been attacking it. A little bark missing but nearly no damage done to the wood. This trees is mainly used for the poison dart blow guns. The later on he cut a couple leaves from a palm tree and showed us how they make baskets to carry foor or supplies through the jungle. We werent fortunate enough to see any animals except for the largest butterfly I have ever seen. We returned to the cabin and had lunch and after we took the long canoe down river to go visit the Amazoonica wildlife project. But onthe way I was poking around in my thoughts and I still find it hard to fathom the idea of me being in the Amazon. I have played games, read books and heard stoires of the wonders of the Amazon but never in my life would I have imagined that I would be here, living part of those stories and in a sense, being those characters and people in the games and books. I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt that this moment will stick with me for the rest of my life.

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So once we got to Amizoonico we were told that, here they take in abanoed exotic animals that were kept illegally as pets and try to re-integrate them back into the wild. Most are too dependant and comfortable with humans to be released into the wild so they are kep in cages in their natural habitat rather then let loose to surely die or pradators or starvation. There were spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, furry monkeys, ocelots, mckaws, jungle parrots, and many more species of animals. i cold really see myself coming back her and volunterring here for a month or so. The next day we went down river a bit and then went for antoerh jungle walk. This time we were showed the vine that they use to make comperable poison to that of the poisoned dart frog. Danielle our guide, he cut a piece of the vine off and told me to put it on my tongue. As soon as I did that part of my tongue started to tingle then instantly went numb. I would have to encounter a pissed off native with a dart like that. apparently they concentrate it to about 200% stronger. The reinse all the risign off the plant with 3 litre of water and then boild the water down until it is about 2 cups or so. By then it is really sticky and they dip the darts into once and they are lethal from that point on. This particular poison attacks the central nervous system shutting down most brain function. It is not a cardiac  arrest, it attacks the nerves that control breathing so it is more of an asfixiation than anything else. Anyhow pretty scary stuff.

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After about 2 hours of walking we returned to the lodge and returned back to town by the bus on which we came. I will realy miss the oriente and can honestly say I will be spending a month or two here when I do in fact return. Who knows when that will be but I will be back.