Welcome to the jungle

After more than a week on high altitude it was about time to descend and to realize we were, in fact, in the tropics. Tena is a small town in the Ecuadorian Amazon, with the jungle lodges of Shangri-La not far outside.As the heavy rains of the rainforest poured down upon us, we embarked on a jungle trek under the guidance of local cichuan boy Pedro, Cichua being the local people in the region. Pretty much every tree, bush and root in the forest has multiple purposes, such as for eating, medicinal, keeping the mozzies at bay and as fishing aid. And ate we did. Ants that tasted like lime, termites that did not and thick larvae went down the hatch as if eating bugs was the most natural thing in the world.The day after we went back to jungle. Although the rain had had stopped, we would not remain dry for long. The idea was to climb waterfalls, and that we did. Alaskan girl Bonnie joined us for the day, and since she had no dry-sack I offered to put her camera in mine. As I reached the top of the second waterfall, the buckle became undone and down went dry-sack, with two cameras and all. The scare lasted a couple of minutes; it had landed softly in the water, and had not opened. Both cameras suvived the fall, and on we trekked.There was a natural pool with a just as natural waterslide not far from our lunch spot. We spent hours in the refreshing waters, jumping off cliffs and being carried by the stream. Good fun was had by all, but eventually we had to head back. It was my birthday, and totally just for that reason this was the day of the traditional Fiesta del Selba, Party of the Jungle.Most of us dressed up in nothing but underwear and banana leaves and started drinking the local jungle spirits. As it was my birthday, not only did we get to have cake and sing ”Happy Birthday” and ”Ja Må Han Leva”, but as the local tradition has it, I had to get whipped 36 times. Which I was. And how we laughed.