Although tired and a little sad to return to school and almost reality ( studying abroad is never really full reality), I am also very satisfied that I have officially traveled to all four geographical regions of Ecuador; the Highlands, the Coast, the Oriente and the Galapagos islands. The highland region includes all the cities and pueblos (villages) that reside in the Andes Mountains (Quito and Cuenca are included), which basically run down the center of Ecuador. The coastal region is the western coast of Ecuador, and the Oriente is the eastern region of Ecuador, which is the jungle of the Amazon River basin.

Since I have been to all regions now, I will make sure I include an entry about each region. Since I just returned from the Oriente not even 24 hours ago, I am going to write about it while my eyes are stilling seeing green, and my ears are still listening to the buzz of insects and birds and the random monkey cries.

My trip to the jungle was the first trip I planned by myself, and I traveled only with my boyfriend who came to visit from the U.S. So it was not only an adventure in the jungle but also an adventure traveling there. It was my first time using the public bus transportation, so I was very confused about how the bus system worked here.

To be honest, I have only been to the Greyhound bus station in Providence once, when I was very little, so I can't really compare the bus station in Rhode Island to the Ecuadorian bus stations. I have a feeling that things are run a little different here in Ecuador.

Bus tickets are sold like popcorn in the bus terminal, people yelling the times of their buses, signaling out the gringos and pulling them in all directions. Surrounding the ticket booths are little shops where people can buy snacks and magazines for the bus, and these people act in a similar fashion as the bus ticket venders — yelling and pulling. As beginners in the Terminal Terrestre we had no idea where to go, and as we would look around, venders from all directions holler at us, or try to lead us places we did not want to go.

As a side note, I would just like to describe what we must have looked like going through this terminal. First, I was carrying my daypack, wearing flip- flops and sunglasses (it was pouring rain). But, my boyfriend definitely wins the prize for sticking out the most. At 6 ft. 3 inches, he towered over every Ecuadorian, rolling his black suitcase, and bumping into people through the construction of the hardly cemented floors of the terminal. The only thing he had going for him was the soccer jersey he wore.

Although frazzled and very confused, we made it onto a bus and we embarked on our six-hour bus ride to the city of Tena, where we would stay for a night before we made it to our lodge.

A word of advice when taking public bus transportation into the jungle of Ecuador: Do not drink anything for at least twelve hours before getting on the bus. Four hours of unpaved bumpy roads are bound to make anyone have to use the restroom. There are no bathrooms on the bus either. We had to ask the bus driver to pull over before tears rolled down my face.

At around eleven p.m., we finally arrived and stopped at a hostel called Hostal Traveling Lodge. We cleaned up, dropped our bags, had a cerveza Pilsner (Ecuadorian beer) and then passed out. The next morning we woke up to take the 8 a.m. bus out of Tena to Puerto Barantillo, the closest bus stop to our lodge. We trekked and rolled through the small city of Tena to reach the bus terminal.

We rode deeper and deeper into the jungle. All we saw was green, with an occasional house or soccer field. After about an hour and a half we reached our destination -- a sign and a small dirt path.

We met another fellow North American from California who had been backpacking through Ecuador for two months. Seeing him gave us some comfort to know that this place really did exist, until we walked about 500 ft and realized there was a river, but no lodge and no road to get there. He had read in Lonely Planet that is was a 2 km hike to Liana Lodge, and we really did not know what was going on. We saw a canoe, so I found a motorist in a nearby house, and also found out that our lodge was down the river. Just as we were about to get into the canoe, we heard another canoe coming up river, and sure enough it was the canoe of Liana Lodge.

We jumped in and sped down the rio to our lodge. On the way we saw men fishing and little kids playing on the bank river who all stopped what they were doing to wave at us.

We got to our lodge and we only knew we were there because there was a little wooden sign that read “Liana Lodge.” A French woman who was the receptionist at the lodge greeted us. She led us to the main dining room, which is decorated appropriately for the jungle. It was a giant, round bungalow with carved wooden animals as seats and tables made of what looked liked misshaped tree shavings. There was a place for a fire, and the animal chairs and couches surrounded the fireplace.

The circle bungalow was shaped much like a carousel, with designed railings made of sticks and instead of a cutout for a pole and all the machinery of a carousel there is a spot for trees to grow and a little circular river outlining the trees.

We were welcomed with an authentic tea of the Quechua tribe who live in that region of the Oriente. After tea, we were directed to our bungalow. We climbed a stone path that was lined with giant leaves, trees and beautiful flowers of the jungle until we reached number 5.2, our bungalow. Covered with mosquito netting and a nicely thatched palm tree roof, our bungalow looked like a perfect home for the jungle, and it really was!

There was no electricity in the jungle, and no hot water. There was a generator in the kitchen but others weren’t allowed to use any of its power.

Officially in the jungle, we started Day 1:
Day 1 consisted of a visit to a local Quechua tribe, we were taught how to use a sirvelleta de Guerra (a war weapon). The sirvelleta was a hollow tube made from a certain type of tree, The "bullets" were small sticks with cotton on the end of them. The cotton was used the make sure the small stick did not slip out so easily. They would take the venom of a serpent and put the venom on the small stick, then put the small stick with venom and cotton in the hollow sirvelleta. Then they would simply aim and blow. Once the victim was hit with the venom it would only be minutes till it felt the venom and no more than two hours for it to die.

We also tried a typical drink of the Quechuas, a chichi de yucca. Yucca is a vegetable similar in taste to a potato. A yucca would be cooked, mashed and then fermented for at least 2 days, sometimes more depending on the strength of the drink. The woman of the household spits in the drink. Luckily I did not know that before I tried it.

After we returned from the visit to the Quechua home, we went to our bungalow and the sounds of the jungle made us fall asleep until dinner. Without electricity, dinner was a romantic candlelight dinner for my boyfriend and me. After dinner, there was not much to do but sit by the fire and chat with the others at the lodge, but communication was difficult because the others spoke German and French, which led to an early night's sleep.

Day 2 we woke up for breakfast at 8 a.m., and by 9 we started our long day in the jungle. We hiked for three hours up rigorous paths of mud until we reached Rio Rodriguez, a clear blue river in the middle of the jungle. We tried to swim a little, but I have this weird phobia about the bottoms of rivers -- the feeling of the mud scares me. So we just sat on rocks and ate a lunch packed by the lodge. They had cooked macaroni salad for us and instead of plates, we ate it on giant leaves!

After Rio Rodriguez we hiked for another hour and a half until we reached the Amazoonico, a non-profit rescue center for animals run by volunteers from all over the world. The animals there are either being protected from the locals who hunt them, or found in random places in Ecuador or they are animals that people tried to domesticate and failed. They have ocelots, monkeys, snakes and more.
Some animals are kept in cages for protection. Most are encaged because they have had too much human contact and would not survive in the wild. One male spider monkey was let free for a while until the volunteers realized that he was the culprit oin more than thirty animal deaths -- he was actual a serial killer. Now he is kept far away in his own cage, and is never to be let out.

The Amazoonico has a policy that they will never put down a healthy animal; therefore the monkey will be in captivity until death.

After the Amazoonico we returned to the lodge by canoe. Completely exhausted from our long day of hiking we took a nap until dinner, and then shared our last romantic candlelight dinner in the jungle.
Day 3: We woke up early for breakfast and we were on a bus by 8 a.m back to the Tena. From Tena we caught a bus back to Quito where we officially concluded our jungle tour.
Now I am back here in Cuenca, and the clean fresh air and peaceful sounds of the jungle have been replaced by polluted air and loud, honking horns of the city. Feeling nostalgic, I can only hope to return to another jungle someday.