La Selva

Please see the Loopy Post for photo info.

It took 13 hours to get there- eight hours by night bus, 3 hours by dirt road, and 2 hours by boat but there I was in the middle of the Ecuadorian Jungle. To sum up the experience I would say it was seductive and enchanting.

Within 10 min. we were face to face with an anaconda, the snake that would make several appearances through out the next few days. Our first night we walked into a dense jungle and saw 12 -15 different kinds of spiders my favorite being the scorpion spider which was bigger than my hand and looked hungry for some of my skin. We spent the next few days running up and down the incredible maze of rivers, fresh water dolphins jumping in front of our boat, toucans and blue and yellow macaws flying overhead, monkeys jumping from tree to tree. I ate ants that tasted like lime, walked through a bog with leeches, fished for piranas, stood a foot away from a growling camin (like a crocodile but not as dangerous) and got so badly attacked by biting ants I almost stripped my pants off. (That is the seductive part)

The most incredible moments were when we took the canoes upstream about a mile and jumped in the water and floated back down. White and yellow butterflies would land on our head as huge blue ones (shown in the Mindo post) would float beside us. At night we would go to the lagoon to watch the sunset and float back with the stars above us and firefly's lighting our way. It was the first nights of my trip where I could tell I was at the center of the earth with the Southern Cross to my back and the Big Dipper ahead. There are few things that I have seen that are as terrifying and beautiful as the jungle at night. And that was it five days of petrifying, magical, unadulterated bliss.

***May we each have moments where our shadows unhinge and the world opens its electric, glittering secrets.***

For Pictures see: http://picasaweb.google.com/alliebird/LaSelvaBestOf