The Amazon

Hola 

The last four days have I spent in the amazon, and it was amazing!
Amazing nature, incredible animals, sun burned cheeks and countless mosquito bites.
I couldn't be happier.

It was one of the rotary trips. We are divided into different groups, I was in group number 2. We were divided randomly, but I was in a good group with some of my really good friends here.
We stayed at Sacha Lodge. Sacha is the Quichua Indian word meaning forest.
It is the most beautiful place on earth! The lodge is build on a isolated black lagoon called Pilchicocha.

Friday: 
Actually it all started out really bad. I woke up by my chairman ringing asking where I was because they (Lucas, Arnetta and our driver) was waiting for me. I had set my alarm to 5:30 pm and not am. Well luckily I'm fast and everything was already ready, so I just jumped out of the bed and took off. Then half way to Quito Lucas realized he didn't have his passport and back to Ibarra we went! We almost didn't caught the plane...
After a 30 min. flight we were in Coca. The moment we stepped out of the plane, we got hid by a very hot wind. You haven't tried hot weather until you have visited The Amazon! Damn...
We had a quick lunch and then off we went to the town docks where we took a private canoe for two hours down a huge river. Then a 30 minutes hike through the rainforest that lead us to the black lagoon. From there a native workers paddled us across the lake to Sacha Lodge.

The first boat tour.

The hike

We saw some pretty bad ass insects

He is doing all the work

The water is black, so creepy

Right after we arrived Nanna and me already saw our first animal, a something I don't know, but it was really cute! We got so excited that we jumped in to the rainforest, and scared him away. We called him Henry, because we saw him more then once, but unfortunately Henry doesn't like pictures. Then we got divided into groups of six people with private tour guides, we had those groups every time we went to see something.
Later dinner. The food was really good.
At 8 pm my group had a night walk in the rainforest. So many scary and beautiful animals at the same time. I was the only one who had my own flashlight and I'm very thankful for that! We were screaming a lot, the rainforest at night with spiders and snakes can be pretty creepy.

Tarantula 

Bad picture, but it was a pretty cool snake

That snake was hiding... 

 This is just some of the many animals we saw that night...

Saturday:
6 am and we were ready to go. Nanna and me were so stupid to take boots, long pants and two pairs of socks on in 30 degrees - Well that was a long and hot morning.
The morning tour we all went together, first we took the big boat out to a place with green parrots. They were to fare away to take pictures of, but seen through a binoculars it was perfect. They were so pretty! After that we went to see a village. They danced for us, told us about their life, and we drank some awful things, they drink every day.

Dance

Dance

We got invited to dance with them 

It tasted like bitter tea 

That was awful!!

After that we went home to eat lunch and Nanna and me could finally change clothes. We had some time off on till the next jungle adventure.
Nanna, Ida, Sofie and me (the danish girls) went to the butterfly house. It was amazing, so many beautiful colors. There was also a tarantula...

And then we saw some monkeys...

Nanna and me went down to lake and we saw something in the water, so we wanted to throw something in the water so it would move and we could see what... But when Nanna went down to take a piece of wood floating in the water a big animal moved and almost bit her finger off... We never saw what it really was, but it was big and quite scary. But now we are just laughing at it! 

Even though we knew there was something in the water we still decided to take a swim in the lake. It was so weird, you could feel the fish, but because the water is black you can't see any thing... 

At 4 pm we went on a another tour. First we saw three owls, and then the jungle from the top of a tower that was 50 meters over the ground. It was so pretty and there was jungle everywhere.

Later dinner.

And then at 8 pm my group went canoeing to see crocodiles. It was quite scary, Nanna and me were in the front of the canoe and it was totally dark. We didn't sail on the lagoon, we sailed in small creeks. While we were sailing, I had my flashlight pointed down so I could see what was in the water. So I didn't noticed a vine hanging from a tree and when it hid my in the head, I got so scared that I hid Nanna with my flashlight in the head - I'm sorry Nanna! 

  

We only saw one crocodile. We could only see the head, but it was big about the size of my underarm with my hand... It lay by a tree surrounded by rushes. Our guide had sailed the boat in so Nanna and me were right in front of it (5 meters away)...

I was sitting with my flashlight looking at it and Nanna asked if we could point the flashlight to her side of the boat (away from the crocodile) so I did it fast, but there was nothing. So I said that I preferred pointing the flashlight at the giant thing that could eat us. But the second I pointed the flashlight at the crocodile again it disappeared under the water, the whole tree moved and we could see the rings in the water coming closer. Our guide have never paddled that fast. While he paddled away he told us that sometimes crocodiles don't attack because they are hungry, but because they need to show off...
I don't know how to describe what went through my head when that crocodile disappeared and came closer, but now I think it's pretty cool!

Sunday: 

Sunday morning we went to a tree tower it was 32 meters over the ground and the view was stunning. We spent a lot of time there, just looking at the view and taking pictures... 

When we came home we were a little bit bored Nanna and me, and there was this fruit on one of the trees that we had been arguing about. I through it was a watermelon and Nanna through it was a pomelo, so we decided to borrow it and take a look... We had a plan and everything, but one of the staff members saw us running with it and every time he saw us he just started laughing at us.

Unfortunately it turned out to be noon of the fruits we through it was. Well we tried...

That afternoon we went on a hike in the rainforest and our guide told us about the different plants and how to use them. We also got to swing in vines, that was really funny. I really lived the Tarzan dream, specially when I swung in to a tree? I don't know how i did it because the tree was standing to the left side and the there was plenty of space to swing back and forth, but all the suddenly I just smashed in to the tree. It really hurt, but I was to busy laughing that I first realized later... 

It was grill night, so we had a big and really good meal. 

Monday:

Time to get home!

It was an amazing trip and I was really sad when we had to leave, mostly because I had to say goodbye to the other exchange students...

I think that was all...

Love