The Amazon

We just returned from 5 days and 4 nights in the Amazing Amazon rainforest. It was so beautiful, peaceful, full of life, death and more. Where to begin. We started our journey by a 7 hour bus ride to a small town La Csacade, outside of Lago Agrio ( named after Sour Laké, Texas by the oil workers who live and frequent there.)
La Cascade was a beautiful village with friendly people. We played at the park on Zip lines and Noelle and Mary played soccer with the local boys. The next morning we woke at 5:30 to take a trip to the second longest foot suspension bridge in Ecuador. We arrived just in time to watch a bus being loaded to a small barge to be transported across the river. Some boards slipped on the barge and wow what a mess. While Chris, Noelle, Vienna and Mary crossed the bridge Treava and I took pictures and watched the bus. When we left 1 1/2 hour later the bus was still stuck. I am always so impressed by the patience of the people here who just sat and enjoyed the river bank while they waited for their bus. We returned to our hostal ate a quick breakfast and were off to catch a bus to Lago argrio.
The bus arrived and was full so we got our first fantastic Chiva bus ride into the jungle. It is an open air bus and when it´s full you sit on top. So up the 6 of us gringos climbed and held on for dear life. After a while our fears subsided and we enjoyed the spectator view until.... we had to stop at a military stop point. Ecuadors first largest income producer is oil and all of it is coming from the amazon. They guard it like the liquid gold it is but have standards so low environmentally to control the production it is scary. We saw the pipeline that runs from the rainforest to the coast running alongside the road. A car wreck would have produced a large spill. In many of places the pipeline was supported by pallets or other makeshift stands. Pools of oil were not uncommon to see along the pipeline. Anyhow we all had to climb down go through a check point have our bags rifled through and our passport numbers recorded. A half an hour later we climbed back a board and were off to enjoy the beautiful ride occassionally mared by oil production.
I liked what Treava said as we climbed aboard the Chiva bus "You know mom lots of things here in Ecuador are scary at first when we go to do them but just after 1 minute they are lots of fun."
I´ll continue tomarrow as I need to get the kids to bed. Love ya lisa