Amazon Woman: Take Two

Last weekend I headed off to my most expensive planned trip thus far; the Amazon rain-forest. The college here has a biodiversity research station there called Tiputini, only students and researches can visit so this was a chance of a life time. The total was $450 for everything, transportation, food, and guided hikes for 4 days and 3 nights. We started off our trip by waking up at 4am to catch a taxi to the bus station for our 30 min flight at 7. After the flight we took a 5 min bus to a canoe in the city of Coca. The canoe was about 2 hours to another bus for 2 more hours and finally one last 3 hour canoe ride to the station. After taking our 3 modes of transportation we arrived around 4pm and listened to out orientation talk and found our rooms. After sitting all day Shanna, Whitney, and I walked around camp. Dinner was at 7 and after the amazing food was devoured we went to bed.

The special things about Tiputini:

• It is in the middle of no-where
• There is only electricity from 10-1am and 6-9:30 pm, all other times we had to use candles
• Breakfast is at 6:30am, Lunch is at 12, and Dinner is at 7, every day
• There is only cold water, that they take from the Tiputini river, treat it to make it safe for drinking and usage and then return it back to the river after treatment again, because of this we had to use special soap for showers
• It is very hot and very humid
• It rains a minimum of 2 times a day
• The bugs are huge, and my bugs I mean spiders 
• With camera traps they have captured images of Pumas, Ocelots, and other cat species
• When we could, we kept our cameras, ipods, phones, and other sensitive equipment in "dry boxes". This was because the humidity would eventually ruin and break the electronics. 

Saturday we woke up nice and early with our candle light and headed to breakfast and a hike to follow at 7:30. It was pouring rain in the morning and we tried to wait it out but we just ended up hiking in the rain. We walked to a lagoon, took a small canoe around the lagoon and then hiked back to camp stopping to chase monkeys off the path and look at interesting ants and plants. The hike lasted until 12 when we ate lunch and headed back to our cabins for a nap until our next hike at 2:30. This hike we climbed up to a platform high above the trees to see what we could find. Our group stayed there for about an hour searching. We saw some cool butterflies and mostly just took in the view. Dinner was served at 7 followed by a presentation of their research with the camera traps and what they've learned about the animals there. After this the electricity was out and we decided it would just be better to go to bed.

On Sunday we took a hike to some rope bridges high above the canopy. Even though we didn't see much it was still amazing just to be so high and to be able to see everything. There were 3 platform and also a ladder that went even higher to another platform. The view was amazing and the bugs were terrible. For our second hike that day we did not go on a hike, we went on a boat ride and got to go into the Tiputini River and float on our own. We let the current take us as the boat followed. After about an hour we all got back in and headed back to camp to dinner and another presentation on the monkeys living in the area. The river we floated in also holds piranhas and caiman (a type of alligator), but because of the high river level and the fact that no one was bleeding to attract their attention, nothing happened and we all got back in one piece. That night around 8 we took an hour night hike and got to see all the creatures that came out at night. We saw lots of huge spiders and I even found a scorpion. Half way through we stopped, turned off all our lights, and stood there for one min. During this time we could hear all the animals stirring about and see nothing, not even your own hand in front of your face, it was that dark.

Monday was spend traveling again and we stopped at an indigenous village for about 20 min to hear the sing and do a little dance. After taking our three modes of transportation again we got home around 9 and then I had to do homework, check in with some Facebook time, and clean up my rotting pineapple.