The Adventures of Kerri & Matt

Monday night there was a cultural night where we got to see the traditional clothing and dance.

They made a giant bonfire near the river.

Then they danced in front of it.

There was lots of dancing.

While the fire burned lower.

And lower.

And lower.

Near the end they did the limbo. The guy with the guitar was surprisingly good at limboing while playing.

Today we grabbed some inner tubes and set off down the Napo River for Peru. The Napo river is a major tributary to the Amazon.

Unfortunately we did not make it to Peru by dinner time, so the canoe picked us up to take us back to the lodge.

In the morning we set off in the canoe to start our hike.

It was a fairly smooth ride except for a few sharp turns.

This is the town where we stopped to pick up rubber boots.

Above the trees was a layer of fog in the morning.

The Napo river is quite wide.

This is Matt on the path through the forest.

Here he his again.

This is a killer tree. Its seeds are carried by birds, who deposit them on the tops of other trees. Then it grows from the top down, wrapping itself around the existing tree.

Eventually it reaches the ground and grows its own buttress roots. Then it smothers out the tree inside, leaving it to rot, like this one.

These little lizards were having a fight over territory during our walk. They were on the ground hidden by bushes, then suddenly (and loudly) chased each other up the tree near our group, terrifying everyone.

Then they sat at the top of the tree doing pushups  to intimidate each other.

They also showed off their bright red neck pouches.

This is our guide, Haviar, weaving together palm leaves.

Afterward he cuts apart the stem.

This can be used as  a blind for hunting animals with a blowgun.

You can also put multiple ones together to make a mattress if you are in the forest at night.

This is a walking palm tree. It has no main root. If there is a sunnier spot near it, it will grow a new root in that direction and abandon some old ones to slowly creep toward the open space.

This is a giant ant nest.

The locals cover their arms in the little ants and then smear them into their skin as a bug repellent and to smell nice.It smells kind of spicy.

This tree has bright red sap.

This is a termite nest. The locals smear these on their skin too. It smells different and is a better insect repellent than the ants.

This tree was celebrating Carnival.

These are lemon ant pods. The ants live inside the plant and produce formic acid which repels other insects from eating the plant. In return the plant gives the ants a home.

If you break the pods open you can eat the ants inside. They taste lemony due to the acid.

This is a big wasp nest. The wasps are not aggressive like the ones we have at home.

This is a small wasp nest. Our guide found it and it looked like some kind of fruit. Then he showed us the hole and there was a cute little wasp head sticking out trying to figure out what was going on. Then the other guide broke it in half and the wasps flew away.

This is a little waterfall at the end of our hike near the river.

In the park in the town we got to see some nearly wild monkeys. They come to the town because they know the tourists will feed them. They had a baby who was super cute.