In the Jüngle

Early in the morning we boarded the plane to Bogota, since there was no direct connection we had to fly over Bogota with a 5 hour layover there. Yes it was a lot of time, but we were prepared to read or listen to podcasts or audiobooks. Also I had the job to organise new cash, we needed to pay the jungle tour we had booked in Leticia. Paying by credit card would have been a significant amount more expensive. But since we can not so easily withdraw money from an ATM, I had to go to the next Western Union in the Bogota Airport, which should not be soooo difficult. I just asked the information counter, they showed me where the Western union is and I waited in line…. After 10 min the lovely lady at the counter told me that I cannot withdraw with her, but I had to ask at the next counter, which I did. Another 15 min later, the other lady told me, that I can’t withdraw money at all at the Western Union. I looked at the lady at the other counter, since she had just told me that I CAN withdraw money here, but she suddenly forgot everything she just said 15 min ago. That was pretty easy and clear Spanish, there was not „lost in translation“ here. There were just two workers behind a desk that did not give a f***. And yes, maybe it is just like that in South America and I should just take it with ease by now, but at this point I was done with it. I had enough of not being able to organise a single thing because of people do not want to do their job. I let everyone know at that point how done I was with being ripped off or ignored here, of course it did not help and I did not achieve my goal, but at least I could get some steam off. So I took an Uber (which was illegal in Bogota, so I had to walk further away from the airport) to the next Western Union counter. Here, 20 min away from the airport, everyone was really friendly and interested and I could exchange and withdraw money without any problem…. Linda and me celebrated the big pile of cash with a nice lunch and „Crepes y Waffles“, which is a very famous restaurant chain in Colombia, where you can get any kind of … crepes and waffles, even vegan versions are on the menu. Somehow the Colombians love it, and we both could understand that because our crepes were really delicious.

After arrival in Leticia, we had an accommodation for one night. Luckily we got a taxi because the rainforest was already true to its name and it was pouring rain. At the accommodation we were greeted by a very friendly and borderline crazy old woman that let us choose whichever room we wanted. We were happy to be almost dry and have a bed and a warm shower. 

Next morning we were picked up by a tuktuk driver that drove us to the office of the agency of the jungle tour we had booked and our luggage just barely fit in the small vehicle. Once again we found out that we did not go with the agency we had actually booked but were forwarded to another agency…. Let’s see if this time things work out better than in Huaraz, Peru.

At the agency we got rid of the majority of our cash, got rubber boots and repacked our backpacks and left the majority of the luggage at the agency. we also met Sebastian, a quiet and friendly french guy who booked the same tour as we did. Also we met Byron, our guide. He was a young Colombian guy with a huge grin on his face and always laughing. Together (Linda, Sebastian, Byron, me and the driver) we all squeezed in a tuktuk and drove about 45 min in the north to just suddenly stop and walk straight into the jungle. Sebastian and me each had to carry a plastic bag that was full with 6l fresh water. Byron explained every few meters a plant, and animal, something to eat (Linda was the first one to try a Termite directly from the tree and she said it was sweet and tasty.) or a medicine.  He did that with such an enthusiasm that it was hard to not be amazed. He explained everything in Spanish, which was fine for me, but I had to translate for Linda and Sebastian who also did not speak too much spanish so communication was improvised a lot. All the time it was raining a lot, so we were happy when we arrived after about two hours at the „Maloka“. The „Maloka“ is a huge round building of wood with a palm roof and just dirt as a floor. It used to be the center of a village, ceremonial place, cooking space and sleeping room at the same time. Each „function“ of the Maloka had a specific space and there is no electricity at all. In the „krichen area“ there was the only table and a small fire pit. Now the craziness began…. 

We were greeted by a group of a few middle aged and one older half naked man and went through a few ceremonial greeting rituals. First we got some „Mambe“ powder, which is a sacred product for the tribes of that area of the rainforest. It is a mixture of dried and milled coca leaves and the ash of another tree to counter the effect of the coca. You are supposed to just take the powder in your cheeks for hours and hours until it dissolves….or more likely until you shove more of that stuff in your mouth. More on that later. Additionally we got some liquid tobacco that we rubbed against our gum and most intensively the elder man blew some tobacco into our nostrils with a device that looked like the letter Y and was made of little hollow bones. By our reaction he could read if we were good or bad people. Luckily we all passed the test. He explained every action in detail, but it was really really hard to understand him. All the guys had their mouth full of Mambe and imagine someone that speaks to you in not your mother tongue with a strong accent and the mouth completely full. After some food we were suppose to produce our own Mambe, so we went outside in the rain, collected Coca leaves, dried them over the fire in a huge pan and milled them into fine dust in a huge wooden mortar. Each of this steps had specific reasons and indications which were all explained to us…. but I could only guess half of it, since the mouth of the guys that explained everything to us was always full of Mambe. After 3-4 hours our self produced Mambe was ready and we could try it in another ceremony and beside a very light caffeine like effect I did not feel a lot from the few spoons I took. Linda and Sebastian took even less, the other guys including Byron were stuffing their mouths full of it and were smoking some kind of cigarette at the same time. Also they wanted to explain us the history behind Mambe and I really tried to understand something but they spoke so unclear with their mouth full of the stuff that I did not understand anything at all. At this point Linda and Sebastian were in their hammocks already and I was sitting in the middle of the Maloka with the half naked shamans, high on a mixture of coca powder and shady cigarettes explaining me that they can transfer into a puma whenever they want. If I would have been at least drunk, but I had to listen to the absolute nonsense and did not want to be unfriendly…. I was so happy when Byron said that we would go for a night hike. But Byron himself was on the influence of Mambe and whatever they smoked before. So there we were…. Linda, Sebastian and me and a high half native in the middle of the night hunting for tarantulas in the rainforest of colombia. And Byron delivered: he found a lot of tarantulas caught them and let them walk over our hands. Also he showed us different frogs and bioluminescence fungi. It was a pretty cool night hike, before we went back to the Maloka. I was happy that no other ceremony followed and we could go directly to „bed“. Our bed were three hammocks on one side of the Maloka. It was freezing cold and the man were talking all night long. For sure one of the less pleasant nights of the trip. 

The next morning we woke up got coffee and breakfast from Byron and hiked the same way back we came. The tukzuk drive us to the harbour in Leticia where Byron handed us over to another guide by the name of Dimarco. He was a big funny dude and spoke as much english as Byron….close to none. Also a big Colombian family from Bogota and a young polish guy that lived in France joined the group. We crossed the Amazon river to the Peruvian side and started another hike. This part of the forrest was very muddy and there were a lot very slim wooden planks over the sometimes complete in water covered floor. I was really worried that someone would slip and fall of the slippery and wet planks and of course the only one who fell was me…. Slipping to right and my body being caught by the plank….I felt this one for a few days, but nothing was hurt seriously. After two hours we reached the shore of a lake and a boat took us all to the floating hostel on the Lago Piranha and here it began to be awesome. The Hostel was an actual floating island on the middle of the lake build on specific floating wooden logs. The room we had was cute and with a lake view and there were a lot of hammocks in the common area… and what Linda liked most were all the tiny bats that were hanging during the day time under the roof of the hostel. We got a really good lunch and yet another guide took us on a boat tour to look for the pink dolphins. After some searching we could actually spot one dolphin popping out of the water. It was not too close to the boat and on the distance it did not look to impressive. On the way back to the floating hostel we saw the sunset and we were floating over the water in darkness and could only see with our small head lamps. Sometimes you could see bats flying over the water and the sounds of the jungle at night were intriguing. The eyes of insects and other animals were reflecting heavily in the dim light of the lamps. One moment the guide asked us to switch off the lights and we were in complete darkness. He steered in boat in the high grass at the side and suddenly ran to the front and reached with his bare hands in the water. When we turned on the lights again he held up a 50cm long cayman, that he had just caught, which was pretty impressive. We were able to hold the little guy before we released him back into the dark water where he just disappeared. That was a really cool boat trip. A lot of those water ways cannot be used all year round since the water level of the Amazon and the connected rivers and lakes changes by almost 10 meter during a season.

The next morning we went on a fishing trip. I have absolutely no knowledge about fishing, but when the guide (you won’t believe it, but it was yet another guide) gave us just a few wooden sticks with a fishing line and hook at the end I knew that it would be different from the fishing that I had imagined. We drove until the end of the lake into calm water, he put a piece of fish meat on the hook and dropped the hook in the water. After not even ten seconds he pulled out a little fish. He cut it open and we used that one as bait for our fishing, which I will try to describe. You put the meat int the hook, just like the guide did, and than talke the rot and violently move it through the water to simulate an animal that fell from a tree in the water. Than you dop the hook in the water and wait. I kid you not, but you instantly feel someone pulling on the meat on the hook. I was somehow not able to pull a fish out of the water in the boat, but Linda managed to catch two pretty big piranhas with huge razor sharp teeth. I am happy that the guide removed the hook from their mouth, because after a while (Linda had caught two big Piranhas and Sebastian and me did not catch anything), the polish guy caught a small piranha and tried to remove the hook himself. Then I just heard a loud scream, and saw him holding his hand. The guide removed the hook and threw the fish back in the water, but the polish guy went pale and asked what to do. The Piranha had bitten a deep wound into his finger and we was bleeding. He flushed the wound with some water from the water bottle and was visible shook and uncomfortable…. our guide seem to see it differently. He just said he shall not complain, took his hand and dipped it into the muddy river water. We drove back to the floating hostel and the wound was treated properly…. Also we got to eat the two huge piranhas that Linda had caught and were surprised how good they tasted.

The next morning we hiked back to the amazon river (this time I did not fall, but I had to hold hands with the grandma of the Colombian family a few times, that she did not fall into the mud) and just Sebastian, Linda, the polish guy and me continued to another day. The Colombian family took a boat back to Leticia, while we continue onto a small community in the jungle on the Peruvian side. Since the water level was high enough the boat took us directly to the guesthouse. Sebastian, Linda and me took a refreshing bath in the river, while we could see and hear the parrots on the other side and see the neighbour kids playing with little caymans…. Where the are little caymans, the might be big ones as well, but we did not care and just enjoyed the refreshing bath in the heat of the day. DImarco, who was the guide that stayed with us, showed us around in the village and explained that they mainly live of the crops they sell. For example they had a lo of bananas and Guayabas, that you could eat direly of the tree. Linda ate at least five Guayabas on our half our walk and I can fully understand that, since they tasted so fresh. The full village was on their feet, playing soccer or volleyball. It was nice to see the active live of such a little community although it was clear that they also make money of the guesthouses with the tourists. With Dimarco we did another night hike and after 5 minutes he spotted in the water ahead of us a snake whose bite kills within 30min. He took a 5 meter detour to cross the pond at a different spot and these two steps through the water were my scariest one in a long time. Beside that snake we saw a lot of pink footed tarantulas a yellow boa and a coral snake, which kills a lot of people every year in Colombia, I was amazed and scared at the same time about what you can see within a 20 min walk just next to the place where we slept. The nature in the rain forrest is so impressive, dangerous and diverse at the same time. After a good dinner we went to sleep in a decent bed with a lot of mosquito nets.

The next morning we got breakfast and Linda just had her first sip of coffee, when we heard Dimarco call „Lindaaaa, are you there?“. Linda saw him immediately and her face turned from „my-life-needs-coffee-to-make-sense“ to „this-is-the-best-day-of-my-life“. Dimarco had brought a young sloth, that a villager had found next to a fallen tree. Linda had tears of joy in her eyes and the sloth was indeed sooo cute and cuddly. After a while Dimarco brought it back to be set free again in the jungle and we went on out last hike with him. He explained us a few trees and how they are being used in the jungle communities. After a while he saw a few dogs and I could hear him say „shit“. He told us to wait for him, and he came back with an old man that greeted us. He introduced him as the „guy who maintains the path“. We turned back in the direction of the village and the told us than that the old guy was actually a gate keeper of a community that is known for cocaine production and that it is the best idea to turn around. So we went back to the village and took the boat back to Leticia. 

Back at the agency we got our gear had a goodby beer with Sebastian and the polish guy and headed into a small tree house for our last nights in Leticia. In the tree house, we did not do much. It was raining a lot and we needed the time to process what we had experienced in the jungle, but during the rain and in the tree house high in the trees we could once again fully experience the sounds and the smells of the jungle. It is so loud with all different kinds of noises even if it is not raining. It’s very hard to explain and you have to experience it yourself. In the tree house (and also before on the jungle trip) we got to taste so many fruits, we have never heard of before. Copoazu for example is a kind of jungle kaki fruit with a shell like a coconut and the pulp has a very distinct taste, that I cannot explain at all. Another fruit, which was introduced to us as the butter of the jungle, had a huge core and around that you had a very oily pulp that we ate together with chewy yucca bread. We made a little trip to Leticia, where we hiked to Brazil (no boarder control here at all) and tried in a cafe crazy ice creams, like ant ice cream. After two days in the tree house the lovely owner brought us to the Airport for our next very exiting stop of the trip.