Welcome to the Jungle: Misahualli

A while ago I explained how we found ourselves in the remote Ecuadorian town of Misahualli with its hundreds of monkeys and butterflies. It was here that we arranged our jungle trip with EcoSelva. The night before we went into the jungle there was really heavy rain fall and despite his house being flooded and the loss of his butterfly collection, the owner, Pepe drove us to meet our guide.

Running out of Misahualli there is a brand new tarmac road, surrounded by heavy green banana plants. At the time we went the bananas were all covered with blue plastic bags so precious crops weren't lost. We got out of Pepe's truck at a small shelter, and he headed off towards a small collection of basic houses to get our guide. The houses were in a small clearing of the plantation, there was also a tiny church and a playing field, with lots of chickens wandering around to their hearts' content.


We busied ourselves packing our lunch and water supplies in our bag until Gregorio turned up. Pepe told us it was time for him to leave us in Gregorio's good hands. He wasn't what I was expecting as a jungle guide. He wore wells and trousers that had been ripped off at the knees. He had a huge machete hanging from his belt and a baseball cap. He was really short and looked really young, although later we found out he was about 35. He was the son of the chief of the small settlement, and was preparing himself for his future as chief.Apparently the role of chief in these settlements is to make all the decisions concerning the people, but also acting as the doctor and teacher.

We set off across the road, through what appeared to be someone's back garden, and entered the edge of the jungle. He explained that everything we were walking though was his father's. There were fields filled with pineapple, banana and cocoa plants.

I loved seeing how pineapples grow, I always thought they grew on trees, not from small prickly bushes from the ground, and there's only one pineapple per plant. We hunted around and around the field for a ripe one and he let us try it. It was really white, instead of the yellow that i'm used to, but was still really delicious.



Every few steps we went, Gregorio would stop and point out a plant and tell us the medical properties of the plants. There were long, finger shaped mushrooms filled with clear liquid that cured ear ache, ferns that were tied to children's legs to encourage them to walk, contraceptive plants, plants to cure diabetes and even leaves that felt like sandpaper that they used to file nails!

We came to a clearing in the jungle where there was a small swing made of vines that hung from the very top of the canopy and laughed as I had a go and was incredibly worried I was going to go crashing into a tree. We saw hundreds of insects and butterflies, and Gregorio even managed to spot a tiny little black and yellow frog which he declared was the most poisonous animal in the whole jungle.


We'd been walking for a few hours when we decided it was time to stop for lunch. Gregorio was very curious about us, as much as we were about him, and would flit between English and Spanish to get his point across. Little did I know that lunch marked the end of the fun part. Gregorio warned us that rain was coming and we needed to make as much headway as possible to get to camp. He wasn't joking. Not long after the rain started to pour down and nothing really could help us, he gave each of us a huge leaf to use as an umbrella, but as we were so wet already, it wasn't worth it. The ground got incredibly muddy and slippery and I really struggled to keep up with the boys who were powering ahead. There were times when I'd lose them and not know which path they'd taken, and it was only when I came face to face with a huge spider who was sitting on their web across the path that I'd realise they had obviously gone the other way. We would be hopping over and ducking under huge fallen trees, climbing up and down muddy hills, all while carrying big bottles of water.

Late afternoon, the rain stopped and Gregorio finally announced we were only 500 metres away from the camp, the only problem being that it was all down hill, an incredibly steep downhill. We gradually got to the bottom where I spotted a small log cabin on stilts. A woman sat in one of the huts, surrounded by her army of children who all wore dirty, ripped clothes that had been donated by the local community. They watched us walk into the clearing suspiciously. Some of the men came to greet Gregorio and chat with him, while the others hung back and watched us. I don't know what I expected the people there to look like, but I was quite shocked that they looked like other Ecuadorians in terms of the clothes they were wearing and their hair, only a little more weathered. Eventually a couple of the kids got brave and started a game of creeping upto us while we looked the other way.

The next family we came across tried to bribe us by not letting us pass through their little clearing without giving them alcohol. Sadly for them, Gregorio didn't have any and they had to let us pass anyway. Another 5 minutes walk and we had arrived at our camp, which although very basic seemed a world away from the other settlements in the area. The camp had a few huts, a toilet, a volleyball court and a sheltered area to eat. A little path lead to a small secluded beach that looked out onto the huge river, and most importantly for Nick there was a hammock.



Nick spent the evening fishing, trying to catch our dinner, while some of the women from the community came round and tried to sell me some gifts. It was hard as I knew they really needed the money, so I bought a few things that were very expensive, and bribed them a bit more with some sugar cane sweets which they seemed to be a sucker for!


After dinner we sat by candlelight around the fire, and Gregorio pointed out some of the animals that were loitering around our camp in the dark, hoping for a scrap of food. We decided to go to bed, exhausted from all the walking, and just as we got back to our hut, Nick froze and ordered me to get Gregorio, we had a snakey friend in our room. Gregorio seemed completely unfazed, scooped the snake up with a stick and flung it into the trees behind us. Drama over,w e managed to get some sleep.

The next day we were up at 8 and went for a walk around the lodge, we saw toucans, big spiders and alligator prints. We had a bit of success catching some fish and learned a lot more about the families around our camp. Pepe uses some of the money he makes at EcoSelva to fund the community, he runs a school for them and hosts football games for them. It really made me feel happy about giving money to the company, and would strongly recommend anyone else to go with him if you are considering going into the jungle.






That afternoon we spent around our little beach. I watched some of the brothers pan for gold in the river, and we crossed to the other side to go fishing and have a dip in a rubber ring. That was a great end to the day, and what was even more exciting was the Shaman of the village was coming to visit us that evening. Again, what I pictured him to look like was 100 miles from what he actually was. I imagined him to have long hair, a long beard and be wearing beads and be carrying a big stick. Instead, he rocked up in a pair of wellies and addidas shorts. He explained to us ayahuasca, smoked a cigar and did a ritual on us to rid us of bad spirits, which involved him hitting us on the head with a broom made of leaves and sucking on the top of our head.




We slept well in the knowledge that we were free of bad juju and knowing we'd survived the jungle. We were up at 6:30 the next morning to prepare to go back to civilisation. A motored canoe came to pick us up and drop us off at a different point along the long, tarmac road. We waited on the edge of the road for the bus to come, and soon enough it was time to say goodbye to Gregorio.


We went back to our original hotel and pleaded with them to let us have a shower and get changed, I realised I looked like I had the bubonic plague with some very nasty mozzy bites, but there was no time to dwell, it was time to get on the bus and go to Ecuador's capital, Quito.

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Misahualli, you give me butterflies!

The more we travelled around Ecuador, the more I loved it. Leaving Baños ever thankful to the owner of La Princesa Maria for helping me finally get the medical care I needed, we started the long journey to the East of Ecuador where civilisation thins out and the jungle takes over.

We took an incredibly busy bus from Baños to Napo. It was so busy Nick and I took separate seats and I ended up sat next to a boy who was sleeping. Eventually he woke up and instantly started to chat to me, asking where I was from, what I was doing, where I was going. He was also happy to answer all the questions I had wanted to ask the people we often saw but didn't get chance to speak to. His name was Pato, he was only 25 but was the main provider for his mum and his insane amount of brothers and sisters. He had been travelling since 2 in the morning to go to Otavalo market to buy provisions for his family, and was now heading back and was expecting to get back to his village at 3 in the afternoon. His older brother was studying in Quito and he desperately wanted to travel, but had to look after his family. He also told me he really wasn't religious and loved to watch South Park. It was the first time I ever felt like I'd had a really good conversation in Spanish and I was slightly dismayed when he told me it was his stop and he wandered away from the bus carrying two huge white sacks. I still had so many questions!

From Napo we took a local bus to Misahualli, it was so full that Nick had to ride in the doorway, with one leg hanging out of the bus! I was really relieved when we arrived at the main square of Misahualli.

Missahualli (Miss-a-why-ee) is a tiny town at the very mouth of the jungle, and apparently used to be incredibly popular a couple of decades ago with tourists, but with the amount of tourism traffic flowing into the jungle, many of the animals were scared away and so the tourism died off again. We decided to visit the jungle from this spot as the doctor in Baños had spoken so highly of it.

After a quick browse on Trip Advisor, I found a company that ran jungle trips called EcoSelva, and it was owned by an ecologist. EcoSelva was on the tiny square so we headed there and met Pepe. He is a really nice, friendly man who really loves what he does. We found out later on our trip that he really wants to help the communities that live in the jungle, so he helps to school the children, and runs football matches for them too. We got a really good feel for his company and what it put back into the jungle, so we booked a 2 night, 3 day trip.

The other top recommendation on Tripadvisor was the Butterfly House. I asked if Pepe would recommend it and he said definitely, so we decided to take a stroll up later that day. As Pepe had suggested the hostel next to his business, we went to check it out. It was a small house run by a mother and daughter and the rooms seemed clean and homely enough. It was also the very 'normal' names of the rooms that sold it to us.

Having checked in, we went for a spot of lunch at another restaurant in the square. Most of the restaurants were open at the front, so we walked in and were pretty shocked to see that the furniture was strewn all across the floor. The owner appeared from the back and apologised about the state of the restaurant apologising profusely. She explained that it was the local monkeys of the town who live in the trees in the square. When they're feeling mischievous they steal food and toss the furniture around when the owners are siesta ring. We sat and ate lunch, watching the naughty monkeys laze around the square.

Luckily, we managed to catch a glimpse of them at their most mischievous when a rather large American Tourist walked through the square. He was wearing a bright hawaiian shirt, explorer shorts, socks, sandals, sun glasses and a floppy sun hat. He decided to stop and play with the monkeys, who entertained him for a bit, before they decided it would be far more fun to take his wallet out of his pocket. They ran up into the trains then started to empty the wallet, throwing the contents, including wads of cash, onto the floor. No matter how much he shouted and flailed around, he didn't get his wallet back until a local climbed the tree to retrieve it.

After that spectacle, it was early evening and we walked to the butterfly house to see if it was still open. We were surprised to be welcomed in by Pepe, it turned out that he had built a butterfly house in his garden because of his love of butterflies. He started the collection by collecting eggs on his visits to the jungle, caring for the caterpillars and then letting them loose into the enclosure. It turned out that dusk is the perfect time for butterfly spotting as they go for one more flight to bring up the temperature of their body before sleeping for the night.



It was really amazing to watch them floating around, and really nice to listen to Pepe talk about his butterflies. His love for all things natural really shone through and made him so interesting to talk to.





As it grew dark, we decided to see what else the town had to offer. There wasn't all that much, but we went to the river and watched the sunset. It was exciting to know that the next day we could be heading into the jungle and taking a canoe on that same river.


We went to bed early that night to prepare ourselves for our early start tomorrow, and just as we started to drift off we heard the rain start to fall. Weird shadows crept across our walls, and when I looked out of our window onto the square, I realised the shadows were the monkeys running to take shelter from the rain. It was really pouring down and the roads had turned to clay rivers. It was the first time I really understood why we call it the rain forest.

The rain didn't stop though, and half way through the night, Nick shot up in bed as the roof had started to leak and rain was pouring through the hole in the ceiling onto his foot. I can't explain how much it was raining, I've never seen anything like it in my life.

We got up bright and early the next day, feeling a little weary after our rude awakening. We went to meet Pepe who apologised for being a bit delayed, but the rain had been a bit of an oddity and his whole house had flooded, the butterfly enclosure had collapsed and all of his butterflies had either flown away or had been killed. It was so sad to think of him the day before, peacefully walking through the trees surrounded by butterflies telling us how it had taken him years to grow his collection.

Yet, he didn't linger too long as he said it was time for us to go and meet our guide, Gregorio.

I'm going to split our Misahualli adventures into a two part drama filled event as I've already typed more than I like to! I'll continue next week when we start our trek into the jungle!

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