On Thursday, 1st September I made my way to Macas from where the jungle tour would start the next morning. We got brought by taxi to the spot in the jungle about 1 1/2 hours from Macas where we were going to spend the next 2 nights. We were going to stay with a Shuar family together with only 2 other tourists. After a walk down from the road to the river and a canoe ride across, we reached the family's house. It was a beautiful and quiet location next to the river, in the primary jungle. I immediately loved the place because it was crowded with butterflies!

Beautiful butterflies in the jungle

Beautiful butterflies in the jungle

Beautiful butterflies in the jungle
Shortly afterwards however, we realised that the trip was not very well organised. The other 2 group members only arrived 3 hours after us and then the guide still did not show up. He eventually arrived at 3.30 pm and then first had to put up our tent before starting the first activity.

Part of the house

Our hut
Finally we went on a walk through the jungle with the guide which was one of the family's sons. It was great to be walking through the jungle for the first time! The next 2 days 3 more walks and a canoe ride would follow. We also visited a waterfall under which we could go swimming and every day went bathing in the river just next to the house.

The Jungle

The Jungle

The Jungle

The Jungle

Waterfall

Flower lips
Every time we went into the jungle, we had our faces painted or got to wear some traditional headdress.

Painted faces

Jungle outfit ;-)
There are not many animals in this part of the jungle, but we saw a lot of butterflies, different types of ants (some huge!), birds, some spiders and frogs.

Poisonous spider on our guide's hand
What we did see a lot of were medicinal plants which they explained to us and different types of fruits, some of which can only be found in the jungle. Of course we got to try these too. Our guide even felled a whole palm tree just to give us the fresh palm hearts to eat.

Banana tree

Fresh palm hearts
What we also got to try were larvae, live ones! I did try it (not the whole thing though, just a bite) and it was not even bad.

Eating a larva
On our first day, the father also shot a deer which was then dragged down the hill to the house, cut into pieces and roasted on the fire during the whole night. The meat was delicious; we ate it for breakfast and lunch the next day.

Deer roasting on the fire
We also went and fished a bit in the river, but those fish were given to the mother as a little snack.
We had different guides during the 2 days, but all of them were family members, 2 of the sons and the father. The meals we all had with the family as well, but unfortunately we did not get many traditional foods. The boys did however go fishing and came back with loads of fish which I then watched being prepared and cooked in big leaves. We got those served for breakfast on the last day.

Freshly caught fish

Boy playing with the freshly caught fish

Fish being cooked in leaves

Fish cooked in a leaf
The family was very nice and, although the organisation was bad and we ended up not even spending 2 full days exploring the jungle while paying for 3 days, I enjoyed being in the jungle a lot.
The journey back to Baños was a bit adventurous, but we eventually made it back fine.