Jaryd's Adventures

A Quick Summary We took a bus from the Amazon rainforest back to Quito, and then flew to Santa Cruz, which is one of the Galapagos Islands! We then spent most of this week exploring Santa Cruz. Highs and Lows Animals everywhere: The first thing I noticed on the Galapagos is that there are animals everywhere . It's not like in some areas, where the animals come up to you looking for food. Here, they are just around, living their lives and unbothered by the people. Whether it is sea lions on the dock, iguanas at the beach, or the many other lizards, birds, and fish around, it has been really cool just to see lots of different animals here. A day on the bike: One day, I rented a bike and explored around the northern part of the island, up away from the water. The bike ride up was super hot and all uphill, and in retrospect I should have probably taken the bus or a taxi up.  Me e...

A Quick Summary I spent a few more days in Tena travelling by myself before I headed up to Nueva Loja to meet Cam and David! We then went on a tour in the Amazon Rainforest for the rest of the week.  Highs and Lows Hiking Adventure One day in Tena, I decided to go do a hike which was about an hour out of town. I had heard you could take a bus there, so I just hopped on the bus heading in the right direction and set off. Unfortunately, the bus route ended in the next town over, and I was still about 40 minutes away from where I wanted to go. I was wandering around, looking lost, when someone came up and asked me where I wanted to go. I told him, and he offered to take me there on his motorcycle for $5! He didn't have a helmet for me, so I just hopped on the back and held on for dear life as we sped down the highway.  After he dropped me off, he gave me his number so I could call him to get a ride back. He drove off, and then I realized I was ...

This is a special post about our tour into the Amazon Rainforest!  Day 1: We started out in the morning in a tour van, driving almost 3 hours towards the rainforest.  After some lunch, we hopped on a motorised canoe for a 2-3 hour boat ride on the river to get to the lodge. Once we got to the lodge, we had time to settle in and explore. The rooms and the cabins are super nice for being in the middle of the rainforest! After it got dark, we went on a night walk to look for different types of bugs. It was kind of scary as our guide told us about all the dangerous creatures in the dark, but also really neat to see a lot of them up close.  We also got to see a couple examples of zombie fungus which I had seen a few youtube videos on but seemed hard to believe. In short, the fungus takes over an insect's brain, causes it to climb up to a high point and then kills it, grows the new spor...