The Beautiful Mighty Jungle!

I went with Josh and Melanie and Owen on early Sunday morning to the jungle. We took a 5 hour bus ride to a town called Quinindé. From there we caught a Ranchera which is about an hour and a half ride out to “La Laguna De la Y”
The town, “La Y”, is a very small, very small town. As you can see from this picture, that pretty much shows all of the town. The houses are all little wood hut looking things that are built up on stilts so that they stay out of the mud during all the rains…
Josh works out as a doctor in the small clinic there. There are always many different and interesting injuries for him to handle. This picture is on the deck of the clinic. This is the Laguna, and how “la Y” got it´s name.
On Tuesday Melanie and I took a walk down to the Laguna. It was a very hot and humid hike, and we had to wear mud boots because of all the rain. But once down there it was absolutely beautiful.

The people in “La Y” live very quiet and humble lives. They don´t really “miss out” on the things of the modern world though because they´ve never known any different. It rains so much that they all wear mudboots as shoes all the time. There is a little one room library that some volunteers constructed for the children. During the rainy season the children can´t make it to school, but once the majority of the rains stop they are able to make their way to classes.
There is a little general store down in the main part of town that has lots of little things you can buy to eat, but most of the citizen´s of “La Y” just eat what they grown like lots and lots of corn, fresh milk, and chicken.
Their main source of water is rain water which they collect during the rains. They drink this, bathe with it, and use it as their water. We of course boil it in order to drink it.
It´s the ideal culture for a “macho man” the men really don´t have to do much, their children harvest the crops, their wives cook the food and they sit around playing pool and drinking beer all day. The nicest piece of furniture I saw in “La Y” was the pool tables.
The vegetation was absolutely fantastic. So much green, everywhere! Not to mention all sorts of exotic fruits and veggies. We had a chance to walk down and visit with a little old farmer who took about 2 hours showing us around his farm, where he has taken lots of effort to harvest all sorts of exotic plants, and fruits, and he also had ponds with neat fish.
The days passed slowly and relaxing. We took walks, visited with people, met new people, and endured the rain and humidity. On Wednesday I got my toe nails painted, by a cute little girl who did a really good job. We played with Owen and tried to keep him out of trouble. And at night we fell asleep to the sound of pouring rain.
The people love Owen, they´re always stopping in to say hi to him, play with him or steal him away. When we would go on walks it would take a little longer to get places because he was such a center of attention.
It really was a marvelous experience to go to “La Y” to experience a different part of Ecuador and see how people live. Everything is different out there, the climate, the Spanish, the food, and yet it was exciting to have that experience even if just for a week.

If you have Facebook, log on and look at my three facebook albums from the jungle, if not i am going to post a few more just pictures for you to see!
love you all
Emmy