Jungle favorites

We've been back from the jungle for almost a week...
But I look back on my 10 favorite Ecuadorian jungle experiences (random order):

* learning about the walking palm trees from our amazing guide Jairo

* the Laguna Grande: all the sunsets, the swimming and the boatrides... It was like we were drifting on the clouds and were just above the treetops... but then there were the amazing and dramatic clouds above us. It was confusing and so absolutely beautiful (for the most amazing pictures, look at Tim's blog: http://vagabondurges.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/1327/)

* getting all cuddly with worlds tiniest monkey, the pygmy marmoset

Worlds tiniest monkey... and me.

Tim taking a nap...

* the delicious veggie food plates that the wonderful kitchen staff of our lodge prepared for me (loved the yucca!)

* playing ''pigs'' after dinner with our co-tour family (where can I get that game?)

* making yucca bread with a woman from a nearby village and then, of course, eating it (process, see next blog)

* NOT participating in the (to me) cruel game of fishing for pirana's on the Amazon river, but totally enjoying the excitement and fear of everybody in the boat and taking pictures of their proud/terrified faces with the killer fish (it wasn't easy to get the fish with their faces in the pictures because they wouldn't hold them close enough!)

* thanking the river for it's beauty by giving (loosing to) her my favorite toe ring on my first swim... I loved that thing, but it is pretty awsome knowing that my Nepali toe ring is at the bottom of the Amazon river.

* taking naps in hammocks and reading with the jungle rain in the background

* walking through the mud with rubber boots