Oasis Overland in South America

The big yellow truck waited outside, engines ready for our group. We got up early as our bed was like a rock and the trucks outside were too loud for sleep, and made our way outside to our home for the next 5 weeks, a big yellow truck. All of our bags go under the seat, massive areas so our bags can just spew everywhere and no need to sort it out everyday. We drove for about an hour out of town to Mitad de Mundo which is a museum that documents the equator, as if you didnt know already Ecuador is at the centre of the world. You can literally stand on the equator line and each side of it watch the water flow down a sink different ways. Pretty awesome to see. We also saw some local tribal traditions, one of which is how a tribe literally shrinks heads to perserve the intelligence of the elders. Pretty weird to see.

The next stop was Otavalo for shopping and views. The driving views were incredible, steep green mountains with clouds passing over them, children waving to us as we pass, such a free feeling you will ever feel.

Our first night was spent camping in Otavalo, a huge field for our brand new tents. The whole truck is brand new which is amazing for us, the tents smelt great! We set up our tents on the mountain side over looking the town and spent the evening playing badminton and tel cooked up a huge curry for everyone, was soo needed as we were all so hungry!

A sleepless night was had due to the fact we had no pillows, it rained all night and the 3 dogs that live on the property was barking throughout the night! We drove into the town and terry had his shopping mission to complete. On this overlanding trip each group has to buy and cook all the food on a rota basis. I went along with his group to help with translations. Then we spent the rest of the time in the beautiful and colourful market where we brought a bag and some tshirts and also a huge piece of pizza for a dollar!

From Otavalo we drove through the mountains and through the rain (it only stopped raining when we went into the jungle!), to Papallacta, the town of the thermal springs. It rained on us all night but we managed to get the tents up even through the owner of the camp site hadnt even turned up to say that we could. She eventually arrived about 10pm and we were on tender hooks if we could even stay there! Everyone spent the rainy night in the spas and relaxed with beers with the stars overhead. Perfect.

On the 19th September, we drove about 5 hours down the mountains to around 350m to the Amazon Basin. We stopped off in Tena, after a sweaty drive through the rainforest. You could defiantely feel the temperature change to hot, hot, hot. We took a canoe ride on the river to Toms Eco Lodge, Arejuno. Tom was american and had lived there and built up his eco lodge for about 10 years. Tom had adopted a monkey called Mona, who made herself known with Terry and was literally terrys new girlfriend for the next 3 days.
The lodge also looked after some endangered turtles and fish and was working with the local communties to stop them using diamite to fish. The distruction here was on a much larger scale to our last Amazon trip, you could literally see bulldozzers, wood everywhere and rubbish in the river. A complete different experience to our first trip where it was literally amazon paradise. We shared a room with Margarita and Nic, our new buddies on the truck. The second morning we were there we treked to an animal sanctuary named Amazonica. Here, the owners take in any animals that have been kept as pets that couldnt be reintroduced into the wild. They had parrots, tons of monkeys, jaguar, caimans, all sorts. This was the best place to see animals here due to the amount of hunting and destruction in the area, all the other animals have fled.
The rest of the time was spent trekking through the primary and secondary forests and tubing, yes tubing, down the the amazon river for hours. The river was so calm and clear, and the weather was perfect for this. All the children from the local communities would run out and look at us asking why we why sitting on rubber rings on the amazon, now i think of it it does look a little funny.

After a lot of cards and Yatzee, we left the jungle for Banos, our next town about 1600m up. We are staying here for 3 nights and have just been to an amazing waterfall, one of the 10th biggest in the world, diablo for devil is its name.

Best go, have to do the calling rounds, Aidan broke his arm so need to makesure hes doing ok now! Miss you all!