El Mundo Amazonico (The World of the Amazon)

We’d seen a sign as we were landing in Leticia, something about an Amazon botanical park, just over the fence from the airport. Walking there seemed a good place to start. We turned down countless taxi drivers and tour guides to walk up the dirt path that served as the road to the airport, counting the numerous motorcycles and flinching when we were splashed by a car with - HOT mud puddles. Nearing what we thought should be the entrance to the park, we were confused. I stopped to ask a “policeman” for help.

(Keep in mind that military service in Colombia is mandatory for all boys at age 18. Many of these are recruited as “police,” who stand on street corners with various types of guns in order to increase the feeling of security in the nation. I realize it sounds scary, but I actually find it rather comforting).

He didn’t know about the park. Perhaps that gate was the entrance? His brow wrinkled when I pointed out that the gate was closed, and he began to call across the street to his fellow soldier. Unfortunately, just about this time several motos and cars came roaring (literally) through. He crossed halfway across the street to continue the conversation. More traffic, both gunmen yelling and me trailing along behind. The conclusion of the matter was that said ecological park was closed and we’d have to ask in town to arrive anywhere else.

We kept walking. It was hot.

And walking. We were wet.

We spotted a park services building. As we should have expected from government workers, the ladies inside informed us that since el “Mundo Amazonico” was not a national park, it was not their business to help us find it and we should go pay someone to take us.

We walked some more, finally stopping in a grocery store to buy water. I asked the clerk about el Mundo Amazonico. Of course he knew where it was and all we needed to was catch THAT collectivo and ride to Kilometer 7, then hike up the path. It sounded simple enough, but finding a working ATM, lunch, and the hiking up the path was not so simple. At 2 pm., we gladly sat in the smoky little hut (it was built like a post fence on a round corral with a thatch roof) to wait for our guide’s instructions. 

Suddenly Ethan flinched, “Is there a cat on my head?”

We all had the monkey visit, but it took a while to get the camera out. 

It was no cat, but a tiny monkey! Three or four of them jumped down from the wall, drawn apparently by the sound of the water bottles. They drank happily as water was poured into their mouths, sat on our shoulders, jumping from person to person and perching on heads and shoulders. We knew - we were in the jungle now. And while we stowed our stuff, we shared laughter over the monkeys with an older couple and their daughter who we came to know as “our friends from Cali.”

El Mundo Amazonico is a private park, a farm that was bought by a gentleman who wanted to restore the natural environment for the purpose of sharing it with the public in an educational manner. According to the young indigenous guide, the regrowth had begun only seven years prior, but to us it looked like the untouched jungle of a story book. 

We were taken first to an “aquarium,” where various species of jungle amphibians and reptiles were caught, labeled, and classified, some living, some preserved. Here, I must admit my retelling abilities may lack thoroughness. By the time I translated an entire vocabulary unfamiliar in either English or Spanish, I remembered very little of what I’d said. I know we saw fish from the depths, the middle waters, and the surface. We saw an electric eel (and an electric fish that didn’t shock quite as much), we saw piranhas of all types, including the fox piranha with his canine teeth. We saw the most poisonous snake in the jungle (preserved) and pictures of the effects of that poison, learning that if not treated within 47 minutes a bite was sure death. We learned that many snakes resemble dead branches, so you should be careful where you tramp.

These snake vertebrate hung across the ceiling of the "aquarium." They were all connected, from a snake probably 20+ feet long.

After the aquarium, we rejoined our friends from Cali for the plant tour. We spent a lot of time discussing the infamous coca plant, learning that the roots could be chewed for the same effect as an “energy drink,” the leaves brewed as tea or as an intoxicating liquor of sorts, and, of course, it may be processed as cocaine. The Cali gentleman informed us that less processing is being done in Colombia; the coca leaves are being exported to the U.S. as it is processed in a stronger form. After being introduced to two or three other plants used as intoxicants or hallucinogens (one of which it was recommended foreigners never try because even a small amount could cause damage if one was not accustomed to it), we sat in a small hut where we were offered cups of tea made from jungle plants.

I ask you, would you drink it?

During our tea session, our guide showed us the recycling education efforts of the park. They’d joined with local schools to gather plastic soda bottles, fill them with compacted trash, and build walls and fences. We continued through the jungle garden. Many of the flowers looked like plastic... but they smelled. We came to a clearing with beehives - miniature beehives of bees that did not sting and only made tiny amounts of honey. I guess in the jungle, where things bloom all year, they don’t have to store it up.

Once we’d taken in more information about jungle plants than we’d ever retain (and I’m sure the guide did not introduce even a quantifiable fraction of them), we moved on to have more fun... We began to shoot the blow gun. This was no toy blow gun, or an imitation made for tourist. This was an authentic hollowed out stick, more than five feet long, with arrows and a target. FYI, I have a big mouth, but it did not help my blowing abilities at all. Tyrel and the old fellow from Cali, on the other hand, killed the target. We also had the opportunity to shoot a bow and arrow of the indigenous type. Again, the Boy Scout wowed us all and I showed the ineptness of my hand-eye coordination. We think this tour was supposed to be an “experience of the indigenous life,” as we also saw some of their artisanship. They make clothing from some type of tree bark, which they dry, dye, and sew. The only problem? It can’t be washed or it disintegrates. We also got to sample our favorite jungle fruit - the coconut-like “copa azul,” which had pulp tasting of sour skittles and seeds that could be ground up into cocoa.

My big mouth needs retrained if I'm going to use a blowgun.

Our final tour required rubber boots or so we were told. The guide was now working overtime - in fact, we’re fairly certain that he normally had someone else give this particular tour - but he did not charge us to rent the boots. Ethan, unfortunately, could not have rented boots because there were none big enough to fit him. Colombians are small and the indigenous people are smaller. We tramped through the jungle, seeing a few frogs and bugs and trees and very carefully NOT stepping on tree roots (probably the reason for the boots). This jungle tramp was shady, so we had more than one reason to be sad as we left our Cali friends (after taking a picture with them) with their rented tour guide and car.

Many of the jungle plants looked like plastic.

We survived the - still-hot - walk back to the main road and relaxed on the banks while we waited for the collectivo to arrive. The first bus we’d taken had had a pretty nice “caller” on the steps who’d helped us remember where to get off, but this driver took the cake for niceness. First he let a lady pay half-price because “she was on her way home from work,” then he let a little girl off without paying at all because “she was doing her homework on the bus.” When we got on, we asked to see if they could help us find the campground at which we planned to stay, but they again went the extra mile. Not only did they help us find it, he kept us on the bus until he could “make the turn,” stop, and let his caller call the owner of the campground to come and escort us in. And he gave us a discount.

The campground owner was as remarkable as his website claimed. His face was full of rings, his body of tattoos, and he was super-friendly, even offering to speak in English as he explained prices and procedures, an offer I embraced eagerly. We’d planned to camp, packing sleeping bags and mosquito netting, but at that point in the day, we all had to smile when Ethan chose a “cabaña” with its own bathroom and shower, beds, a tiny kitchenette, and a hammock on the porch. But first -dinner... you can go read the food post for a description of our candlelit meal with a shirtless, shoeless waiter, a beer can candleholder, and mystery juice that tasted like salad dressing.

Night fell, and I fell into my bed (feeling very much like an animal entering a cage because of the mosquito netting built up around it), asleep before it was my turn to shower. I’m fairly sure that was the best night’s sleep I’ve had all this year and I didn’t even cry in the cold shower the next morning.

The most comfortable beds of the trip.