Last weekend we went to the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador. We stayed at Sani lodge, a small lodge built by a jungle community called Sani community. It was payed for by an oil company called Occidental in exchange for exploring for oil on the Sani tribe’s land. The Sani community took a big risk letting the company look for oil on there land because instead of a lodge they could have asked the oil company to pay them a bunch of money and if they did find oil the Sani tribe would have received a part of the money. Instead when the oil company built the lodge and did not end up finding oil the Sani community had a tourist lodge in the Amazon, on a non polluted lake, with caimans and colorful birds all around it. It also gave a great and on going source of income  and jobs for the local people. According to our guide Geranio, The Sani lodge has been open for 18 years.

When you go to the Sani lodge they pick you up at the air port in Coca, Ecuador, a medium sized town which is located on a large river called the Rio Napo which flows in to the Amazon River. The Sani lodge is about three hours down river in a motorized canoe. You pass many very small villages on your way there. There are no roads going into the jungle so pretty much all the communities have motor canoes that they drive to Coca in if they are going to visit a relative or something. Many oil companies drill out in the Amazon so you see these huge trucks and bulldozers being pushed out to oil camps on big barges on the river in the middle of the jungle.

Once you get to Sani lodge you decide if you would like to camp in a tent or stay in a cabana. All of the cabanas were full so we camped and I have to say it was pretty cool till I got sick one night and threw up all over the camp sight. We went on lots of hikes and they have a canopy tower in a huge ceba tree that is thirty meters up. We spit off of it and it took 7.5 seconds to hit the ground. AMAZING!!! But we did see tons of birds while we were up there and a sleeping howler monkey. We also went fishing for piranhas but did not catch any.