Here and Abroad

Our Trip to Germany and Czech Republic

Part 1 of the Series

Red LIght District

We flew from D/FW to Frankfurt, Germany and arrived at 7:30 am.  We took the train from the Frankfurt airport to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhoff (main station).  From there, we walked to our hotel.  As is our custom when staying in hotels, we booked the first night online before we left the states.  We had chosen the hotel because it was close to the train station.  We soon found out the hotel was in the red light district, directly across the street from strip joints and brothels.  Read more →

To properly set up this adventure, I am going to describe to you a little about the area we are in. We are on the Napo River, a major tributary of the Amazon River’s headwaters. The time of year is the end of the dry season. The rains are expected any day now. Further upstream and in the Andes Mountains, it has already started raining. Because it is the end of the dry season, the water level is very low. Our boat, The Manatee Amazon Explorer, has had some difficulty navigating the last couple of days. Although the Manatee’s draft is only 4 feet, in some places that has not been enough, and several times we could hear the boat dragging along the sandy bottom. Captain Dali has had his hands full on the bridge, safety navigating the boat to each day’s destination.

At various points during our excursions, I would take out my iPhone, allow it locate us on PocketEarth, a great mapping app that does not require Internet access. Once a GPS fix was acquired, I would then take a screen shot. Now, I had our Longitude, Latitude, Time, Date and a map which I could compare against the various pictures we had taken, to know where they were taken, and generally recreate each day’s adventure in more detail. This map is the end result of that  record keeping, and would have been virtually impossible otherwise. 

Map of the Kapok Tree Adventure
Link To An Interactive Map

This is a story of one amazing day in the Amazon. It was a Saturday. Read more →

Curtis holding a Huaorani Spear

On our recent trip to the Ecuador Amazon Rainforest, we learned about the indigenous peoples living in the area, mainly the peaceful and very populous Kichwa, the Huaorani and un-contacted Tagaeri tribes. Most of the modern history of the indigenous people only goes back a few decades. Prior to that there was some westerners, or outsiders, who traversed the area in the 19th century, mainly to capture the natives and ship them off to be slaves in the rubber production camps downstream along the Amazon. Those who were captured were never heard from again by the local indigenous population. This lead to rumors about the “outsiders” actually being cannibals. This in turn caused the locals, like the Huaorani tribes, to become very aggressive and violent and fight outsiders fiercely. They just didn’t want to be eaten. Read more →

Our first excursion into the rain forest was at night, our first day on The Manatee (www.manateeamazonexplorer.com).  It was a great success.  It would have been even better if it hadn’t been cut short because someone was afraid of snakes.

We left The Manatee and took the motorized canoe to a local farm.  Wow, our first walk and we saw some really cool stuff!  Giant termite nests in trees, bullet ants, a wolf spider, millipedes, a centipede, ginormous banana plants, walking stick insects, cool flora, really awesome spiders, a tailless scorpion, tree frogs, army ants and a giant tarantula. Read more →

Our recent trip to the Ecuador Amazon Rainforest was one of the most rewarding trips we’ve ever been on. If you have the opportunity, take this trip or one like it. We were on a riverboat for 7 nights; the others who arrived the same day we did left after 4 nights. I was so glad we weren’t leaving with them…I wasn’t ready to go! My adventure was not over!We are staying in Cotacachi (elevation 8,400’), so the first leg of our trip was a 2 hour taxi ride to the Quito airport. We were greeted at the airport by a member of the Southern Explorations team (www.southernexplorations.com). She got our boarding passes for us and directed us toward the security line. This was the second time we’ve used Southern Explorations for a trip, and we’ve had excellent service both times. Read more →

In Ecuador, the Carnival celebration is a little different than in other countries. Before the Spanish came along, the indigenous people had a celebration that was held at the second moon. People threw flour, flowers, and perfumed water at each other, in a celebration to honor their chief and to say thanks to Mother Earth.

After the Spaniards came along, the Catholic tradition of Carnival was merged with the indigenous tradition. The result is a crazy fun couple of days! Read more →