Napo River Journey - Part 1

Snake skin, hard to believe how large they must be, hope I never met one.


Our guide told us about several of the plants the natives use. Some are used to heal, some are used to kill, and some are used to get a high. We are having problems in the mission right now because thieves are using one of these plants to control minds, causing people to give over all their money.


One of the traps the natives use. There are traps for large fish, small fish, small animals, large animals, snakes, and people if they want to capture them alive otherwise they shoot them with a poison dart.


Blow gun demonstration, the natives still use these, they make the poison from a plant in the jungle. The tribes used these in 1995 in a border dispute with Peru. I couldn´t believe how long they were, must require some great lung power. Our guide said in 5 minutes the victim is dead.


More of the wildlife, an anteater of sorts I think.


Beautiful Parrots, be careful their beaks are dangerous it really hurts if they bite you.



This cute little guy is full grown.


It is hard to see, but if you look close you can make out the head and some of the body of an anaconda, he is only about 12 feet long.


Getting to know the ocelot.


Preparing for our river adventure. I wondered about the live jackets, seemed to me we would be eaten by something long before we would drown.

The next morning Elder and Sister Geldmacher went to check apartments; Dad and I walked around town and tried to find some travel/tourist information. The Geldmacher´s had to get some furniture for the missionaries so we were delayed and could not make it to the tour we had arranged. We took off on our own and took a short trip up the Napo River by canoe. We visited an animal rescue center and an Indian village. Someone is helping them to develop these areas into tourist destinations. They were interesting and we enjoyed the trip very much. We learned a lot about the Jungle animals, native tribes and plants. It was fun and a journey we will remember.

Tena Ecuador

Sloth from Brenda Yost on Vimeo.

Life on the river, must be wash day.


A new friend at our hotel, not in our room thank goodness.


Going native in Tena, the flowers are unbelievably beautiful.

Slogh #3 joining us for dinner, we didn´t name this one.


Our group having dinner, Tena Branch President his two sons who are waiting for their mission calls, the missionaries and the Geldmacher´s.


Sloth #2 we called her Cylia.


Painting on the wall of the restaurant, you can make up your own interpretation.
Guess who is coming to dinner sloth #1 we called him Syd.
March 30, 2011
We left much later than we had wanted and the bus trip was 6 hours. We arrived late but the Branch President and the missionaries still met with us at the restaurant for a very late dinner. The restaurant was actually closing when we arrived but they graciously fixed all of us a nice meal. A while back one of the missionaries gave them a CD of church music and when we arrived they changed the music to this CD. It was so nice to have dinner with good music. This is a very interesting restaurant as they have 3 sloths that live in the rafters; all 3 appeared during our meal. They move very slowly and were fun to watch. Our meeting went well and we hope to get one or two projects going in this area. The Branch President would like to do a Helping Babies Breath course as they have many Parteras who travel up and down the river delivering babies. They also have teachers who travel up and down the river to teach the children who can´t come into town for school, so we suggested that perhaps they could use some school kits. We will see what happens.

Breakfast for the Elders- Zone Leaders

After breakfast was served and cleaned up we headed for the bus station. We have a long bus ride today to Tena.

Dad did a presentation on the emergency plan for the missions.

March 30, 2011
We are leaving on our trip to the Jungle today but first we helped serve breakfast to the Elders. Seems the missionaries must be nourished both body and soul to function. The missionaries are doing so awesome they have had over 200 baptisms every month this year.

Fundación D.H.Ex. Ecuador - Computers

March 29, 2011
We met today with the Hearing Foundation we are working with. Two lap top computers were delivered. Ximena Carrera S. created this foundation to help children with hearing difficulties. We are working on getting more equipment so they can do screenings for school children to identify those with hearing problems earlier so interventions can be started.

RELIEF SOCIETY BIRTHDAY

Someone went to a lot of effort to create this hanging of the Relief Society Theme.


Our Relief Society Birthday activity.


The presidency preformed a skit about the organizing of the the Relief Society.


Saturday March 19, 2011

At 6:00 a.m. our ward Relief Society had a birthday commemoration. We met at the church, sang an opening song outside then had a short skit by the sisters in the presidency. Everyone wrote a card of their testimony of Relief Society to be put in a book, mine is in English so may not get put in the book. Then they were serving a breakfast, Sister Pettingill and I had to leave so we could go with the others to Mindo but I was glad we attended. The sisters here are sweet but the communication barrier is difficult.

MINDO

I just really liked this picture and wanted to share, hope you enjoy it too.


Dad hangn' in the cloud forest.


The beauty of Mindo, I set this picture as the background for my computer.


The Rio Mindo


A bridge we crossed going to the zip lines.





Cocoons and Catapillers this turn into butterflies.




An Ecuadorian drive in car wash. The driver just drove into the river and washed his car. We all got a good laugh.


It is hard to imagine the beauty and pictures do not do justice.


This was a house in Mindo just down the street from the butterfly exhibit, notice the satellite dish.


A butterfly with transparent wings


I love the clouds and the mountains.


Lupines on the side of the road, some century plant stems in the picture.


Hummingbird statue in the park.

I have posted a couple of our Mindo adventures but there were so many great pictures I thought I might just add a few for your viewing pleasure.

MARIPOSA - BUTTERFLY & COLIBRI - HUMMINGBIRD

It is kind of difficult to see the birds but I thought the video was fun anyway. Does anyone know why Vimeo doesn´t put my titles on I always put one in?

Untitled from Brenda Yost on Vimeo.

Dad watched the hummingbirds for a long time while I took pictures of flowers then while I was getting pictures of hummingbirds he and the other Elders took a rest.



These little birds are so much fun to watch. There are 130 varieties of hummingbirds and 115 of those are found in Ecuador.



This hummingbird was outside the window of the restaurant where we had lunch.

This is an owl eye butterfly, they are large and when there are lots of them together it looks like lots of eyes staring at you. The inside of their wings is the most beautiful iridescent blue; I could not get a picture of the inside of their wings. If you google olw eye butterfly and go to images there is picture of the inside of their wings, the picture was copywrited so I did not post it on the blog.


These butterflies have transparent wings.

During our trip to Mindo we went to a butterfly and hummingbird exhibit. We have since learned there is a bigger better one just outside of town, so next time we will visit that one. This one was very small and there was not a lot of variety but it was interesting. The biggest challenge is trying to get pictures of these little creatures as they move very fast. We especially enjoyed the hummingbirds. Dad liked the hammock.