Arasha "Amazon" Lodge- Part 2

After Cusco we flew north to a town called Quito with hopes to see a glimpse of the great Amazon Rain Forest.   We were picked up at the airport by a small and polite caballero named Victor (Week-tor).  On the way out of Quito we noticed a large monument in a park with numerous flags flying.   Weektor began pointing and saying in his thick equatorial accent “Bizarre tele Mundo.”  We assumed that he meant it was a park and market of the world, and we said OK we’ll stop on the way back.   After a few more moments driving we realized that we had actually just crossed the equator!   He had said “ciudad mitad del Mundo,”  which I think means something about the city by the middle of the earth.  By this point the oncoming traffic was so bad that we could not turn around, and we just pushed on toward our lodge.  Weektor kindly put on the local radio station, and we listened to what sounded like Spanish mariachi music until we could listen no more. 

Our first hint that the Arasha Amazon Lodge wasn’t in the Amazon Rain Forest should have been the acres and acres of farmland that we drove by on the way north from Quito.   Nonetheless, we kept our hopes that around the next mountain we would see the sprawling canopy of the jungle, complete with monkeys and flying Toucans.   After three hours of winding two lane road (this is important later) and passing through several mountain villages, we made a left turn off the main road and there we were-at the gates to the lodge.  We followed a dirt road past some bungalows and arrived at the welcoming pavilion- complete with restaurant and pool.  There were beautiful Ti-leaves, and dozens of other flowering plants.  There was even a nearby river with a purported sand beach.  But however lush it was with tropical vegetation, it was most certainly not the Amazon.  No brightly colored flying Parrots darting from tree to tree, no fluorescent poisonous toads, no flesh eating piranhas in the river, and most saddening to me, no monkeys.   I asked the attendant at the desk “adonde esta el monkeys?”   Her reply was in English, “ha, ha, ha” she said, “there are no monkeys here.”   We had arrived at the local version of a Club Med resort, complete with holiday vacationers, plenty of families with babies,  a waterfall pool, and back to back activities for the guests.

Susie and I gave a deep sigh of and some silent curses aimed at deceiving internet websites, while Noa decided to make the best of it by canon balling into the pool.  So, we completely gave in and joined him in the water for some cervezas and pina coladas at the swim up bar.  Perhaps we did need a rest for a few days after the sweltering heights of Machu Picchu.