Jungle Tour and ending of Ecuador!

It has been already a week that the four of us are hanging around in Peru! I had stopped my last message on the end of the Cotopoxi so here is what has followed.

We arrived to meet back Alex and Sao-Mai in Baños a nice little town more in the south. From there we had already booked a tour for two days in the Jungle! Alex and I had already been quite a bit in some jungles but the girls never and we thought it would give us an occasion to compare.
After a great night we went early in the morning to catch our transportation driving us near our jungle lodge. On the way we stopped a few times to observe the great panoramic of this high jungle and all its rivers and cascade of clear waters. In fact this part of the jungle differs from lowland jungle since it is its beginning, where everything starts, (the rivers, the temperatures is still not too hot, we are between 1500 and 900 meters of altitude, it is not yet the same density). The river we were going along by car joins the Amazons 3500 km further Est which leads to the carribean sea! It is quite impressive to know that from this far inland you can join the carribean see on a Canoe! Bref, after a 3 hours ride we finally arrived in a quite lost place with our guide. Once there, we just had the time to put on our big boots, and follow our native indian guide to go deeper into the jungle. With him we discovered and learned a lot on how indigenous communities are still living completly autonomous in the jungle (they can be reach only by canoe or by very small aiplans)! Many ONG programs protect them as well as the governement which help developing /protecting their traditions and way of life). After a 45 min walk in the mud and humid vegetation, we reached a very nice and impressive waterfall where of course we had a revitalizing bath! Once back at our camp lunch was ready. After a small siesta, with our bags on our back,we once again followed our guide going uphill in the jungle toward our lost lodge waiting for us for the night. He taught us many things on the plants, making out from a leave a incredibly solidbracelet! And we were not at the end of our surprise when we arrived at our lodge, the view on the jungle was incredible. Not one sign of civilization, not one noise beside the jungle wildlife, just trees, waterfalls, clouds, and us!! After another great meal prepared by our guide we went on a night tour a bit difficult since we had tried a few very good local beverages!
Next day the programm was to be dense as well! We started by walking down to the base camp, from there we went on a canoe to go 35 min down a river ( it was doing rafting but with a oldwooden canoe taking water from more than 100 holes)! After this we walk again uphill in the jungle till arriving to a "mirrador" ! There again the view was incredible and our knowledge on plants was growing continiously! On the afternoon we tatooed our arm with natural colors and visited a indigenous community. In the evening we went to the thermal bath once back in Baños. Next day we wanted to visit the famous city of Cuenca. We arrived on Sunday evening and everything was closed but the city is really nice. It all made us think of a nice cultural european town. Ecuador really suprised us for its development and very nice cities and tourist attraction. Monday we went to cross the boarder in order to reach Peru! As a war to define the countries real boarder ended only in 1998 it was kind of messy to cross it! Many traffic of all kind take profit of unclear law delimitation and arriving in a place like that at night freak us up!! But beside exchanging 20USD for false peruvians bills nothing else happened!