¨if I can´t see dancing elephants then I´m not interested.¨

Well, I´m in Coca all day, and the Internet at the hotel is free, so I´m jealously hogging it from the passive aggressive Frenchman lurking over my shoulder and uploading some photos for folks´ viewing pleasure.
The flooded forest of Cuyabeno.

Little caterpillars.
This was a cool tree. No one seemed to know the name of it, it was just ¨the white tree.¨ It´s white because it´s covered with a kind of fungus. It´s cool because the tree hardly has any leaves on it, so it´s as though the fungus and the tree are in a kind of symbiotic relationship with each other, where the tree benefits from the fungus and vice versa. Wow, my scientific writing is so wonderfully informative and accurate. What´s really cool about the tree is a) it glows in the dark (really! I saw it in Yasuni!) and b) when you rub your fingers against the bark the fungus comes off in a powdery, crumbly form, and apparently you can use it as a deoderant. Mmmm.
Earth tongue fungi (genus xylaria).

This fungus glows in the dark too! Bioluminescent fungi (genus mycena). The first cordyceps we found in Ecuador! Thank you Jessica (I mean, yeeeeeessica, her other alias), for being clever enough to lift up the leaf and spot it.

NOT A REISHI (a cool polypore you make tea out of it and drink for general health and well-being, following the example of the Chinese). Reishi have brown spores. Probably ganoderma applanatum.

Brian deconstructs our homemade laboratory, essentially a giant fishtank, in which exciting things such as cloning take place.
The cicada nest. You know, the bugs that are buried underground for 17 years and go EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE when they come out. Kind of like me very early in the morning.

An earthstar!

Corey doesn´t even know what this shit is.

Orange fuzzy cup happy fungi! i.e. Cucina
There are a lot of monkeys in the jungle.

A lot of pretty sunsets, too.
The yage or ayahuasca vine (the one with three leaves--Corey is mad at me for using this picture because he feels it isn´t correct, as there are three vine species depicted. My attitude is it´s in there suuuuumwhere, the shaman man told me sooooo!). otherwise known as Tori Amos´ favorite beverage. Thank you, yage, for blessing the world with such lovely ditties such as ¨Father Lucifer¨!

Also, this is a bit of a long interruption, but I wanted to cite an interesting Tori Amos quote from an interview concerning her experiences with this plant:

¨The drug which had a big effect on me was ayahuasca. It comes from a vine in the Amazon and you ingest it. You know that stuff they take in The Emerald Forest? It’s like that. I was hanging around with some medicine women and they suggested I try it. I was very lucid, but felt like I was walking around Fantasia, having a conversation with myself. It isn’t like acid. It’s more emotional, more mental. But it can grab you by the balls and just shove you up against the wall. I’ve been in a room with a woman who was literally trying to bite her own arm off. And this lasted for 15 hours. I wasn’t scared - just scared that I’d make a fool of myself. The funny thing was, I kept laughing and laughing, rather than sitting in the corner being intense. Then every so often, I’d say, I’m in a really rough patch. And one of the medicine women would come over and reassure me that everything was going to be alright. But it would keep on getting deeper. In the end, though, it was an educational experience. I learned a lot about myself. I haven’t taken it in a couple of years now. You can only really do it once in a blue moon. But the wild thing is that sometimes I only have to smell something and I’m right back there again, high as a kite. It just happens.

I’m really into moderation. Too much of anything will harm you in the end. Too much sugar. Too much pasta. I’m into drugs as a teaching tool, which is why I only take hallucinogens. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never done cocaine, but, on the whole, if I can’t see dancing elephants then I’m not interested.¨ [Q - May 1995]

Thank you for those wise and informative words, Tori. For more interesting Tori stories on journeys and more, click on the Tori Stories link at yessaid.com.

The Brian! We love the Brian! The mushrooms love the Brian too!

Moths don´t mind cigarette butts. This was at the bridge where we took the canoa into the park, mind you--not the jungle floor!

Pizza Hut takes the concept of salchipapa (french fries and sausages, fried together in the same gloriously sizzling oil) just a little too far.
Corey´s fish face.

Pipe lines running along the road in front of people´s homes, a common Lago Agrio roadside scene.

Back in Quito, we relaxed and recuperated for a few days. Corey, Chris and I went on a dayhike to Ilalo, a nearby mountain in Tumbaco. We originally wanted to go mushroom hunting but the landscape ended up being a bit too dry and arid, very California-like. Still, it was nice.

Danny and Clyde, i.e. Theresa. Danny was an absolute hero with his camera throughout the trip and is responsible for the amazing site chronicling all of our Mycotour mushroom finds, ranging from Cuyabeno to Mindo. Check it out: http://www.flickr.com/groups/mushroomsofecuador/ Rock on, Danny.
The lady who owned this donkey scolded us on our way back down the mountain for not making it all the way to the top. We bowed our heads in altitude-gasping gringo shame and scurried away.