100 Hours Deep in the Amazon Rainforest

For the next 100 hours, we are going to be traveling deep into the Amazon rainforest. A place with over 400 billion trees, where some of the plants can heal you, and some of the insects can paralyze you. You found a bullet ant. Can't those kill you? Over the next 4 days, we'll be exploring through the jungle in search of exotic wildlife, as well as meet with a local Amazonian tribe. Now the reason why we're heading into the Amazon is because I recently launched my tea company, Belief, in which one of our hero ingredients, called guayusa, is only found here, deep in the Amazon of Ecuador. This has to be the most excited I've been for a trip in so long. We're going to the Amazon! Alright so we have now made it to the gateway into the Amazon here in Coca, Ecuador. And where we are about to be staying is super remote, where we are about to get on a 2.5 hour motorboat ride to then get into a canoe and paddle for 2 more hours to finally make it to our lodge. So let this Amazon rainforest adventure officially begin. Three hours later, we have now completed the parts with the motorboat, switching on over to the paddle boat. Alright I know we're going to be seeing a lot more exotic animals once we do get deeper into the rainforest, but I'm already impressed by even just looking at these beautiful butterflies. Yeah we're not in Kansas anymore. Well certainly not Chris. Our chariot has arrived. We have Chris the butterfly whisperer, just catching butterflies on his finger. It saw my shirt. So guys, we are now deep into the Amazon rainforest, where I don't believe I have ever felt this disconnected from the rest of the world. It is just us and all of the animals here in the Amazon. And the Amazon is the most biodiverse place on the planet. We're already just about 10 minutes in, we have already seen some beautiful red howler monkeys as well as even a snake. No anaconda yet, but high hopes that we do see the beast of the Amazon. Also, we are going to be having the best tour guide here in the Amazon. Delphine, where are you from exactly? I'm from the Amazon. I was born and raised in the Amazon rainforest. I consider the rainforest my home. Grew up as a hunter, fisherman, but for the last 23 years I've been working as a guide. So I will share my life in the rainforest with you. So you pretty much grew up with anacondas? Yes, anaconda, jaguar, snakes, monkeys. What are the chances we find an anaconda? We have a good chance to see it by the lake. These days a huge one has been exposed, so we'll be looking for that during these days. We are only about four hours in and I already have a feeling that this is going to be one of the best trips of my life. We just stumbled across the third largest reptile in the world. It's in the family of an alligator, but this is the black cayman and it is looking right at me. Or maybe it's looking at you since you're from Florida. Maybe it senses alligators in Florida. This is like my cousin. Wow, we are freakishly close. So the black cayman is an apex predator here in the Amazon jungle, where the only other animal that stands a chance is an anaconda. And Delphine said it is a pretty fair fight depending on the size. But if you ask me, I definitely have my money on an anaconda. Chris, who you got your money on? I'm going in on the black cayman. Black cayman, really? Bro, you picked up a snake with your bare hands. I don't know if I want to see you fight a black cayman. Retreat. Retreat. Back up. After a three-hour incredible ride through the jungle, we have finally made it to the Napo Wildlife Center. So this is where we are going to be staying for the next four days. We have a nice riverfront property. Let's see what this is all about. Oh, it feels so good after traveling six hours by rowboat and motorboat. And plane. Yeah, it's been a long day. But we're only here for like 96 more hours. Time to get up. Oh, look at that view. Even though I barely slept last night, I am just feeling high on life from how much energy the Amazon is giving me. You know when you go to those places and you just get the chills and you just feel so present? That is exactly how I'm feeling right now. I've caught myself getting the chills at least six times already. Life does not get much better than this. Chilling on a hammock in the middle of the Amazon. Typically when I'm staying on a property like this, that is waterfront with its own hammock, I am out here listening to music. But being here in the Amazon, we have not listened to one song. Since it is just so surreal to be amongst all of these animals listening to some noises I've never heard before in my life. And I want to enjoy every second of it. Also, every animal noise that you do here in this video is sounds that Chris and I captured. So you guys can also get the authentic sounds that we're getting to hear. There will be no edit sound effects in this video. Oh, ----. No, another dang cockroach. Welcome to the Amazon. You can use the cup method like how I did it. Trap it in the cup. I'm two for two. Great batting average. Better than most Yankees. There's nothing I hate more than starting an edit and realizing I don't have enough b-roll. But then there's nothing that makes me happier than remembering I have Storyblocks. With a Storyblocks account, I get access to unlimited downloads of diverse and high quality media for one predictable subscription cost. All of the content is human made with no generative AI content. They have 4K NHD video, music, sound effects, images, and more to help level up your content game. To get started with unlimited stock media downloads at one set price, head to storyblocks.com slash Brett Conte or click the link in the description down below. Is that noise? The howling monkeys? That's a howler monkey, yeah. That's a nice alarm clock. Ah, love it. Oh, here we go. Delfin, many cockroaches in the room. Yeah, sometimes a lot of cockroaches come from the forest. Even though they clean. They clean? As long as they're clean cockroaches. Guys, I know we say New York City is the city that never sleeps, but the Amazon is the forest that does not sleep. But even this early at five in the morning, you can hear so many animals. Like just listen to these howler monkeys. Hasta luego. All right, well, there goes our ride. Now we're on foot for the next hour and a half heading to a tree house to watch the sunrise. All right, guys, so if you saw my previous Costa Rica video, we did not see a sloth. But here in the Amazon, we finally found the sloth. Oh, it's super far away. You have to use a telescope to see it. Delfin, the master spotter. Yeah. So cool. Content creator in the Amazon too. We got the sloth. Or Delfin got the sloth. Yeah, okay, it's in the center. Delfin, best in the jungle. We just spotted the most beautiful bird I've ever seen in my life. According to Delfin, it's super rare. Gosh, look at this. This is the biggest. And the red is macaw that we have red and green. That is chewing the seed. That is unreal. Guys, we have finally found a toucan. My first ever toucan I have ever seen in my life. Besides on a box of Froot Loops. Good one, Chris. Always count on you with the jokes. Thank you, thank you. I'm literally here until you tell me not to be. So I keep you around. I tell you, it's just the pro that you're good at filming. I keep you around for the good dad jokes. Yeah, and I see the comments. To all the one, two people that comment a couple times a year, I see you. Love you. So we just began our trek back to get on the rowboat. And we just got surrounded by monkeys. There's literally like seven right above us. This is a woolly monkey in the danger of extinction. When you see like this, this is the effort, conservation effort that the community has been doing. Not shy. You saw they were shaking the branches. They were trying to intimidate us. They move in a large troop. The troop could be easily 30 to sometimes 40, but they often divided up. So Delphine just said that we are very lucky to see this many of the woolly monkeys since they are an endangered species here in the Amazon because they do get hunted by humans to be eaten for special occasions. But for some reason, they are not intimidated by us and still just surrounding us. More and more just keep coming. So many branches keep falling. They're all looking at us. There's about a dozen monkeys staring us down. Whoa. Delphine, what is that? Spider-man? This is a spider monkey. Yes. Spider-man. Not Spider-man. Spider monkey. Do they call them a spider monkey? Yes. Because they jump like Spider-man? Spider, large arm. Look, another one coming. What? Look at such a long. Wow. This is a unique experience. Wow. You know, it's good when Delphine is even freaking out. Unreal. This is insane. Oh my gosh. This is insane. I feel like the closest thing to describe it as, it's almost like in the show Jackass when they would like jump off of stuff into trees. That's what these monkeys are doing. Better than the movie. Better than the video game by far. Neck pain is temporary. Vlogs are forever. This really does hurt your neck, but well worth it. Tasty. So these are lemon ants that Delphine said taste like lemon. We're about to eat ants. It's pretty delicious. You can taste the lemon a lot. Tastes like a lemon drop candy. Whoa. Like a punch of a lemon drop. Sour lemon drop. Now to wash down those ants, we just found these little shot glass sized coconuts. Bottoms up. Rise and shine. Chris? Chris. There he is. I don't know if this will make the video, but I just wanted to document how hard it is to wake you up on a given day that we're traveling. I've just been saying your name for the past two minutes. You didn't move an inch. Sleeping like a sloth. I knew you were sleeping because you've been late for lunch. It's like 12 50. We haven't spotted one yet, but Delphine said only a couple days ago he saw a 17 foot anaconda right here next to the property. So we were doing a quick search in hopes to find the beast. There it was right there. Guys and that's our property right there. Insane that anacondas are just roaming around. I was told I am slithering. Just need to speak some parcel tongue. No luck for now. I feel like Chris is low-key hoping that we don't spot one. Bro, I'm just a 17 foot snake. Yeah, I mean look at you. You're a straight up Florida boy. You should be ready for a snake. I should, but I think in this case, you may or may not see me freak out more than I did on the zipline. Or sorry, the bungee jump. So sadly, we have not found an anaconda just yet. But now we are on our way trekking back to the jungle to get to the tree house. Since earlier we were just in a tower that was built by Napo. So on our way now to this tree house. Luckily, we've still got 70 more hours to go. So plenty of time, plenty of more things to see. You just got to keep exploring. Oh, I'm glad that you're being optimistic about wanting to see the anaconda now. I think it'd be pretty cool. Like when else are you going to see that? And also when I meet Nicki Minaj, I can tell her that I've seen an anaconda. Maybe we need to play that song. That's how we find it. We need to just play that song. My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns on. After a 30 minute trek through the jungle, we made it to the tree house. That is a lot of stairs. We found a bullet ant. Can't those kill you? How dangerous are the bullet ants? Well, the bullet ants are not venomous, but they're very painful. They inject the formic acid. So when they stink, no? So many, many people are very sensitive. That is the biggest ant I've ever seen in my life. Is that the biggest ant? It's considered the world's largest ant. That is pretty insane, guys. To just be staring straight at the world's largest ants and deadliest. Now this is what I call a jungle gym. Unreal. Yeah, this beats any tree house I had as a kid. Yeah, definitely way higher. Let's see what we can spot. Delphine, do you have any ritual to bring all the animals? Do it again. All right, now all the animals are now going to start flying over here. Guys, the noises are working. The most beautiful falcon I've ever seen just flew right in front of us. Falcons are my favorite animal. Since they can spot opportunity from a mile away, they are extremely precise and they are always traveling. Wow, that thing is beautiful. Trying not to eat any more bugs today. Maybe tomorrow. Eat it alive? Yeah. Oh my gosh. All right, this is eating a beetle in the Amazon. Delphine, I thought you said that the toucans don't come on the trees too close to us. Did we just get super lucky? Yeah, that sometimes they keep distant, but they were here. They came to say hi to you. Wow, that was insane. We were just surrounded by so many toucans in our tree house. I like that a lot better than being surrounded by monkeys. So the sun has now set. We are about 34 hours into this Amazon adventure and we are now trekking through the jungle in the dark. This is super ominous where we are just walking in the dark amongst pumas, armadillos, even anacondas. And I must say, I feel a little too vulnerable right now. Luckily, we got Pancho, our guide, who was literally born here in the Amazon. Delphine, what is that in your hand? This is an insect called katydid, a type of grasshopper, but this is a nocturnal. All nocturnal insects have such a long antenna for better communication and use. See, this one on the neck. Oh, look at this guy. Delphine, you're really not afraid of anything. No, really. Buenos dias, Delphine. So I've felt bad having all the boys paddling and having Chris and I just sit here. So today, I got a paddle and I'm going to be helping out. We're going to be breaking some speed records today. How long? 45 minutes. With my paddling, we'll get there in 30. Yeah. Let's this day three adventure begin. So the main reason why we came all the way out here to the Amazon in Ecuador is to get to go learn more about guayusa. Guayusa is a hero ingredient that we use in our belief boost tea. And as a founder, I wanted to know everything about my product. So we are coming all the way out here directly to the source. I'm going to go meet with a tribe that lives here in the Amazon and has been drinking guayusa for centuries. So first up, we're going to a clay lake to see some more animals and then to the local tribe. Back to paddling, Chris. It's like my boss is working for me right now. All right, we're definitely breaking some top speeds today. Yeah, I don't remember going this fast yesterday. He's with the current. I heard that. We just found a massive black caiman. I think it's doing some hunting. What the f**k? So Delvin just told us how not only are the parrots flying around to get nutrients and food, but also this is their social hour where they are looking for a mate. So essentially, this is the parrot's version of a bar. Scouting out some talon. All right, and now we are getting back on land. Delvin, where are we heading to next? Now we are going to the second clay lake, which is known as a forest clay lake. Our target there is to see the scarlet macaws and some other species that arrive to that specific place. All right, from the parrot clay lake to the macaw clay lake. One hour later. So now we just made it here to the Quechua community, where the Nepo Lodge that we are staying at is owned by the people of Quechua. And now we are about to go meet some of the locals and see how they live here in the middle of the Amazon. Wow, after this whole journey, we finally made it to see an actual Goyusa plant. And right now we are going to have a ceremony. Oh my gosh, look, they have so many people around waiting for us. Let's go drink some Goyusa. Beautiful ladies are waiting for you, huh? Wow. Welcome, Ali Puncha. You're a great dancer, huh? Thank you. Bailando. That's what we say. But first of all, the Goyusa, when you drink, is going to boost your energy. And secondly, that was how our day used to start. We used to interpret the dreams. That was pretty important because we believe through the dreams, we can visualize the day. So this is the traditional way of drinking without anything, just smoked Goyusa leaf and boiled and like this. So this is a blow gun that they've used in the Amazon for centuries, and now we're going to try it for ourselves. So these are our darts where they typically put poison on them and you try and catch dinner. So we got a dart in there already. We're going to try and hit that fake bird. Don't worry, it's not real. I might have to bring this back to America. All right, really impressed with myself for doing that. You do have to do a big inhale and then really quickly, just blow as hard as you can. This just boosted my confidence so much where if I ever did get left in the middle of the jungle, now I feel like I would survive. So what kind of animals do you usually hunt with this? Monkey primarily and then any large birds that we saw, like a wild turkey bird, toucan, parrots, macaws, those traditionally part of the food in the Amazon. Amazing. Bullseye. Okay, so it is actually snack time. Delphine, so what are we eating for our snack? All right, let's start from here. So this is the ripe plantain cooked and this is manioc, cassava, locally known as yuca. We have this white cacao roasted and we have jungle bacon. That's the best part. If you're eating this, you go at once like this, okay? Jungle bacon. So Delphine said that this is jungle bacon and he won't tell me what it is until after I eat it. Do you eat the whole thing? Whole thing, the head is the best part. And then I will show you also the real one, clean the live one. All right, well, now I know that this thing was living not too long ago, so I kind of have a good guess on what it could be. Just don't think about it. All right, just envisioning. I'm in the jungle. This is my last meal. I have to eat this. I'm grateful for this food that we have. Give me a second. The head is crunchy. Okay, that was weirdly delicious. It did just taste like a normal snack and it was crunchy on the outside, especially with its head, but then juicy on the inside. Wow, I would honestly eat that again. Well, there's more. I think I gotta save some for you. No, I'm just kidding. It was really good. Very delicious. What bug is that? Palm weevil larva. But I remember when I was growing up in my village, eating them just maybe twice in a year. And for us, something special, going as a family, you know, union, going to the forest, looking for that kind of bugs. So a delicacy of the Amazon. Delicacy of the Amazon, yes. So beetles, never had one before, but I guess went on the Amazon. You gotta try it. Delfin, is that what I just ate? Yes, but that was cooked. But now you're gonna try alive. Eat it alive? Yeah, I will show you and you do afterwards. Are you ready for that? Or we can do it together. Are you serious? Yeah, you hold it like this. First, you can show like this. What? Chris, you might be having to do that one. Me? Yeah. No, not me. My mind is telling me to not do it, but then also I can feel the regret I'll have telling my grandkids this story in like 50 years. This is your opportunity. Oh my gosh. It takes like a unsalted butter. Doesn't take anything else, you know? Wait, how do you do this? Keep the cameras rolling. This might just give me a second. What's the battery at? Uh, 8%, so you don't have much time. All right, good. I know you can do it. Yeah. In Ecuador, we say si, si puede. That means you can do it. Yeah. Oh, I don't even want to touch it. I'm about to eat that. Oh my gosh. All right, this is eating a beetle in the Amazon. Whoa, just juiced out into my freaking mouth. Gotta make sure I think it's dead. You need to survive in the jungle. And this is the best snack I remember eating when I was a child, when I was growing up. You know, this is why I love traveling the world, is to just learn about different cultures, the delicacies, being here in the Amazon. There's nowhere else in the world I would do that, but just to learn about how the people grew up here, I felt like I had to, but I don't think I'll ever do that again. Alfin, gracias. I wouldn't have done that without you. My heart's still racing. Now you're a jungle man. Jungle man! So the main reason why I wanted to come all the way out here to the Amazon and Ecuador is because with starting belief, guayusa is a main ingredient in our tea. And why I love guayusa is because it has both caffeine as well as L-theanine. So it gives you that more consistent caffeine release without the crash. But then also I am a huge fan of the taste, where it's a lot more naturally sweet, where it's not as grassy as green tea, but also not as smoky as mate. It's right in the middle. And now we brought our Belief Boost Tea back to where it came from, here in the Ecuador, Amazon. And this is a guayusa tree. You're back home, little buddy. It is really cool to come out here as a founder of starting a tea company to get to know exactly where the ingredients come from. It's the proper due diligence to make sure I'm doing everything to make sure we have the best product. So you guys, do you want to try out our Belief Boost Tea or one of our other teas? Then all you have to do is go to drinkbelief.com and you can order them today. Now the last thing we needed to do was have the locals try my Belief Tea. And there's no better time to do that than at 4.30 in the morning before our five-hour adventure back to civilization. Tell us what hour and what time it is real quick. It's 4.30 in the morning. We're about to start paddling. So we're going to need an extra boost. Delphine, you're going to be hitting top speeds today. Give it a smell first. Sweet. Very sweet. Well, the guayusa is naturally sweet. Yes. All right, here you go. Salud. Very good. You can taste a bit of the guayusa. There's also mate and black tea as well as very flavoring. Good flavor. Yes, all right. Let's get our paddling in now that we got our boost. Yep. Success. He loves it. After spending 100 hours in the Amazon, I can confidently say this was one of the most unique adventures of my life. I will link the company I booked through in the description and couldn't recommend this experience enough. See you guys next week for a big announcement.