Back to Quito

On the morning of the fourth day, we were planning an early morning birdwatching session (similar to back home, many of the birds in the rainforest seem to like morning best), but we woke a little before six to the loud patter of rain on the roof. I don’t think a single person in our group bothered to even get out of bed to see if the birdwatching was still on. After the rainout, we had little else to do besides pack, eat some breakfast, and load back in the canoe for the two hour ride to a road. After two more hours on the road, we were back in Lago Agrio

            As soon as we arrived back in town, we headed to the bus station to get the first bus to Quito we could find. Nassima already had a ticket booked for a 2:45 bus, but it was sold out. Juan and Valentina were also trying to catch a bus back, but we had parted ways with the rest of our group who had other plans. After a bit of searching, Andrea, Juan, Valentina, and I were able to find a 2:45 bus of our own, though it didn’t look nearly as nice as the one that our French amiga was on. Nonetheless we hunkered down on the bus for a beautiful but slow ride (partially because of the winding road that leads back into the Andes Mountains from the rainforest and partially due to the aforementioned quality of our bus). The bus was cramped and there were a couple of children playing loudly in the aisle, who didn’t help the atmosphere. In short, it wasn’t an enjoyable bus ride before the loud bang that wreaked havoc on our plans for the night.

That bang was the sound of the front driver’s side tire exploding. We were going perhaps 50 km/hr at the time and the driver was able to stop the bus relatively smoothly, though I’m awfully glad we weren’t anywhere near a curve at the time. We all disembarked and waited at the side of the highway (in truth most of the passengers were in the middle of the road and it seems a minor miracle that one of them didn’t get hit by a passing vehicle). The bus employees set to work trying to replace the tire and a few of the passengers made feeble attempts to catch rides with passing buses or trucks. After a bit, the police arrived to direct traffic and the bus tire did finally get changed after an hour. All the other passengers were shuffled back on the bus to drive slowly to the next town. We, however, had special treatment. Valentina had told the police officer that the four of us were afraid of getting back on the bus and asked if we could ride with him. He obliged and I got the sense that some of the other passengers wished they had been in the police truck themselves. It wasn’t a foolish thing to be scared of riding in the bus more than we had to. As we were waiting for the tire to be changed, a couple Ecuadorians and I checked out other tires on the bus and there wasn’t a lot of tread left on any of them.

The bus in the dark. You can hardly see the headlights because of all the people standing around the bus.

When we arrived in the next town, only a short ways up the road, the bus let everyone back off because police officer wouldn’t allow the bus to continue. We thought this was appropriate and were glad that the police called another bus company to come and take the passengers to Quito. As this was all being sorted out, we (really Valentina and Juan) made contingency plans with a hotel down the street. Andrea and I were extremely grateful to be with the Uruguayan couple. We enjoyed their company and we would have had real difficulty understanding what was going on without their help in translating. Eventually, the new and much nicer bus arrived and we were on our way to Quito. The rest of the trip was uneventful (unless you count paying double the price for a taxi) and the four of us spent the night back at our old friend, Community Hostel.

Nights of sleep usually don’t bring particularly interesting stories, but I have to share one story from the night. Andrea and I had two of the bunks in a six bed dorm and Valentina and Juan were sharing a single bed in the same dorm because it was the only bed the hostel had left. Apparently another of our dorm mates had a birthday that day and she and a friend came in loudly in the wee hours of the morning after a night on the town. I had partially awaken when they tromped in, but was brought completely awake when one of the girls started making sounds like she was throwing up little bits in her mouth. It would have been gross with only that, but it was made worse by these little munching sounds that she made after each episode. It sounded like she was contentedly chewing her cud, which was in fact vomit. Sufficiently grossed out already, it reached a new level of disturbing when she let out a long fart, maybe 5 or 6 seconds long. It sounded so juicy that I guessed she would have to send the pants she was wearing into early retirement. At this point, I just had to look over at this person. She was a pretty large girl, collapsed flat on her face in bed, looking sort of like a beached whale that flopped onto shore. She started to climb out of bed and halfway down the ladder from her top bunk, she completely lost her footing and fell heavily the last couple feet on to the floor. The Korean-American gentlemen sleeping below her woke then and asked if she was alright; she mumbled that she was and scurried out, then proceeded to call pathetically to a friend in another room from the hallway for the next 30 minutes. Something like “Amah…Amah….Amah, I’m drunk as *$&#,” repeated over and over until I finally regained a blissful unconsciousness. I think my life has a new champion atop the list of worst first impressions ever.

Amazonia Days 3 and 4

On the third day of our jungle trip we started off the morning with a trip to one of the indigenous villages in the rainforest, an hour or so further down the river from our camp. There are five different tribes of indigenous people that live in the section of rainforest that we were in, and it is a fairly unique situation because the indigenous people have a great deal of control over what happens in their rainforest. I’ve not encountered many situations were the indigenous group truly maintains control over their lands the way that they seem to here. A good example is that all of the tourist lodges in the rainforest are on land leased month-to-month from the local people. That’s not to say that it’s always been this way or that it didn’t take a political fight for the indigenous to assert this sort of control, my understanding is that it did take quite a lot of work to get it arranged this way, but it seems like a uniquely positive arrangement now.

            When we arrived to the village, one of the local women spent an hour or so showing us how they make a sort of bread from the yucca plant. It was quite impressive. She hacked down a small yucca tree with a machete and we pulled up the roots, which look like long potatoes. She started the peeling with her machete and we finished peeling the outside covering by hand. Once we had the clean tubers, our group grated them on what looked like large cheese graters, and then sifted the rough product into a fine flour. At this point, the flour is still very wet, so the locals use a long strip of woven wood, maybe six inches by five feet long, to press out the water. Basically, the wet flour lies in the center and then the entire woven contraption is twisted and twisted with one end attached to the wall and the other to a large stick for leverage. An impressive amount of water comes pouring out and you’re then left with a dry flour. There’s just enough water left in the flour to allow it to stick together and make a very simple bread. They cook it on a large, flat iron plate over an open fire. After the local woman made a couple, she asked if anyone wanted to try, so I did. I found out that the key is getting the flour smoothed out and pressed to the right thickness before it cooks too much and loses its malleability. My first effort turned out a little thick, but very edible. I’d give it a B. We ate the Yucca bread with jam or mayonnaise and tuna. It’s a little bland but quite good. It had a texture and taste something like plain shredded wheat.

            After our snack we went to another small indigenous community where we had lunch and then listened to a shaman talk about his work. On the way, we made a quick stop to view a nocturnal species of monkeys resting high up in a nest that we’d have had no hope of seeing if the guide didn’t know it was there. During the visit with the shaman, Diego was very kind in translating for us once again. Essentially, the shaman is a sort of spiritual doctor, similar to that in many other indigenous cultures. The shaman told us that he studied with his grandfather and father (both also shamans) for many years (if I remember correctly, it was ~15 or 20) before he was allowed to “practice” on his own. A significant amount of the rituals the shaman performs are related to the use of a hallucinogenic plant called ayahuasca. He primarily uses the hallucinogen himself, but “patients” can also use it during some of the cleansing rituals. He showed us a short version of a cleansing ceremony that he might perform for an ill patient (with the hallucinogen). Lars asked him if there was any conflict with the Catholic church (which is far and away the dominant religion in Ecuador). I was surprised that the shaman stated that there was no conflict and that he, in fact, was Catholic himself. Interesting. We checked out a couple more local plants used by the natives and headed back to the lodge for supper.

            After our supper, we went out for a night hike, primarily to find insects that aren’t out during the day. We saw a few unique insects and being out in the jungle at night is an amazing experience just for the sounds and the immense vastness of the place, which is accentuated in the dark. However, the most interesting part of the hike again proved to be rain. It started pouring on us after about half of the planned hike and we hurried back to the canoe to head for home. The drenching rain made the already dark night even darker but, incredibly, our boat driver was able to bring us all the way back entirely without the use of light. The guy seemed to know every turn and log like the back of his hand. It was really, really, impressive. On the boat ride, we took off our ponchos and allowed ourselves to get completely drenched by the warm rain. FUN!

            On the morning of the fourth day, we were planning an early morning birdwatching session (similar to back home, many of the birds in the rainforest seem to like morning best), but we woke a little before six to the loud patter of rain on the roof. I don’t think a single person in our group bothered to even get out of bed to see if the birdwatching was still on. After the rainout, we had little else to do besides pack, eat some breakfast, and load back in the canoe for the two hour ride to a road. After two more hours on the road, we were back in Lago Agrio

Our whole group in the canoe. The lady with the baby was perhaps our guide's wife? The driver in the back is NOT the crazy one that abandoned us.

Amazon Days 1 & 2

Michael's second installment:

Hoatzin Bird

We saw quite a few interesting birds on the first excursion, including our first Hoatzin (pronounced watt-zeen), which is a strange looking bird that has apparently been around for a long time. The guide called it a prehistoric bird. The birds were fascinating, but the highlight of the animal search was seeing a GIANT anaconda resting in some of the shallow waters of the lake a little ways from our camp. At its largest, it appeared to be 8-10 inches in diameter and the guide thought that it was ~15 feet long, though we couldn’t tell for sure due to the murky water and the snake being coiled up.

Scales of the anaconda peaking above the surface

I was shocked by how close we got to it. Andrea and I were probably no more than 5 feet from the creature at one point, but apparently they only feed twice a year and they don’t really move much the rest of the time, particularly during the day. The guides didn’t seem concerned at all about being so close. I’ve never minded snakes much, but it took me a bit to adopt their unconcerned demeanor. To make it better, we finished off the night by taking a 10 minute swim in the lake only a couple hundred meters from the snake. It’s hard for me to imagine any business in the States having the gumption to take on that liability, even though it is apparently safe. We headed for camp, had a nice dinner, and enjoyed a long night’s sleep afterwards, since we hadn’t slept well on the overnight bus the night prior.

We started off our adventures on the second day in Amazonia with a morning hike. We planned to go a couple of hours out and then head back the same way, seeing what we could see along the way. We followed the plan with a notable modification that I’ll soon share.

Quinine Tree

Along our hike, we mostly looked at some of the different jungle plants.The guide showed us the tree that quinine comes from (which was used to treat malaria, until parasites in much of the world became resistant). We also saw the viney plant that curare comes from. Curare acts on the central nervous system to paralyze humans or animals. The local people used to use it for hunting to paralyze their prey, and it has been used medically in anesthesia as well. The guide also showed us how you could hit a particular species of giant trees with a large stick and it would make a sound that echoed for great distances. At one time, the indigenous people used this method as a way to communicate between villages.

Waiting in the rain at the edge of the lagoon where our boat should be

The hike was swell until we got back to our starting point and our boat driver had left with our canoe. We thought that there may have been some miscommunication or he had been needed elsewhere for some urgent reason, but we waited and waited and no one came. We ended up waiting for around two hours and it started absolutely pouring rain (as rainforests tend to do) about 15 minutes into the wait. It felt a little like an episode of Survivor or something and we had discussed what we’d have to do to hike back to the camp ourselves (our guide said it would have been around a 6 hour hike through the rainforest, but we were at least a little reassured by the fact that it was possible. Eventually the staff at our camp grew concerned that we weren’t back for lunch and came for us in another boat.
I don’t think anyone ever did find out where the boat driver went, but he was back at the camp later that evening and took us out for our evening fishing trip. (Apparently, the same fellow disappeared next day when he was supposed to take a group out for a shorter trip because he was convinced that he had Dengue fever and wanted to go the hospital even though he had no symptoms. At least he left them in camp instead of the middle of the rainforest. He was back again the next day, but I’d have to think that he got fired. I hope he finds a good psychiatrist).

Moving on, the evening fishing trip wasn’t your ordinary trip. We were going fishing for piranhas. We used basic stick and line poles with some beef loaded on the end. As you might guess, getting piranhas to nibble isn’t difficult. Andrea was the first to get a hook in one, but it wasn’t exactly caught. She pulled the pole up very quickly and the piranha took a little flight that didn’t end in the canoe. It was exciting to get our first look at one though. Eventually we caught around 10 of the little guys, including three different species: red, white, and silver. It was interesting having Lars, the fisheries professor with us. He pointed out some of the finer differences between them that I certainly wouldn’t have noticed on my own. He was pretty excited to examine the unique fish, which I suspect are quite different than those in the Great Lakes that he studies. I never did catch one of the little fellas. If you’re in the market for a fishing buddy, I’d take Andrea. She had much better luck.

Jungle Introduction

This is the first installment of Michael's contribution. He said he would tackle the job of describing our four days in the jungle.

From Michael:

Breakfast in lago agrio outside hotel d'mario

Our bus back from Mindo arrived in Quito around 7:30 PM and we caught another delicious dinner at the Community Hostel while picking up our bags. We then headed to CarpeDM Adventures, where the very friendly Canadian-Ecuadorian owner Paul met us and gave us a lift to the bus station. The overnight bus trip was 8 hours long and took us to Lago Agrio is in the northeast part of Ecuador. Lago Agrio is a bit of a grungy oil town that 48,000 people call home. Interestingly, its official name is Nuevo Loja, though no one calls it that and nearly all maps bear its nickname. The bus ride was long, not particularly comfortable and we found it difficult to sleep. We arrived in Lago Agrio around 6 AM fairly beat.

Michael in the back of the motorcycle truck

Our best experience in Lago Agrio was our first one. We took a “motorcycle truck”  from the bus station to the Hotel D’Mario where our guide was to meet us at 9. It was literally a motorcycle with a mini truck-bed and two wheels welded on to the back end where you would typically expect the back wheels to be. We threw our bags in the back and clambered into the bed ourselves. Sketchy perhaps, but it was pretty enjoyable to see the looks we got. I’m sure two gringos with overstuffed bags weighing down the whimpering little engine of the contraption was fairly comical.

When the guide arrived, we had another couple hours’ bus ride to the entrance of the Cuyabeno Reserve (or more accurately, the Reserva Producción Faunística Cuyabeno). We had a short introduction to the park rules from one of the rangers at the station, which was all in Spanish. This was a harbinger of things to come, as Andrea and I were to spend a good part of the next several days trying to catch as much of Spanish explanations as we could. The guides and workers in our little jungle camp spoke far less English (i.e. virtually none) than advertised. We were fortunate to have a truly wonderful group of fellow travelers. Several of our compatriots spoke both English and Spanish well and were exceedingly kind in helping translate when we needed some help understanding the guide’s explanations. Just as helpful was the fact that a couple of our fellow travelers spoke about the same amount of Spanish as Andrea and I, so we were able to share the load of asking “huh?” We were nine travelers in total: Andrea and myself; Lars, a Swedish-American fisheries professor at Cornell University in New York; his son Pelle, a whitewater rafting guide who worked out of Ecuador or North Carolina, depending on the season; Nassima, a Paris native who was in the middle of a year-long around the world adventure and enjoyed her first trip to the rain forest so much that she turned around and came right back; Juan and Valentina, a Uruguayan physician and architect respectively, with whom we ended up sharing more adventures after leaving the jungle, and Diego and Gabriella. Diego was originally from Argentina and currently lives in Mexico, where Gabriella is from.

From the small ranger station, we loaded our bags and some supplies into a long wooden canoe with a small outboard motor and headed down the Rio Napo into the rainforest. Along the way we saw many interesting species of birds, including herons, kingfishers, parrots, and more. We also stopped in two different spots to observe different species of monkeys and saw many brightly colored butterflies. One brilliant blue species was particularly common. After 3 hours and around 25 or 30 kilometers we arrived at our jungle lodge, had a meal, and went out once again looking for wildlife.

Mindo, 12/29/12

On Saturday, December 29^th, we took a day trip to Mindo, which is about 2 hours to the northwest of Quito. We wanted to have as full a day in Mindo as possible, so we woke up early (6 am for Andrea, later for Michael) and paid the hostal before setting out with our small packs for the day.  Our first new experience on that day was to use the public bus transportation. The station is very near the hostal, but if you remember from before, bus stations make Michael uncomfortable. He actually did very well and figured out where we should go when I was getting pessimistic about the situation.  We paid our 25 cents to get onto the platform of the station, then hopped on the next bus that came by with “Ophelia.” Ophelia is an intercity bus terminal in the more northern part of Quito, and our ride on the crowded bus took about half an hour.  When we got to the Ophelia station, we climbed the stairs from the street up to where the buses were parked. As we were walking up, one of the bus boys was yelling – “Mindo! Mindo?” We thought we would have to go find the ticket counter, but he waved us straight to the bus that was ready to pull out. “Cuanto questa?” we managed to ask as we were boarding. It was only $2.50 per person, so round trip for both of us it cost $10 total.

The bus ride was beautiful, but we are starting to learn that all bus rides are beautiful here! It was twisty curvy through the mountains, and when there was a break in the foliage, you could see the deep valley we were driving along.  The plants were all tropical and – compared to Iowa – I thought we were already in the jungle. Still, writing this after our trip to the jungle in the eastern part of the country (the Oriente) I wouldn’t be the best person to describe the difference between the ecosystem of the cloud forests and the amazon jungle.

We arrived in Mindo between 10 and 11. It is a small town with lots of businesses geared toward tourism, I think for both Ecuadorians and international visitors. We walked 5 or 6 blocks on the main street and didn’t cover the whole town, but came close to it. Michael had read about a hostal/restaurant in Lonely Planet and when we spotted it on a side street we stopped there for an early lunch. It was a very comfortable place and we ate on the porch.

A few dogs kept us company, got called away, and then came back to see if they would get any table scraps. I ordered a veggie and pineapple sandwich that came with fries, and Michael ordered a trout that came with rice and veggies. Both were very good and  it was all under $10. As we were paying, we talked with a woman there whose first language was English and got some advice about how to get to the Tarabita cable car. We decided we didn’t want to pay the $7-$10 for a taxi to take us up to it, and would try hitching a ride with a  truck on the road for a dollar each.

Shortly after starting our walk, we were out of town. Just a little further and we were walking along the River Mindo where it is popular to go down with a guide on “rafts” of 6 or 7 tubes tied together.  A taxi pulled up next to us and we thought this was our chance to get a cheap ride to the Tarabita. The only problem is that I only learned the name of the cable car AFTER we returned from Mindo. So instead of clarifying that he was offering to take us there for 2 dollars, I just assumed it was the only place along the road that we could go. Wrong. We went a mile on the wrong side of the river with this taxi driver to the Mariposa (butterfly) attraction. When he said it was still $8 from the Mariposa to the Tarabita, we had to walk back a mile on the road until we got to the bridge that got us on the right road. I felt very dumb but Michael was nice to me and just said that in the future I should confirm that taxi drivers are really going where I want them to go.

When we finally got across the bridge, we saw a sign that said the Tarabita cable car was 6km down the road. Er, rather, UP the road. It was a reasonable hike, and we were booking it so that we could get to the Tarabita and still doing some hiking on the other side and get back to town before the last bus left at 5. No trucks came that we could jump in with, but it was good for us to be active and sweat out our frustrations and anxiety from traveling. It united us as well, to have a common goal of getting to the top, and that was a needed break from our seemingly constant debating of what to do and how to do it.  All in all, I think we got up in about 40 minutes.

The Tarabita Cable car runs from a platform on one side of a river valley to the other side. It is reported to hang 152 meters above the ground.  Maybe it was once hand powered, but they had a truck motor of some sort on the starting side that powered it back and forth.

On the other side we hiked in the Bosque (forest) Protector Mindo-Nambillo to see 5 waterfalls (of 7 or more total). I’ve named them in their captions. I was glad I wore my Chacos and could wade as much as I wanted. The water was cool and clear, and we were hot from hiking so it felt good to get wet.
 I wished I had been prepared to get more of my body wet. It was a perfect place to swim, but would have been cold to have wet clothes when we were done. I did put my head in to get my hair wet, because I knew we would be about 24 hours before even a chance of a shower.

We saw all the waterfalls and rode in the cable car and had time to walk back to town. So, besides our taxi ride that went in the wrong direction, we carried ourselves to our destinations on our own two feet. And that was it! The only other thing to say is that with all that hiking in my Chocos, I got a little raw spot on both of my feet – breaking them in! Michael likes his new hiking boots too and is happy with their waterproofness. With no access to internet that day, we thought of Ann but couldn't get any messages to her to say happy birthday. So...Ann, if you read this, happy belated birthday!