Blisters, Bug Bites and Babies, Oh My!

I will have to write a post about Quito another time because what I have been doing for the past four days is much more worthy of a blog post.

While in Quito, Jose and I were wondering how we were going to spend our three weeks in the beautiful country of Ecuador, especially since going to the Galapagos Islands was WAAAAAY above our price range.  I wanted, no, needed to see the jungle.  We looked into tours into the Amazon and the cheapest one was $240 for three nights, four days.  It would have been wonderful, but also too expensive.  Jose, with his masterful internet seach skills found a site describing a family that lives in the jungle and often has tourists and volunteers come to stay with them: Cinimp Tuna.  It sounded perfect.  I sent an email to the "contact us" address and hoped to hear back within a couiple of days. 

Two days, three days went by and I still hadn´t gotten a response.  We made plans to head south to Baños and then possibly to Puyo in hopes of finding an affordable way to get into the Jungle.  Then I got an email.  Abbie (a former volunteer with Chinimp Tuna) gave us all the information we had asked for, and then some.  And the price was affordable: $25 a day, or if you stay a week it is $75 per person.  We talked it over and then replied to her to let the family know to expect us within the next couple of days. 

A 1.5 hour bus ride from Baños to Puyo, the purchase of rubber boots in Puyo, then a bus headed toward the Chico Copataza Community for 2 hours.  As we are on the second bus we enter the forest.  Granted this is probably tertiary forest (it has been cleared and regrown at least twice) so there aren´t as many big trees, but it is still the jungle.  Around some corners we could see over a cliff and as far as I could see there was jungle.  Green, green and more green.  Different textures, colors and shapes.  I was going to the jungle!  We stepped off the bus in what felt like the middle of nowhere and are greeted by no less tha six people, with at least 4 children watching from a distance.  They shake our hands, the women kiss my cheek, the chickens on the ground dare to venture closer, the children just stare.  They takes us the main house that they use for gatherings and Manuel welcomes us to Chinimp Tuna (named for a bird and a waterfall).  They seem a little perplexed to see us, and then we find that no one told HIM that we were coming.  Huh.  They scrambled to make dinner for us, to prepare two beds upstairs and to clean off the table where we could eat.  I felt kind of bad, but we had no way of knowing that they were not informed.  We were given juice and we both looked at is skeptically.  The water here was definately NOT safe to drink, but what were we to do?  The family obviously drank water and it was rude to not drink it.  We looked at each other and drank up.

We went up to our "room" which was filled with 11 sets of bunk beds and two of them had been made up for us.  No mosquito netting, the rooms were far from being sealed from bugs and the beds shook a little whenever anyone walked up the stairs to the second floor.  This was going to be an experience! 

After a dinner with rice, noodles, tea and fish:

we went back upstairs to relax.  Soon we began to be attacked by bugs.  Josè went down to ask for a "mosquitero" (mosquito net) and they only had one.  He, awesomely, let me use it the first night and it was a god send.  Lulled to sleep by the jungle symphony of insects, frogs, toads and the occasional unknown sound, we fell asleep in the Jungle.

The next day we were greeted by a lazy rooster (he crowed maybe twice), a hen that wanted to be a rooster, and the sound of a crying baby (which turned out to be the pet parrot).  Our first task after breakfast was to snort this liquid up our nose, which would help us have a better experince in the forest, clean our our sinuses and I´m sure some other benefits. It was water that had tobacco leaves soaking in it.  There may have been other things but I am not sure.  Josè went first, fearlessly and I hestitantly followed.  Its an adventure, right?  It burned, making my nose tingle and my eyes water but eventually that went away.  Then there was a little dizziness and the colors became a little more vivid.  Hrm.  I think I was a little high. 

We ventured into the forest with Dario yeliding his jungle sword (machete) and followed by 5 children.  About 5 meters in we were very thankful for the rain boots as the ground was extremely muddy and more than once the jungle tried to claim our boots for itself.  Our entourage soon ventured off without us, climbing trees and following paths that only their experienced eyes could see.  We tasted fruits and vegetables from the forest as well as seeing brightly colored as well as huge spiders, millipedes and a lot of evidence of monkeys. 

While walking along the river bank I slipped and fell on the rocks banging up my knee, my ribs on the left side and my finger.  My camera was safe though.  Phew!  We finally reached our desitnation and I discovered the real reason the kids came with us.  There was a beautiful waterfall of clear cold water.  The kids had already stripped down to their skivies and were jumping and diving off the rocks into the pool below.  Following their lead I got down to my bathing suit and after some hesitation I jumped into the water.  Cold, but when I lay back to float on my back I saw sunlight, green all around and butterflies fluttering overhead.  I quickly forgot the temperature of the water. 

I swam over to the base of the waterfall (only about 5.5 feet tall, so easy to climb and not too powerful) and tried to climb up the rocks the same way I had seen the kids doing it.  I guess they just knew where to grab because I must have spent a good minute or two struggling to get up.  The kids laughed at me and finally one girl, Yocanda, offered me her hand.  Now Yocanda is 11 years old and skinny as a stick.  I didn´t want to risk her falling down if I slipped so I hesitantly took her hand. 

Carolina (left) and Yoconda (right)

It wasn´t until one of my feet begin to slip and I felt her arm pulling me up when I realized how strong this young girl was.  She grew up in this forest, climing trees, swimming, fishing, running.  When I looked at her again she was skinny, but ALL muscle.  She had a six pack!  Yet another lesson in "first impressions are often wrong".

Carolina helping me up

We all swam and jumped and climed until it was time to go. 

Yocanda, me and Carolina

Yoconda, Josè and Carolina

The girls (Yocanda, Nelba and Crolina) were especially fascinated with my skin, especially the back of my hands that were sunburned.  They would touch them and watch them turn white then back to red and ask me how it happened.  I would try to explain to them that it was the sun but it was such a foreign idea to them that I don´t think they understood what I was talking about.

On our way back home we ate grubs (I ate the small one but the big ones, the ones that were bigger around than my thumb, I couldn´t do it.  I did try though!), watched the kids climb different trees to gather palm fruits and papaya, Yocanda cut down a palm and extracted the heart of it (I had NO idea how much waste went into that little bit of tender food!) and once again the girls helped me through the forest, telling me to watch my head or to look out for the spider web.  

Back home we had lunch and a rest, then Dario took us to Rio Grande (the big river) also called Rio Cotopaza.  He painted our faces with the pigment of a fruit saying it keeps away the bugs, fish and alligators.  At the river we found the children with inner-tubes, playing in the water and in the sand on the other side of the river.  We once again bathed/swam in the river and when the sun started to go down the three of us dried off and went home, the kids stayed to play until the sun was gone.

The next day, Sunday, Jose learned to fish with a net, and I did a lot of holding the machete and watching.  I don´t have time to go into it all right now but it was a fascinating day watching them complete tasks that are hard and frustrating to me, but they have grown up doing it and it is part of their life.  That afternoon and into the evening we both learned how to make the jewelry they wear in that community.  I was in heaven!  There were kids ALL around, mostly watching Jose and I to see (I think) if we could do it.  Another falling down incident occurred when I tried to jump for something while wearing flipflops, on slippery rocks that were not flat and I landed almost on of one of the kids hitting my knee (the same one I banged the day before) and jamming my right pinky when I fell.  The kid started to cry but I learned later that it was probably mostly out of surprise.  The kids have fallen from the second story and are totally fine.  Wow.  

Yesterday we joined Manuel and three of his sons for their daily work in the forest.  We were all given machetes and we were told to cut down everything within a certain area, except the palm trees.  I know what you are thinking.  “YOU CUT DOWN THE RAINFOREST?!” but these people use it for their livelihood.  They are not commercial growers and they don´t do mono-crops.  They plant three or four things in the same plot of land and cut down only as much as they need.  It was hard work and José and I both had blisters by the time we quit for lunch.  Cutting open an orange for a snack (energy to get us back to the house pretty much) we then began the trek back home.  Lunch was wonderful soup with the best papaya I have EVER had.  It was amazing!  Then we had rest time for an hour, then back into the forest to plant things.  We gathered bags of sticks and took them to a cleared place that they already had yucca growing in.  The two men sharpened stick and used them to make holes in the ground where José and I planted the sticks.  The plant was something that they used in fishing.  The mash it up and put it between rocks and it, essentially, drunken the crabs and kills the fish so they can just pick them up out of the water.  Interesting.  Then we planted the jungle version of potatoes.  We finished rather quickly and then had more papaya as a snack.  We trekked back to the house and had a couple hours to bathe (in the river by the way) and then rest until dinner.

Today our hands are sore and we have more bug bites than we can count but it has been so much fun so far!  Tomorrow we are going to do another type of work and then on Thursday (our last day there) we will hike to the big waterfall where the water is so clear you can see the fish when you swim in it.

Shamans, Brides and Devils.

I realize that I haven´t updated in quite some time but things have been busy and the computers have been slow.  We´ll see how this one does.

Last week we left Quito for the quieter, safer and greener town of Baños.  Known for its natural resources and the spas that seem to be around every corner, it was a perfect escape from the fascinating, but loud, city of Quito.  It is a tourist destination so the food was a bit more expensive but there were decently prices hostels, lots of things to do that didn´t require you to pay $40 and we met a lot of fun people in the hostel we stayed at for three nights.  On our first wander around the city in the daylight we saw quite a few interestingly painted buildings (mostly bars) but this one stuck out quite a bit.  Can you name all of them?

With one of our new friends (Amelia) we visited the natural hot springs baths.  They were crowded but it felt SO good to soak in the water!

The next day we found three other people that wanted to do the waterfall bike ride with us and the five of us headed out at around 11 in the morning on our rented bikes.  Rory (from Australia), Kate and Oliver (from New Zealand) rented bikes from a place near our hostel.  They didn´t have ones that worked well for Jose and I so we traipsed across the town to another place that had many bikes to choose from, different sizes (small for me, large for him), comfortable seats and REAL helmets (not just skid caps).  I am SO glad Jose found that place...you´ll find out why later.

The first part of the bike ride was mostly downhill.  I was telling myself "Its ok that you haven´t rideden a bike in years, you can do this!"  Then we reached the turn off for the first waterfall.  I looked at is in astonishment.  The hill was REALLY steep and I could barely walk up it so riding up it was totally out of the question.  By the time I reached the top I could barely breathe.  I haven´t had any issues with asthma in years but something about the sudden change in altitude (I hadn´t had any issues up to that point, even in Quito) or having to push the bike up the hill with me just about did me in.  Once I could see again I looked around and saw a very underwhelming waterfall.  I did all that work and all I got was this:

Cascada de Chamana (Waterfall of the Shaman)

Pretty, but I wasn´t sure it was worth it.

Back down the hill we got back onto the road, ready for the next waterfall when Rory´s back tire got a flat.  Fortunately the shop had provided an extra tube and a hand pump.  The boys made quick work of changing the tire and when we looked at the old inner-tube we saw it had three patch jobs, all of which were not very well done.  Well, at least they had given them a spare.  Heaven help us if someone else got a flat.

Oliver in orange, Rory is the one "helping"

Back on the road and onto the next waterfall we passed a dam, some workers on a bridge that were wearing hard hats but no ear or eye protection using a sledghammer, welding or cutting steel rebar with an electric saw.  Goodness.  Then Rory looked down at his tire and it was flat again.  I guess the extra tube they gave him also had a hole in it.  Well then.

The second waterfall was beautiful and we could see it from the road, no need to climb a horrid hill!

Agoyan

This is what we were looking at as we were riding.  Not half bad huh?

The third waterfall was really pretty to see.  From the road you had a very clear view of both of them and there were places to rest and just take in the beauty of the scenery...and for Rory to pump up his bike tire again.

Manto de la Novia (Mantle of the Bride)

Looking around we saw a path that you could take to get to the base of the waterfall.  With our trusty waterbottles in hand we went down the hill (probably at least 1 km down) and across a bridge to get to the entrance to the waterfall.  There we were greeted by a lady who wanted 50 cents from each of us to enter her property.  The thing was that they had made a wall with barbed wire around her property to prevent anyone from going around and getting there anyway.  While 50 cents isn´t all that much, it was kind of a jerky thing to do.  Once at the bottom Oliver and Rory told us that we should take off our shoes and socks before going closer because they were completly soaked.

At the base of the waterfall we could hear the thundering of the water on the rocks and we could feel the force inside our chests.  Removing our shoes and socks, we ventured closer, pushed back by the force of the water, the sound reverberating through our ears and bodies.  Soaked within seconds, I turned tohave the sun at my back, and saw a circular rainbow going around my body.  

What a fantastic place this was!

 A little farther down the road we came across a superman cable that was 1 km long, for only $10.  Jose talked the lady down to $8 and Oliver and Rory decided to go.  The three of us then rode down the road to meet them.  Jose took one of the extra bikes and one of the ladies rode the other one down.  Rory´s tire was once again flat.  (I began to be extremely thankfull that Jose and I got our bikes from a different place)

Down the hill to what we hear is the best waterfall on the ride, we pass the turn off at first and then see a glimpse of it from the road.

Pailon del Diablo (the Devil´s Cauldron

We backtrack a little, park and lock up our bikes and make the 1km hike down the hill to the waterfall.  This time the cost was $1.50 but once we got there and saw all the work that had been done to make it a wonderful experince we didn´t mind.  The path down the hill was well maintaned, there were stairs and platforms that you could stand on and feel the waterfall.  

There was even a little pathway/tunnel thing that you could use to get to the upper viewpoint and then get behind the waterfall.  It was phenominal! 

Kate took this from the first platform, we are on the second platform.

Hiking back up to the top we were looking at our map and seeing that there was one more waterfall that we could see.  However we were all pretty tired, hungry and it looked like it was going to rain.  We all opted to get somthing to eat and then catch a bus or something back to Baños.  There was a woman with a sign for empanadas near where we parked our bikes so we stopped in there and ordered a couple.  They were unbelievable!  Cheese, chicken and cheese, banana and chocolate, banana and mora (like blackberry).  We were SO happy.

Then we found a man with a truck who was willing to take the 11 of us (we ended up in the same place as another group of 5 riders) for about $1.5 each.  It wasn´t a better deal than a bus but it probably would have taken longer to wait for and ride the bus.  We piled into the back and then the bikes were loaded in.  We hoped that the driver didn´t make any sudden stops or accelerations because otherwise we would have been smashed by the bikes.  Not the safest ride I´ve ever gone on.  We drove thorough some tunnels of questionable structural integrity and around some corners that were a little narrow.

Back in Baños we showered and collapsed in our respective rooms to relax.  Back at the hostel I realized that the back of my hands were really irritated.  I looked down and saw that they were blazing red.  I had remembered to put sunscreen on before our 6 hour adventrure in the sun...except the back of my hands. It turns out they were second degree burns.  This is what they looked like a week later:

Baños was fun and beautiful however the next journey we set out on has given us such fantastic experiences that it needs a post all its own.