An Amazon-azing Weekend

Blog 13. Quito, Ecuador. Weekend Update.

Sorry I’ve been MIA for three days, but I have a valid excuse, I swear: I was in the Amazon jungle.

I WAS IN THE FREAKING AMAZON JUNGLE!!!

Yup. Believe it or not, Ecuador, for such a small, generally overlooked country, is not only home to an extensive public healthcare system, the highest capital city in the world, one of the deadliest active volcanoes alive, the Galapagos islands, and the middle of the world (el Mitad de Mundo), it is also the most biologically diverse place on the planet and contains part of the Amazonian jungle.

On Friday morning we headed out with our tour guide, Marco, who had worked three years in the jungle with the indigenous people, teaching about malaria and malaria prevention, as part of a government project for Ecuador. We drove across Ecuador to Misahualli, a small town that also serves as a western entrance to the Amazon jungle.

A quick aside on Misahualli, for travelers (aka Day 1):

If you’re looking for somewhere to visit with good food, a beach, and a chance to see some relatively interesting wildlife, I highly suggest Misahualli. It’s a small town past Tena that’s a local favorite, and quite beautiful.

We had lunch at a local restaurant — I suggest ordering the plato tipico, which consists of a whole river fish wrapped in a leaf and grilled, with a side of salsa and yuca and guayasca juice, a natural plant that the indigenous people use to make tea and juice because it gives the drinker more energy. (Think California’s obsession with “organic” foods). It’s absolutely delicious, and nearly authentic — if you want to have a more authentic experience, eat the food with your hands rather than the utensils provided.

Afterwards we swung over to the beach, which, if you look at a map of Ecuador, you’ll see that Misahualli is completely landlocked. How can there be a beach, you ask? Well, it was a FREAKING RIVER BEACH. I am totally not kidding. There was sand all the way out to the river, and people were swimming and tubing down the currents and looking at rainbows (literally). My friends and I sat in the rapids for a while, and then Jen asked me to do something beautiful: “Close your eyes and erase — just erase — everything around you. Imagine that you’re back home, a month ago, just doing something normal. And then open your eyes and realize where you are.” And I did, and I was struck by how simple it all was, how simple it is to appreciate where we are, and it made me a little sad, because of course, I only realized this after I realized, again, how easily we normalize the most fantastic things into the everyday. Our capacity for complacency is truly astounding, and this blog is part of the struggle to end that kind of perspective.

We then had an impromptu soccer match with some Ecuadorian boys on the beach (yes, think six packs and tanned skin and laughing feet), whom we lost to horribly. According to our guide Marco, the humidity in the air really saps your strength, and all the Ecuadorians you see playing soccer in public places (this is super common in Ecuador) have been raised playing soccer since they were little, so they’re all pretty good.

The rainbow river beach

We then parked the car and walked into an indigenous village of the Shiriupanis (? not sure that I spelled that correctly). We had dinner there (delicious) and built a bonfire on the beach and were allowed to play some of their traditional instruments (drums, a noisemaker that also doubled as a drumstick, and a long, cylindrical wood thing with a pattern of raised edges on one side, and the idea is to take a long stick and rub it up and down the raised edges to make a scratchy kind of beat with the instrument). We told some scary stories and I had a really awesome/genuine conversation with one of my friends, and then headed off to bed. In the Amazon. In the Amazon!!!!!!

Day 2 in the actual Amazon rainforest:

We headed out to the Amazon after breakfast the next day. We boarded a boat and sped down the Rio Napo (about a two hour trip) and then hiked into the jungle with our other tour guide, who was also a part of the Shiriupani tribe.

To give you an idea, the Amazon jungle is very humid, very green, and very dense — because of the wetness, there was literally mulch on the ground, dead plants fertilizing the living ones. Temperatures that weekend ranged from 80 - 90 degrees F, but because of the heavy canopy above, it felt like a Californian 70, although the humidity had us all drenched in sweat in ten minutes. The hike was a three hour walk around the jungle, and we stopped to see plants important to the indigenous lifestyle. We eventually traded the mulchy, muddy ground that kept trying to suck our feet in for a nice river running through the Amazonian jungle. We soon found out that the rocks tended to move and slip and a couple of us fell in the water (aka me), and that the river had an astonishing capacity to breed mosquitos, who happily flew into our exposed orifices as we walked along. It was also astonishing to see all the life that clung to the leaves and hid in the fallen logs and the fish that darted among the rocks and our feet. We then climbed up, up, up, leaving the river behind for rocks, and at one point there was only a tiny hole to wriggle between as we hefted ourselves up from rock to rock, or branch to branch. We traversed through some more rocks and mud and undergrowth and a couple of us fell in the mud (thank goodness not me this time) and made it back to the Rio Napo. On its beach, the guides collected some large leaves, placed our food on it, and with mud and who knows what other living creatures under our nails, and small bugs investigating the food with us, we made some tortilla wraps and had one of the most satisfying lunches I’ve ever had.

Getting nails did in the Amazon - the indigenous people use these plants for coloring

Happened to be twinning with Michaela, aka Queen of the Forest.

We ate these ants in the jungle - they live in symbiosis with the plants, and have a lemony taste.

Writing our names the way the indigenous people used to

Lunch on the sand with the bugs

On the boat on the Rio Napo with our guides and the flag of Ecuador.

The Amazon rainforest.

On the Rio Napo.

We then jumped into the Rio Napo for a quick bath, and I had a good time washing my white shirt with a sliver of soap one of my friends had bought and beating it with a rock in the river. This is, apparently, how many indigenous women wash their clothes, and I can’t help but marvel at how difficult of a job it is (it took me ten minutes to get my one shirt slightly cleaner).

It was an absolutely amazing morning, and I can’t help thinking that if Americans had the opportunity to do this more often, we’d all be a little bit less whiny about our hikes and road trips with the family.

We then headed over to a nature preserve, the AmaZOOnico (ten points for bad puns, amiright?), and saw tapirs, alligators, parrots and toucans, and ocelots. They are such badass cats, and I can die happy having seen them. Sigh.

Hello, little monkey!

Speaking of bad puns, my friend Jen and I were so excited about being in the Amazon that we said “Amazon” in really silly, stupid voices all throughout the day (payback for the kids from Oregon who talk about Oregon all the time. If anybody asks you what the biggest frat is in America, it’s definitely Oregon.) Eventually my friend Clark got so fed up with it he said, “You're getting AmazON my nerves.” Well played, Clark, well played.

Cheesin. In the Amazon.

We headed to another hostel deeper in the jungle, which had an amazing view of the river. You know it was an amazing view because even the spiders were all over it.

The spiders were actually as big as our faces.

After dinner and an impromptu dance party, the crew and I headed out for a night hike, and after seriously gearing up in our mosquito armor, we headed out. Some trippy, trippy bugs out there. There were so many bugs that were bigger than my face — stick bugs, grasshoppers, things that looked like grasshoppers and stick bugs, cockroaches, spiders, you name it. We also saw a pair of luminescent nighttime butterflies having a sexy time on top of a leaf, a stick bug that had covered itself with its saliva because it was changing its skin — it looked like it was encased in a little dishwashing soap bubble — and the chrysalis of a nighttime moth.

The entrance to the Amazon jungle, our hostel, and the night time hike.

Our guide then told us to turn off our lights. Like the naive tourists we are, we did. The darkness was immediate and blinding. Around us, the sounds of the Amazon came alive, and the croaking, creaking, shaking, rattling, and whirring seemed to press in all around us. I think we all reached out to each other at the same time, and I suddenly felt like all the bugs around us were crawling on me. Somebody asked, “Is this part of the tour?” in a panicked voice, but we all waited in vain for a response. Nothing.

And then our tour guide asked us to “Tranquila," We calmed down a little bit, still gripping each other, and stood there, waiting for who knows how long. And then, a little bit bored, I looked down at my shirt, and realized that I could see it. All around me the jungle started piecing itself together, in cool whites and yellows, jaggedly patterned, sometimes letting me glimpse a leaf, a hand gripping a hand, a shirt, the long smoothness of the trees, a glimmer of the river, and the moon, high up in the canopy of leaves and very close to our huddled group.

And then, suddenly, the moment was over, and our flashlights were turned on and we were heading back to the hotel. There was a moment of panic when there was a fork in the road, and we thought we were lost, and suddenly discovered we couldn’t find our tour guide, and then panicked some more, until he suddenly appeared out of the darkness and asked, “Que tal?” (What’s up?)

We made it back to the hostel, no problem, finishing the evening with some classic Ecuadorian mixed drinks (drinking age is 18 here): Pilsener, the cheap, prolific beer of Ecuador, 40% sugarcane alcohol mixed with canela water (delicious, you can barely taste the alcohol), and some seriously sweet pina colada. I had an interesting conversation with Marco about the social differences between Guayaquilenos and Quitenos (there’s a bit of a love-hate relationship going on between the two largest cities of Ecuador) and the different ways you can tell somebody’s from one place and not the other, since everyone looks Ecuadorian (due to the accent and the way they move; Guayaquilenos talk much faster and in a rather sing-songy tone, apparently), and that there’s no racism here based on skin color because the country is relatively homogenous. Just on social classification. We passed the evening down at the boat, watching the river run by, and then headed off to bed after a few more conversations about what Ecuador has taught all of us.

Waking up in the Amazon jungle.

A quick aside on the bugs in the Amazon:

Massive, terrifying, and abundant. Mostly it’s the mosquitos you have to worry about — everyday of the trip, before we headed out, it was like we were preparing for battle with the mosquitos. To give you an idea, we were recommended, and did, the following:

Dressed in clothes that covered us from head to toe, and apply 40% DEET.

Wear a hat so a spider or moth the size of your face cannot nest in your hair, when it feels the urge to jump on your head. Do this ESPECIALLY at night, because you have even less idea what’s on your head in the evening. We wore long-sleeves and long pants and rainboots that were given to us by the tour guides, and then slathered on 40% DEET on our skin and clothes (fun fact: DEET lasts longer when you spray it on your clothes). Keep your eyes and nose and mouth closed as you’re doing this, because DEET burns. But better slight chemical poisoning than malaria. DEET also has the added benefit of repelling random biting bugs and other bugs in general (hey, if it’s repulsive to humans, no wonder it’s repulsive to bugs), which we tested when my other friend was given a tarantula to hold. The tarantula promptly jumped off his hand because she hated the DEET on his body.

Take Vitamin B.

For people who are more prone to bug bites, you can take up to two pills of vitamin B a day (since it’s water soluble, it won’t stay in your body and poison you). According to our guide Marco, there’s something in vitamin B that changes the smell of your blood when it dissolves in your bloodstream that makes mosquitos less attracted to you. This is an especially great way to approach mosquitos in the Amazon, because you are sweating almost 24/7 from the humidity, which means that you’re giving off vitamin B almost all the time.

We were also taking malaria pills.

Day 3, in which things get out of hand:

I should have realized how this day was going to turn out based on how breakfast went: a giant OOPS but a better experience for it.

For breakfast we had sweet corn meal that had been baked in a leaf (delicious) and scrambled eggs (also delicious) with mora juice. Somehow we got cocky and thought that we knew what we were eating (NEVER assume in Ecuador) and a couple of us dumped what looked like parmesan cheese on our eggs. I don’t know why I assumed this; I haven’t seen parmesan cheese yet in Ecuador (although it does exist, apparently) so I don’t know why I expected the indigenous people to have it either. Obviously it’s not cheese, it’s condensed milk. But it was still delicious, and it turned out not to be too big of a deal after we all had a good laugh, because, as my friend pointed out, “It’s the same thing — It’s just processed differently.”

We then head back to the Shiriupani village, where we get to learn a bit about this indigenous tribe. Marco tells me that the money we paid for this tour is the same price as the money other people pay to tour agencies, but this money all goes to support the village and its educational and cultural goals, which is to continue passing down the indigenous culture to their children. The tour is also managed by the women of the village, who work to create the experience for the tourists, while the men help out in things like guiding and boating and hunting. The indigenous woman who presented us her way of life told us the same thing, and then showed how her tribe lives.

A kiddo from the tribe who casually walked by with a snake on his head.

They speak Kechuwa (I think I spelled this wrong too) and traditionally have only 1 meal a day, which consists of fish or chicken and yuca cooked on leaves. As a result, chicha is something that the indigenous people drink daily, which appears to be a formula of fermented yuca. Before, the indigenous people would take the yuca and chew it and then spit it in a bowl to start the fermentation process, and leave it out for up to 10 - 12 days. The longer it’s left out, the more alcoholic it is; if it’s left out for around 3 days, it forms a sweet drink. Nowadays, the woman said that they don’t chew and spit the yuca anymore because it’s not just for one person to drink. However, they still drink chicha every day, and since it’s made from yuca, you don’t feel hunger after drinking it.

Afterwards, they show us a traditional dance, and tell us that the women who wear skirts above their knees are immediately identified as single, while women who wear skirts below their knees are married. I personally think this is a genius idea and a lot less confusing for men and women when it comes to relationships. We then try our hand at the serbatanas, the blowdarts that the hunters use to hunt birds for food. A small reed is whittled down and dipped in venom. The reed is so light, but because of its speed, the reed was able to penetrate a bolsa wood figure of a bird with ease. We then got to make some chocolate and then had that chocolate on our dessert during lunch. Of course, it was AMAZON-azing. (sorry, had to)

Traditional dress.

Finally we headed back out of the jungle to our car to Quito. After settling myself for a five hour drive, I fell asleep, but woke up again when I realized we had stopped. The car’s clutch died as we were driving up the mountains toward Quito.

Luckily, our car stopped near a house. Unluckily, nobody was home, and so we could do nothing except leave our van behind and write a note apologizing for leaving our van behind on their property. Hips high, leg out, thumbs pointing up, we tried to hitchhike back to Quito. Nobody stopped for us gringos. The boys headed lower to try to flag a car, while the girls stayed near the van. A bunch of cars passed us, either all full of people or without giving us a second glance. We were debating whether or not to put on our swimsuits to flag a car down (I know, ok, but desperate times call for desperate measures) when suddenly, a giant bus appears with the word “Quito” taped on its door. A bus going to Quito! We were saved! The boys were running up toward us, yelling “Bus! Bus!” and we grabbed our bags and waved at the driver as he approached.

He waved back and smiled, and then blew us a kiss, and passed us.

What. What just happened?!?

Our little group watched in complete disbelief as the bus drove up and around the corner and disappeared. Immediately, a van pulled up after him and stopped in front of us. To our utter amazement, a man with glasses got out, and asked, “Hola, que paso, amigos?” and told us his name was Wilson, and that he was heading to Quito. What are the odds?

And that’s how we ended up heading back to Quito in the truck of a six-seater van with nine people stuffed in the car. Thanks to the kindness of a stranger and a strange turn of events, we made it back to Quito, smelly, stinky, butts bruised, alive, and exhilarated to the very end. Classic Ecuador.