Ecuador #3

Ecuador: The Jungle

Yup, I went to the jungle with Justin and a friend of his (Dave, former Peace Corps volunteer) and we had ourselves a bit of an adventure!

There’s a Peace Corps site with three volunteers in it who are engaged in an amazing, huge project to create an economic incentive for loggers to log non-native trees from the rainforest there, by cutting the wood in the community itself into moldings that can sell for ten times as much as raw lumber does. It was quite the community — Cristobal Colon — full of friendlier people than I encountered anywhere else in Ecuador. Just outside of Cristobal Colon is this amazing, dense jungle, much of which has been logged at one point or another, but as you go farther and farther the trees get older and older and bigger and bigger.

The trip to Cristobal Colon alone took some fortitude. Get to Quito (nothing major from Morlan, a few hours on a couple of buses); get to Santo Domingo (another 3-4 hours by bus); get to Cristobal Colon by way of Quininde (about 5 hours by bus). The last 3 hours were by far the most…fun: a small bus on a small road with BIG holes (barely navigable at all by American standards). It was also in those last 3 hours that I really started to see a different side of Ecuador — the lush, fertile side (instead of the rocky, mountain life in which I’d been living). Huge palm plantations for palm oil (all corporate owned) create the effect of dense, green foliage with those huge palm fronds everywhere and amazing huge fern relatives and elephant ears. The heat and humidity started to seeping into the bus and I realized — right, we’re going to a rainforest, by definition hot and humid.

We all survived the buses just fine, maybe with a sore back muscle here or there, and just bummed around for a couple of hours getting acquainted with the town and the project going on there and arranged for our trek into the jungle. A local man, who would have been the best guide of all, being the most familiar with the area into which we were going and the most knowledgeable ecologically speaking about the plants and animals we would be encountering, was unavailable because of this huge project which needed the presence of what seemed like every man of working age in the town. So, we got his son, Alex, 18. We arranged for 2, maybe 3 nights. The next morning we were to set out on our way…

DAY 1
Quick breakfast of fresh Ecua rolls and Nutella (had a PCV host whose tastes clearly weren’t too far from own) and we were off to meet Alex and get a few last-minute provisions from the tienda (apples, rice, etc.). Once we crossed the somewhat treacherous, rickety bridge over the river (careful where you step, some of the boards are loose) and laughed at poor Buckley scrambling across as close to the ground as possible, we were on our way.

Then the trouble started. The beginning of the trail (and I was later to find out much of the rest of the trail) was considerably steep - especially for my un-trained legs. But I thought everything was fine, we just had to get through the first big push and get warmed up, then I would feel good and into the groove. Unfortunately the uphill never seemed to end. I was trying desperately not to make too big a fool of myself in front of these experienced hikers. Then came the mud, knee-deep at some points…this is when I turned pathetic and there was no going back after that. My legs were already tired (after probably not very long) and to muster up the strength to pull my leg out of a squelching pit of mud was just beyond me — though I did pull it off more often than not (when not, I used poor Justin as leverage). And that´s how we went on and on and on: Dave (friend), Alex (guide) and Buckley (dog) leading the pack with energy, speed and enthusiasm, sharp eyes for birds and other wildlife; and Katy plodding along trying to comprehend what she´d gotten herself into and poor Justin tagging along behind just to keep her company. I will admit that it almost got the better of me at one point, when I finally let myself say a word about how miserable I was and how difficult of a time I was having, but by then it was just as difficult to go back as it would have been to continue without any of the potential reward. So, onward ho…

Around noon, Alex says that his family has a house that’s not that far away and we can continue on to there and have lunch and maybe stay the night there and go onto the caves the next day. He said it was about 30 minutes further — at the time I asked if it was 30 “Alex” minutes or 30 “Katy” minutes and Dave said he didn´t know, but our best guess was that even it was 30 “Alex” minutes, it couldn´t be more than 60-90 minutes for us. So, we (I) sucked it up and moved on.

Not long after we came out of the dense rainforest and into more open land. The rainforest itself had been fairly comfortable to me; I think more than anything I was so occupied by my own misery that I didn´t even notice if I was hot or humid, but overall I felt more or less comfortable (or as comfortable as one can be when beset by utter exhaustion and no choice but to step into one more mud hole). The trees were so dense (though not primary at this point) that we were very well shaded. Dave and Alex spotted a monkey up in a tree hanging by its tail, but Justin and I were too far behind to catch a glimpse. (The bugs didn´t seem bad — I was prepared for swarms of killer mosquitoes, but was pleasantly surprised, they seemed worse in town than out there.)

Once we made it into the more open land though, you could really feel the sun starting to beat down on you, adding to the amount of energy slipping away with every step. Alex had mentioned that there was a small river near his house where we could bathe and maybe get some water — a nice carrot at the end of my stick. And, after a few more up’s and down’s (probably around the 90-minute mark) we spotted a house at the top of a hill with a stream at the bottom. Once I made it there I just plopped down and took a breather, not even sure it was worth it to make it to the house for lunch. After probably 20 minutes of just hanging out down there with Justin, we heard Dave say “You guys coming or what?” and it finally occurred to me: this isn’t Alex’s house. We have to keep going before it is time to stop. So, we made it to the house where Alex and Dave are waiting for us, and chill out some more in this woman’s yard with her kids and her dogs and her chickens. She offered us each something to drink, warm, bumpy and milky — a little suspicious to say the least for my still Western stomach. But, I was so exhausted by this point and knew I needed something if I was going to make it any further that I downed the whole thing practically in one go — Justin and Dave both discreetly discarded the majority of theirs. Finally feeling somewhat revived and fairly nourished, we headed out again.

The distance of Alex’s house from wherever we had been was reaching ludicrous proportions. I could have sworn that we were truly never going to get there. A couple more up’s and down’s and over’s and I could have cried when I finally heard someone say: that’s his house there. One more down and one more up and we would be there. What an incredible relief. It had been 2 1/2 hours since the 30 minute estimate was given.

The next question at hand was whether or not to continue on to the caves that afternoon or to wait until tomorrow. I myself had already decided I wasn’t going anywhere for the rest of the day — other than down to the river. So I just sat down there soaking my screaming feet and munching on banana chips — let me tell you, it was heaven. In the end everyone else decided to stick around too and we had ourselves a very relaxing afternoon in the river and a quiet evening up in Alex´s house (with a LOVELY dinner of rice, Maggi soup mix and canned tuna…disgusting under normal circumstances, but I loved every bite!).

DAY 2
After a sluggish morning we headed out to the caves — Alex´s estimate: 30 minutes and…surprise! It took 20 minutes and I kept up with the crowd the whole way. Differences? A pretty good night´s rest and NO pack! The caves themselves were pretty cool. Alex led us through different channels, sometimes having to squirm through on our bellies, to some pretty cool cavernous rooms, one with a shaft of light coming straight through this hole up to the surface and when you looked up into it was full of green light and tree roots. The best part though (or worst, depending on your perspective) was the bats. There were tons of them and as big as any I ever saw with my dad in the Southwest. When we were walking through these tight tunnels they would come flying through around us, hitting us with their wings as they went by, sometimes even flying right into us — pretty cool if you ask me! (Eeew, there was also this ginormous spider near the entrance which probably spanned a foot, his legs were so long and he had these huge pinchers — although I didn’t look close enough or long enough to really get a good look — spiders are not for me.)

After that we headed back to Alex’s house for some lunch and to make a game plan for the rest of the day/trip. Our only other destination was a cascading waterfall and we were toying with the option of spending our 2nd night there instead of at Alex’s house. So, we decided to head out with all of our stuff just in case we wanted to stay. This time I got my pack a little lighter (thanks to Justin’s pack getting a little heavier) and better packed and better attached to my body, so I was able to keep up my non-pathetic trekking. While the path to the waterfall was MUCH easier than the path into the jungle had been, it still had some challenging up’s and down’s (though no mud — thank god!!!), and I was finally starting to feel the heat, even with the shade of the trees.

As we got closer to the waterfall the older the trees got which was an amazing transition to watch. They all had these parasitic vines stretching down from their canopy all the way to the ground — I don´t even know how high some of the trees were, but they were certainly among the tallest I´ve ever seen (with a completely different effect from the California redwoods which stretch up to the sky as well). They just seem to go forever. And then you’d see these trunks with convoluted curves, no perfectly round timber trunks here, all sorts of shapes and distortions. There was one right near the waterfall that was so big and tall and its base formed a big U, practically making a whole room on the inside of the curve. The trek to the waterfall was gorgeous, but none of it compared to the excitement and elation of actually making it there. It took a couple of hours of good, hard, hot work to get there and the anticipation just kept growing and growing…and then…we could hear it through the trees, this huge rush of water. And then we were coming down this hill pretty fast and just broke through threes and saw it. The most beautiful waterfall I´ve ever seen with this incredible lagoon at the bottom and all kinds of virgin life around it, plants, trees, birds. So beautiful. There was a conspicuous lack of trash and Dave and Justin estimated that maybe twenty non-Ecuadorians had ever been to this waterfall.

We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming, just playing around and marveling at how beautiful this place was. The water was fresh and cool; there was a perfect rock along the lagoon for sunning and relaxing; perfect craggy rocks in the waterfall itself for jumping off of. It was simply a paradise. There were countless species of trees and flowers; these amazing orchids were growing along the water. We had to take a little time to set up camp because we were rigging up a tent from this big plastic and rope we had (well, Justin was), but once all that was settled we could just sit back and watch night fall. There was a big group of swifts that were dashing up and down from the waterfall back down the river, amazingly fast and in these big groups; it was quite a site. Then we could hear all the bugs chirping away and watch the lightning bugs fly around; it was a peaceful, but very electric evening. It was hard to internally calm down from the excitement of being in this incredible place.

DAY 3
On our last day we all went swimming, had some breakfast, marveled some more, swam some more, and finally packed up and headed out. As we were packing up, there was the funniest sight. I looked up at one point and it looked like a potato chip bag was floating through the air, like it was on a string that someone was playing with. It looked metallic blue one second and then gray the next as it bobbed up and down in the air. After following for a few seconds I finally realized it was a huge butterfly! It was amazingly beautiful, and the contrast between its two sides was incredibly stark, the blue so bright, almost unnatural, and the other side so dull. So we had a little excitement before saying good-bye to our Eden!

The way home was much less muddy than the way in had been, and so much easier. I was also feeling a LOT more prepared, both physically and mentally, so I found the wya out fairly easy. Once we were back in Cristobal Colon I think we each consumed as many calories as possible in an hour and just rested and got ready to head back home the next day. I think I even fell asleep on the bus ride home, probably the only time it was ever possible on an Ecuadorian bus!

So, that was my trip through hell to get to paradise!

January 16, 2004 in South America