Rally buses
Trip Start
Apr 14, 2004
1
3
25
Trip End
Jul 27, 2004
Tena,
Ecuador
Thursday, April 29, 2004
capybarras
the next day, with the help of a guy in the hostel who could actually speak spanish, i was able to phone and contact the girl i met on the bus, and we boarded a bus for a 2 hour trip into the jungle...we arrived at a quichua village (native indians) where she was to fix their one computer in the community center...it was their futbol tournament day(soccer), which was quite interesting...from the village we went to a port town, and hired a water taxi, which is a 30 foot canoe with a motor, and ripped down the napo river to AmaZOOnico to check out the wildlife and such...monkeys r so cool, especially when they clutch to your leg and wont let go...
on the way back to town on the last bus of the day, i underwent another magical experience...one can not have lived life to its fullest until he has ridden on an old not-much-better-than-a-chicken-bus with more standing passengers than sitters...can u spell CRAMPED!!!i had two kids almost sitting in my lap, with one nodding off and bouncing his head off my shoulder every couple seconds...
similar to their fascination with 80s music, it is not hard to find 80´s movies as well, and as i enjoyed my bbq chicken and rice at the restaurant that evening i was able to watch police academy 1 in spanish..
erica and her amiga
.after my daily dose of fresh juice and yogurt, it was over to the cabana bar for many cerveza´s (beers) and some impromptu english/spanish lessons with a couple of the local females...had to do my duty and help them with their english homework...
as tena seems to be the take off point for some of ecuadors best whitewater, i figured i couldnt leave without at least one trip down the rapids...not able to find anyone to sign up for the whitewater kayak course i badly wanted to take for 4 days, i signed on for a one day 25 km rafting trip...as it turns out, there was a family from canada who booked a raft as well as a sit on top kayak to take turns on...before we even left the put-in site, the son decided there was no way he was ridin that kayak down the rapids...so when asked if i would like to ride it, i replied with an enthusiastic ¨hell ya¨...after a few minutes of getting comfortable(read cocky)with the kayak as it was my first time on one, i was ready to shoot the rapids...wouldn´t you know it, the first set was the second biggest set of the entire day...boy did i get punished, flipped over halfway thru, and was a ¨swimmer¨...took in a whole load of water, and now felt like i was drowning...after what seemed like an hour fighting for my life, completely exhausted and just getting my feet up in time to smash into a huge boulder, i cleared the rapids, and thanked the universe for keeping me alive...im sure, it was only a minute tops, and probably wouldnt have been a big deal had i not swallowed so much water at the start, but damn was that a humbling experience...i think it ranks as number 2, if not number 1, in my worst near drowning experiences...and easily in the top 5 in my ¨holy shit, is this really the way im gonna die¨category..
for sale in huts---booze!!!!
.after that set i did okay for the rest, still had a few swims, but managed to keep my mouth closed this time, and they werent that bad...later at lunch, when offered to try the kayak, an irish guy wanted nothing to do with it saying, there was no way in hell he was going to learn to kayak in class 3 rapids...ill admit, after that first set i would be in complete agreement with his motto, but the ¨baptism by fire¨ actually worked out okay for me, and ï had a great day...
my next enemy was the extreme equatorial sun...as i write this a few days later, i am still nursing one hell of a nasty sunburn on my legs...i am now in banos which seems to be the third world equivalent of banff,canada...many souvenir stalls, vendors, and endless opportunities for jungle, rafting, canyoning, and other trips...thinking that the night tour to see the active volcano would be a night well spent, i jumped on the roof of the bus with a few others and proceeded to find out what a great scam it was...they took us up to a look out point over the city, told us it was too cloudy to see the volcano, ad lit a bonfire for an hour, while we all stood around discussing how bad we were just ripped off...okay, it was only three dollars, but all we got was a bumpy bus ride, and some local hooch...i guess it wont be the worse thing that ever happens to me, but it was bit of a crapper...one of the girls who hiked to the volcano the day before said that even without clouds, you wouldnt be able to see the volcano from where we were, as it was hidden behind another mountain from that vantage point..
laundry day
.oh well, ill just climb it myself the next day...after 3 hours, almost to the volcano, exhausted, and hot as hell, i stop to pseudo-speak with some locals living in the mountains...they tell me the clouds arent going to clear today and i might as well return...they were friendly as hell, gave me a glass of fresh juice, and made lots of jokes about how big i was...one of them was returning to banos as well so we walked the hour back down together hand in hand...okay well maybe not hand in hand, but we were great amigos by the time we got to the town...
tomorrow i am off to puyo, where i will board a bus to some jungle town, from which i am on the hunt for some remote jungle lodge i was given directions for from another traveller...
thats all i got for now, so adios!!!
