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Published: October 13th 2009
Family Pets
At the home of an indigenous family.The new "must have" item for your Bucket List is... le Jungle Trek.
No visit to Ecuador can be complete without it. In fact, President Correa just signed a law decreeing that if you don't go on a Jungle Trek while you're in the country, theyll stamp your passport "WUSS" on the way out. No wusses we. On to the jungle.
No problem finding a guide to lead the way. The streets of Baños have more adventure companies than the Amazon has piranha. Selecting the outfit to go with is somewhat confusing though since most companies go the same places and charge the same prices ($40 a day), but a good rule of thumb is to make sure your guide speaks English and follow the recommendations in a good travel guidebook. The recommended companies probably have the best safety practices, and when your lifes on the line....
We got lucky and ended up with a master of the jungle named Sixto, who speaks English, French, Spanish, Kichwa, and Russian. More than just a guy who made sure we didn get lost in the jungle, he was naturalist, mother, friend,
Kate, Feeling Cool, With Machete
After the climb from the Pastaza River below... and seconds before the 5.2 earthquake. and cook, depending on the need of the moment. Some guides work exclusively with certain companies, but there are a stable of guides who also freelance and that companies call on when they get customers. Sixto is one of those.
While larger companies have their own authentic-looking jungle transport vehicles, some guides drive their own, and some arrange transportation. We were driven to our site in a funky pickup whose battery was dubious, but whose driver was of good cheer. Our first stop was a monkey reserve where injured primates and those rescued from inadequate homes are allowed to swing and play and cause mischief to their hearts content. Two volunteers from the States had arrived the day before. Their function was to provide monkeys with additional play stations. An unhappy-looking young woman was muddy with monkeys who were pulling her hair, nesting on her head, tugging, twisting, and generally using her as a jungle gym. Made us want to sign up... uh huh.
We drove a total of three hours from Baños to get to the heart of the deepest darkest jungle... or at least the sub-tropical rainforest catering to tourists from around the world who flock
Jack & the Shaman
Wearing his caiman teeth necklace. here for an adventure experience. On our way, we passed through an oil town, bizarrely named "Shell," and Puyo, where President Correa held an acrimonious meeting last week with protesting indigenous tribes fearful that recent gold strikes requiring abundant water usage would lead to the privatization of water in Ecuador.
Arriving at our camp, which consisted of a few thatched huts, we settled into our penthouse jungle home while Sixto prepared lunch with the Ecuadorian camp hostess who operated a restaurant there of sorts which also served day hikers.
But remembering Rule #1 — "Never look in an Ecuadorian restaurants kitchen” — (a rule made in Vilcabamba), we enjoyed our "typical" lunch consisting of freshly-blended juice, delicious soup, rice, yucca, and sort of a goulash chicken. Then, Sixto the intrepid, armed with his trusty machete, led us on our first adventure — to a hidden waterfall. On the way, Sixto the naturalist astounded and amazed us with his vast knowledge of various rain forest plants and their uses, warning us away from dangerous species, including one tree whose thorns would kill if they got into our bloodstream. I even got a clay facial along the way, no extra
Down the Road With A Canoe
Riding in the back of a pickup, Ecuadorian-style, is fun. charge.
By the time we reached the 75-foot waterfall, it was time for a welcomed break — and a swim. However, since the hour was late, the water cold, and my companions reticent, I was content to just wash my clay mask off and admire the tranquil beauty before heading back — on a different and more challenging trail.
Showing absolutely no respect for the advanced ages of his charges, Sixto displayed a strong proclivity for wanting to forge his own way through the jungle, whacking choking foliage left and right as we ventured where "no man had dared go before." (Well, not quite). However, it should be noted that a jungle trail that has not been used in a week or two is quickly repossessed by said jungle.
Disappointed that we had not seen any wildlife — amazingly, very few bugs — Sixto promised us a spectacular night hike after dinner. But first, a trek at dusk to another camp, newer and nicer than ours. It was on the Puyo River, much more substantial than the stream that ran by our mini-village. By the time we returned at 9 oclock, Jack, with blisters from his after-dinner
sandals, was ready to hit the hammock (okay, bed), and armed with a flashlight, I started off with Sixto into the jungle blackness with the promise wed find some really cool snakes and giant spiders along the way. Now we didn have to get very far when I began to think... "Am I crazy? What am I doing crossing streams on logs and walking off into jungle on a moonless night with a guy I hardly know with the "hope" of seeing giant spiders and some number of the seven varieties of deadly snakes that are waiting to strike?"
"Uh, I really shouldn leave Jack all alone," I told Sixto, finding a way to not continue withut sounding too wimpy.
Thus we survived the first day of our jungle adventure.
Day two broke blue and beautiful, with perfect temperatures and no humidity, shattering another jungle misconception. Remembering Rule #1 and still not looking in the kitchen, we had a fruit breakfast and headed back to the Puyo River where our river guide, Franklin (apparently, Ecuadorians admired FDR) helped us into his 20-plus-foot rugged canoe, hewn from a giant cinnamon tree and making me think about apple pie
and eggnog. Sixto drove the truck downstream for the take out.
The mighty Puyo River was no challenge for Franklin who masterfully guided the canoe around rocks and down mild class III rapids passing occasional villages and homes and, as always, thick jungle foliage that had me expecting volleys of poisonous darts at any minute. Not a poison dart, piranha, snake, or caiman in sight however.
Instead, our ride came to a peaceful conclusion at a dam created by road workers who have diverted the river in order to harvest its rich rock bottom for the huge three-lane highway they are creating through the rain forest.
But although our canoe ride had ended, the days adventures had just begun as we hiked to an indigenous village clearly catering to tourists. There, we visited a local family living their life and open to guests, especially friends of Sixtos. The patriarch of the family is a powerful shaman, who uses his knowledge of the rain forest to cure his patients — after ingesting hallucinogens and "going inside" the afflicted ones body to diagnose the problem. Cheaper than an MRI and, who knows, maybe just as effective.
Besides welcoming
tourists, the family farms tilapia in large ponds on the property and kindly offered us lunch — tilapia and yucca cooked in banana leaves. It looked delicious, but unable to avoid Rule #1 and seeing the sanitary conditions of their kitchen and the hands that prepared the lunch, every fiber of my being wanted to scream "no thanks." However, good manners won. I snucka the yucca to a hungry Sixto and tried to eat the parts of the fish which the flies had not already sampled. It was excellent.
Jack, wanting to repay the generosity of our hosts the best we could, had a large Ecuadorian chocolate bar in his pack and made the rounds, sharing it with the eight people in their communal kitchen area. The patriarch, seemingly to say "thanks " for the chocolate he declared "good," donned a ceremonial necklace of caiman teeth and posed for photos with his new "amigos".
After saying our thanks and goodbyes, we headed off back into the jungle, with Sixto saving the most challenging up and down hill jungle adventure for last. We waded streams, slipped on moss-covered rocks, stumbled over roots, climbed over logs, and in general had
Villages Along the Way
...but no poison darts. a wonderful time. It was an exhausting, exhilarating introduction to the rain forest.
Most embarrassing moment? At one point, we came to what seemed like a dead end — the top of a muddy cliff with about a 15-foot drop and no way to get down — except for rappelling down its face with the help of a jungle vine. Now Sixto had taken 14 sturdy Russian women down this cliff just a few weeks earlier, each taking their turn swinging on the vine down to the ground below. With a sense of national pride, I grabbed hold of the vine and began my descent — only to have the vine snap in half! I fell backwards into the arms of our watchful guide, humiliated that the vine could hold 14 Russian women, but not me. I BROKE a jungle vine! Who breaks a jungle vine? Tarzan didn break his jungle vines. No one breaks a jungle vine — except me. (No more chocolate bars, Jack)!
The last part of the trek — which seemed like it went on for hours — saw us climbing up a mountain with no apparent trail at all. Somehow, Sixto, whacking and
hacking a path through the seemingly impenetrable jungle, knew where to go and we eventually came to an amazing creation — a road. "If I had to take one more slippery step up, Im not sure my aching thigh muscles would have performed," Jack said.
But the payoff was something else as we arrived at a vista point with the whole rainforest laid out before us, and overlooking the Pastaza River, a tributary of the mighty Amazon.
Sixto and I were still on the viewing platform when an earthquake struck. It was a 5.2, centered in Puyo, just about an hour away, and causing some damage, but no deaths in that gateway city. We got a good shake, but didn end up in the Pastaza River a few hundred feet below. That was the only time on the trip when Sixto showed any signs of distress. When he was 14, he had been in a 7.2 earthquake that had destroyed his school — with him in it.
Back to camp and one last meal, and then I did it... I violated Rule #1. I looked at the kitchen (photos, page 2). Now Ive inadvertently seen some disgusting
kitchens in restaurants during our trip to Ecuador, and Im the first to admit that Im really freaky about sanitation, insisting that hands be washed with soap and water before touching any food, etc., but this kitchen took the prize. One look at its slimy counter and horrifying "dishpan" where plates, silverware, and glasses were "washed" in cold water, and I was sure of one thing — we were going to die!!!
Give me the snakes, the spiders and the poison darts, but save me from an Ecuadorian restaurants death kitchen!
This brings me to a dramatic alteration of Rule #1. Instead of never looking in an Ecuadorian restaurants kitchen, Rule #1 is now ALWAYS look in an Ecuadorian restaurants kitchen. In our case, we could have told Sixto we wanted to go to a different camp, like the one we visited on the Puyo River, which HAD to be better than the one we were in. I also noted — too late — that my pillow did not have a pillowcase on it and I had slept on the worlds most creepy, crawly, disgusting pillow. One more reason I was sure "Im going to die!"
Amazingly,
two days later — and much to my surprise — we live.
Not only that, but Im already fantasizing about coming back someday with Jack and hopefully an adventurous grandchild or two. And this time on a 4-5 day Extreme Jungle Trek, rafting down more challenging rivers, venturing deeper into the jungle and visiting isolated native tribes straight from the pages of "National Geographic."
After all, they don shrink heads anymore — do they?
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(NOTE:There are more pics below and on Page 2. Thanks for reading)!
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Gloria Gritz
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Fascinating indeed! I take it there were no massages ala our longboat trip up the River Kwai to the jungle camp on the Burma border? I would love to try your trip with the grandchildren, hoping I could maybe keep up with a little kid.