Jungle Fever

Well what a few days...
So I left saturday morning from Quito bound for Tena on a six hour (but only 160 km!) bus trip. On this trip I saw the first real poverty I've ever seen in my life, something I had mixed feelings about for sure. One thing that does stick out in my mind, though, is the sight of a little girl sitting in a rickety shack on the side of a dirt road wearing what a Canadian would call rags. She was standing alone, sheltered from the sun, returning my wave with an enormous smile as we sped by. It struck me that this girl was just as happy as any equivalent girl in Canada or elsewhere, despite the squaler. The idea was reaffirmed throughout the trip, as you will see.

So the first day (of four) John, a new friend I met at my hostel in Quito, and I met René, the guy who runs the tour, at the bus station in Tena. After a quick lunch, John (with broken but effective, spanish) managed to convey that I needed to buy a hat before heading out. So, piled into the back of René's pickup, we and our two Junior guides headed to the local market for some shopping. After chatting with the universal language (waving of hands, shrugging of shoulders, laughing) with some local merchants it became clear that finding a hat big enough for my enormous head was going to be a problem. But, 20 minutes later, we departed for the jungle with a red Puma hat - talk about Gringo!

Our first stop was the house of the Shaumin (my spelling is probably wrong...) which is the spanish word for, roughly, medicine man. Not only is the Shuamin the most learned of all natives of the jungle medicine, he is also the head of his Quecha tribe, of which some members (including five of his children) hopped in the truck with us sporting supplies and wide eyes.

After leaving the truck and René at the side of the road and trekking for about an hour, crossing rivers and getting quite muddy (which was hilarious to the dry and clean natives), we arrived at our Cabana. The Cabana, made of bamboo, palm leaves, and scrap metal, was something strait out of a adventure novel. Two stories tall, the Shaumin showed John and I our Quarters (the second story) and the hammocks that we would be sleeping in. Simple but cozy, we took a quick rest while playing with six of the nine children of the Shaumin, who were quite interested in my pictures and postcards. After giving them some gifts (pens, postcards, whistle) Elan, the cutest 7 year-old you will ever encounter, took my hand and led me to the river for a dip (barefoot, of course). For about an hour we splashed and played, having a great time although completely unable to communicate. What a day...

That night, after a hearty lunch, the Shaumin and five of his kids (ranging from maybe 3 to 11) performed a ritualistic Quecha dance, very happy to invite us in for a quick lesson. After very s-l-o-w-l-y telling us some Quecha myths, the Shaumin prepared some tea that we, with the aid of my spanish-english dictionary, realized was suppose to make you hallucinate... I had only one sip and went to bed.

The next day we awoke quite rested and enjoyed some Quecha-style eggs - a sort of omellet that I thought was fantastic. Soon afterwards the kids left (hugs all around) and we departed for our six hour trek through the amazon, accompanied with a new, Dutch member to our tribe named Karin. The Shaumin painted our faces using ground up seeds and made hats from a plant whose name a I cant remember, and we were off.

The jungle is exactly what you'd expect, only a million times more so. It is so incredibly dense and full of life that words cannot describe what awe we all felt while walking around. You could spend a year walking around and never see twenty feet infront of you - unbelievable.

After the trek we arrived at the cave in which we spent our second night. After taking a shower (okay, perching myself under a waterfall) we swang (swinged?) on a vine hanging some twenty meters and just relaxed the day away. After another hearty, traditional Quecha meal and some hilarious attempts at crazy eights, we were left happily sleeping in hammocks inside the cave overlooking some typical jungle scenery... unbelievable.

Waking early, we ate and left for a more direct route back to the Cabana (only two hours or so, with a new guide, the Shaumin's first son) we went fishing with some sticks/lines and splashed in the river. As for fish: Gringos:0; Shaumin:7.

After fishing we made some jewellery and listened to some canadian radio (THANK YOU ADAM!!!). Karin, thankfully, was fluent in Spanish and made our lives much easier and more interesting. We learned quite a bit about Quecha life as well as just having a blast. That night Karin and I stayed up late (by Quecha standards, who go to sleep at around 8 pm) chatting the night away.

This morning we awoke early, ate, and headed to Tena to hitch a ride to the Napo river to get on the motorized canoe that was to take us to the animal sanctuary deep in the jungle. What a blast that was! Monkeys, alligators, snakes, tigres, you name it (even cold beer!) abound, we learned lots from a british volunteer named Brad. After playing with the monkeys we left on canoe, had a dip in the river and a great picnic, and took a bus back to Tena where I am now, waiting for our bus that leaves in ten minutes... just enough time to down a 30 cent beer and walk over.

On that note, Ciao!

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