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Published: October 12th 2009
About to walk the plank
this is before my magnificent bridgesFour weeks in Ecuador and I am one week away from home. I am writing this in my Hostel in Quito, waiting to fly off to the Galapagos Islands tomorrow until I return to Quito on Saturday, This has been an unsettling experience in some ways, Ecuador ties with Mozambique as the poorest country that I have been to and the project I have been on is the only one where the conditions I have stayed in have reflected this.
After an 11 hour long and very confusing flight to Santiago in Chile, I had a four hour wait for my connection to Quito and I didn’t really know what day it was. I went the wrong way across the international date line and today instantly became yesterday, but as the flight had gone overnight, I couldn’t figure out if I was still in yesterday or whether today had started to happen yet (don’t forget, I had been up and about for over twenty four hours at this point.) The flight took off and then after four hours landed unexpectedly at Guayaquil which is the second largest city in Ecuador. We waited on the tarmac for nearly an hour, and then
Capuchin
having a laugh took off for the hour long flight to Quito. I got to the hostel at about ten o’clock at night. Quito is, so I am told, the highest capital city in the world, and at nearly ten thousand feet it is well over twice the height of Ben Nevis. This led to a sleepless night as when I dozed off I forgot to breathe hard in the thin atmosphere and woke up gasping for breath until three o’clock, when I gave up the fight for sleep. At 6.45, the local organiser, Estoban, was knocking on my door to take me to the office and fill in all the forms. We walked at a brisk rate for less than three hundred yards, before I ran out of breath and he took my luggage from me the rest of the way. I measured my pulse while he unlocked the door and it was over 100 just from walking!
The bus for Puyo left Quito at 9.30 and I arrived at Puyo five hours later to be collected by Lily, the volunteer co ordinator and Herman, who owns Yana Cocha. Yana Cocha is an indigenous name and means black pool, but there was
carrying the plank
Moving it from one island to the next not a pier or roller coaster in sight, and it was a good deal warmer than Blackpool. The volunteer houses are very basic, with a men’s cabin and a female cabin and the showers (cold) and toilets in a small block between. There are three of the world’s most uncomfortable beds in the world in each cabin and I spent another sleepless night to emerge the next morning to look and feel like one of the undead. The three volunteers, Tim, Lyn and Lex, showed me the morning routine of preparing the food for the animals and which of them was potentially dangerous. The routine also included cleaning out the animals and I wasn’t really prepared for how unpleasant a job this could be, especially as some of the animals want to sit on your head or shoulders while you do it. After a two hour lunch break, we started again. If I ever had any serious thoughts of being a zoo keeper, I was quickly made aware that this wasn’t for me. After work, it was into Puyo to check my emails and collect my washing from the launderette. All of my dirty clothes from New Zealand, washed, dried
and neatly folded into a plastic bag for less than a dollar. At the volunteer house, I took the mattress off the spare bed, so I had two and looked forward to my first good nights sleep in several days. At ten o’clock the hugest, noisiest and most frightening thunderstorm started and lasted nearly three hours, but even when the thunder stopped, the rain continued to beat down upon the tin roof like a train constantly passing by.
The next day, I awoke after at least two hours sleep, and found a new role for myself. I dug a drainage channel around one of the cages that was always a wellie sucking bog as you tried to get in to see to the animals, and constructed a timber step at the door that foiled any escape attempts between the bottom of the door and the constantly sinking ground. I also spotted Houdini, our resident escape artist, who is a tiny monkey, called a Tamarind. He was perched on the shoulder of a boy who was looking round (Yana Cocha is arranged a bit like a zoo and people can pay one or two dollars to look round). As I tried
Parrot Island
Cleaning and feeding the parrots to get him off the child’s back, the little so and so bit and scratched me, so he was walked back to his cage, still on board his new friend, who walked into the cage with him, while Houdini was persuaded to get off with the aid of a grape. It became my mission to make Houdini’s cage escape proof, no easy task as his cage is large and he can squeeze through a mouse sized gap. After three attempts spread over four days, I finally succeeded. In the late afternoon, Manuel, who is one of the two full time workers called me over and I watched with dismay, while he fed two young chickens to the Caimen, a variety of alligator. This was not a sight I really wanted to see, as the caimen have no concept of giving their food a quick death and the chickens struggled for a minute or two with their bones broken by the first bite, until their heads fell down as they died. Manuel thought he was doing me a favour by showing me this and indeed it happens a million times a day in nature, so I shouldn’t be so squeamish, but
parrot
showing everyone what kind he is I didn’t repeat the exercise on subsequent feedings.
On Friday, I was stretching my left wrist to try to get more movement in it when One of the builders who is making a new clinic and quarantine building started talking to me in Spanish and mime. He seemed to be saying that I should go in to Puyo to get a massage of some kind on it. I agreed to this, just to please him, whereupon he seized my arm and started to push, squeeze and inflict a great deal of pain on me. It turns out that he has some kind of practice in the town and he decided that I was a customer. He knew something however, because he quickly identified the point of the injuries and the soft tissue damage that the doctors in Australia had completely ignored. He also identified the childhood injury to my thumb and proceeded to give that a good battering as well. He told me that I would need three treatments and I would be cured and feeling too embarrassed to say no I agreed. The second one happened in the morning after I had eaten my breakfast and was even more
Guatusa
This are a big rodent, like a small Agouti agonizing than the first one. He pulled and squeezed with his hands made from iron with his work as a builder, while Manuel and Edgar, the other workers sniggered at me every time I yelped and kept saying that he was a shaman. The treatment seemed to have a good effect though as my wrist became much freer and less painful, while the lump on the back of my hand went down to less than half it’s original size. I chickened out from the third treatment though. I just couldn’t face the pain again.
One of the highlights of the next week was the drama of the escaped capuchin monkeys. Three of them escaped when one of the workers went in to clean their cage. The volunteers are not allowed in the capuchin cage, because they are one of the potentially dangerous animals. One was recapture immediately, but two of them spent a couple of nights free before I spotted one of them by the cage and I tempted it into the double door with a bucket of bananas and then back into the main cage with another bucket of food. I was a hero for at least ten minutes
Vulture
They often circled overhead, waiting for an accident, no doubt when I told the others. The remaining capuchin seems to have fled into the jungle.
With my left arm now less stiff and painful and getting stronger every day, I decided that the time was right for some white water rafting and so after the Saturday morning feed, I and new volunteer Sage from USA went into Banos for the weekend. It is a nice town, by Ecuadorian standards, with paved roads, good hostels and shops and a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin of the waters, which I presume is Mary. The town is a place of pilgrimage in October as people come in to bathe in the waterfalls and take a drink of the spring that comes out in a side chapel of the cathedral. In the evening there was a procession through the town behind a band (sort of) and a statue of Mary. Quite interesting to see and hear, as the procession sang one verse with the two ladies at the back in a loud speaker van, while the band took over for the next verse and so on till they got to the church. No photos of this, unfortunately, as we had just gone out to
new consignment
ten tortoise, three monkeysand an ocelot eat dinner and were not expecting it. On the Sunday I was up bright and early for the rafting, which was amazing, but a little scary on occasions. The rapids were grade four, which is a little fierce if you haven’t done it before, but only one member of the raft fell out and was rescued by one of the accompanying safety kayaks. It was a wonderful four and a half hour trip and I want to do it again.
All the time I have been in Puyo, I have been trying on the internet and by phone to get my flights changed. On the day before I left Aukland I got an email that told me the Galapagos project had been cancelled, due to a governmental change of heart. I kept phoning Iberia in Quito, with a variety of responses, none of which amounted to speaking with anyone. Real Gap just told me I was on my own, so eventually I phoned Iberia in the UK and got through straight away and my flights were changed for me. Hoorah, it had only taken me two and a half weeks.
My last week at Yana Cocha was notable for my
Sage and Houdini
I put a stop to his escapes for the moment bridge construction work. As you can see from one of the pictures of Tim, we have to walk the plank to get to the three parrot islands. I have now constructed three bridges, two permanent, (or until they rot, which might be only a couple of months in this rainy climate) and a drawbridge to stop the tourists from crossing over. They work wonderfully and walking the plank is now a thing of the past. On the Friday afternoon we experienced an earthquake. All of the west of South America is on the volcano and earthquake zones. It was only a small one and over too quickly to be scary, but we found it hilarious after we had got out of the building and it had stopped.
Saturday, 10th October and all the volunteers caught the bus to Tena, which claims to be the rafting centre of Ecuador. It is a real rubbish tip of a town, even worse than Puyo and it was a real struggle for me to get from the bus station to our hostel along “roads” without pavements and unexplained piles of rubble strewn everywhere, with traffic weaving around the obstructions and potholes as best they
could, and my wheeled suitcase capsizing every ten yards on the rough track. We got to the hostel at about five o’clock and after showering, the six of us went off to eat and book the rafting for the next day. Unfortunately, Ecuador was playing another South American team and nearly everywhere was closed. We got to a restaurant and watched the game on the telly. After Ecuador lost, the shops opened up again and five of us booked a full day rafting trip, while Sage booked a jungle trip.
On the Sunday we reported at 8.30, to be driven for one hour to the river. We would be on the water for five and a half hours, with rapids up to grade five standard and it was marvelous. I was the first one to fall in, luckily as we got to the end of one of the rapids. I was in the front right paddling position, on the basis that I was the most experienced of our party. You will recall that I had done this once, the previous weekend. Any way the water disappeared from under my paddle as the raft reared up and my own effort threw
Squirrel Monkey
These run free and get a free lunch by stealing the other animals food me into the water. I quickly grabbed the side of the raft and kept hold of my paddle in the now calm waters and was pulled into the raft. My next go in the water was much more dramatic. We were in one of the grade fives when the guide shouted safety position. This means that you stop paddling and crouch down inside the raft. As I started to move I saw David on the front left launching towards me head first. He took us both out of the raft and was even more inconsiderate as he used me as a ladder to get back to the surface. It took me an infinity of time to surface, with bursting lungs, to find I was still in the middle of the rapids. I had kept hold of my paddle and saw David’s passing by, so being the considerate chap that I am , I grabbed his as well, until a moments reflection told me I was better off with my arms free as I was whirled around in the maelstrom. (Good word that, I never thought I would use it.) I turned around to get my feet downstream, as per the
Statue in Puyo
The least scruffy thing in town. I think it represents the first meeting between the Spanish and the indiginous people, but I might be wrong safety briefing, just in time to see an enormous rock rushing towards me, ( in reality I was the one doing the rushing, the rock was stationary.) I fended it off with my feet at the cost of starting me spinning around again in the water,and then, wonder of wonders, calm water again, with the rescue kayak waiting for me with David already clinging to the other one. A wonderful day! Back to Tena just in time for the 5 o’clock bus to Quito, while the others headed back to Yana Cocha.
The crowded five hour bus ride to Quito, felt far longer than that as we started our ascent of the Andes in the fading light on a road that made the Snake Pass look like the M1. It was a relief when it went dark and I could no longer see the rivers five hundred feet below the wheels of the bus as it carreered round the unguarded swervery. Anyway, we all got safely to Quito at about ten o’clock and I was safely tucked up by 11.30. As I write this I am about fifteen hours away from Galapagos and a week away from home and I
am feeling excited about both. Ecuador has been the least enjoyable of my projects, while being the most exotic. I have only started to enjoy what the country has to offer in the last eight or nine days, as my knowledge of Spanish has increased from zero to not very much and I have started to become more familiar with the culture and the transportation system. At first I was scared to go out alone, but I’ve got over that. You definitely need at least a basic understanding of Spanish though, as the only English speakers are tourists. I will publish an account of my Galapagos trip when I am back in Dear Old Blighty, so all the people that I haven’t bored rigid in person can check out the snaps. See ya.
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Anna
non-member comment
poor chickens
hi dad that was so funny that that guy used you as a ladder to get our of the white water. i can just imagine it.ohh so funny. Naughty Haudini!! its a shame that this was your least enjoyable country but you sound like you really enjoyed the white water rafting. you wouldnt have been able to do that in Manchester would you!!. skye is really looking forward to seeing you so ive been told. she says your on holiday apparently. looking forward to you coming over here to visit me. i think you will love Australia without these project things that you did in bathurst. too much to see to be in the one place for all that time. anyway ill ring home when you are back you will have to let me know in advance when you will be at nannas house and ill call her house phone for you. take care.. enjoy Galap x