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Published: September 19th 2005
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#2- Still in Quito, Ecuador- Saturday, August 20, 2005
Time to catch up to the present…
In the last update I had just arrived back from my tour in the jungle. The area is called the Cuyabeno River & Wildlife Reserve- it borders the north-eastern boundary to Columbia. I mentioned that the access to the area was thanks to the roads from the oil company in the area. Well, what I forgot to mention was that on our last day in the jungle, our tour guide confronted one of the later arrivals to the camp. He mentioned that in a few days there was going to be a strike with the buses in the area and suggested that Lara (the late arrival) go home a day early to avoid any problems. Luckily, Natasha, Helen and I got out a couple of days before the shit hit the fan, and, apparently it certainly did.
I started hearing a few things a couple of days ago. I saw the front page of the local paper and it showed some kind of flaming road block, and I noticed it mentioned the area we were in for the tour. The U.S. put
out a warning at their embassy to tell their people in the country to avoid that part of the jungle altogether, as the protest could get violent.
Then I was talking to a German guy the other night that happened to buy a similar tour and was headed up in the area when all this shit was going down. He told me some freaky stories of multiple road blocks, local men running around with machetes and sticks with nails in the end slashing tires of people trying to get in and out. Needless to say, the guy was a little freaked out about his situation but managed to get out of the area safely.
I’m not exactly sure what the whole reason is for the outrage from the jungle locals, but I know it has something to do with the American owned oil company in the area. On top of that I just got a letter from my two English friends, Helen and Natasha, and they told me that the buses to the south are striking as well- hopefully for different less violent reasons. They were crossing the border into Peru and had some difficulties in the southern
part of the country. Thankfully they are OK, as far as I know.
So anyways, allow me to bring you up to the present…
I’ve been back from the jungle for a few days now and little has happened since (I think it was a day or two after we arrived back from the jungle that Natasha, Helen, and I hooked up with a group of people from the hostel and left on a tour to Mindo and the famous center of the world (the exact equator)- it was quite an eventful day. Half of the fun was the crazy group we were in. Will, from Australia, Dave, from L.A., Matt and Lindsey, from England, Jack, from the Bayou, and the three of us.
We took a quick stop at an old volcanic crater, wasn’t all that interesting- and then headed off to Mindo. In Mindo we went on a hike to some waterfalls for a swim and some rock jumping. I broke the ice by jumping off the four meter rock-very sketchy. The access to the launching pad was extremely slippery with waterfalls on either side. When I got out and climbed the completely unsafe ladder
about ten meters to the top, I walked to the edge and watched the others jump. Before me was a plank which served as another jump point about 12 meters (40 feet) from the water. After some nervous glances, Will got up the nerve to jump and after him everyone (except myself and Lindsey) followed. Natasha needed more influence than the others to jump and it took about 40 minutes for Will to convince her to jump. When she hit the water she must have had her mouth open and tore her top lip open on the inside- minor injury but worth noting.
As for myself, I was a little chicken but didn’t jump more or less because the water wasn’t as deep as I would have liked. For example, if one were to hit the water with least resistance, then the stony bottom might break your fall, or worse, your leg. However, as long as you impact the water with your arms outstretched you would be fine. I chose not to jump in preservation of myself for future expeditions on my trip. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it!
After the falls we headed back to
the van and drove a couple of minutes down the road to the point where we started our tube ride down the river. This was fun but would have been better in high water season. The tube was actually seven tubes tied together in a big flower. We wore helmets and life jackets (why- I don’t know) and held onto the ropes that connected the tubes together as we flowed down the river. There were rapids, but they weren’t very big. As I said, the river was low so we had a guy help us along the right path so as not to get caught on the many rocks.
When we arrived back at the Hostel, the guys we were with had to start barbeque they were organising for that Monday’s Rum and Coke Night. I chose not to drink the cheap rum and coke from past experience with it, and drank the rest of the gin and tonic that Helen, Natasha, and I had started the night before. Pretty soon the place turned into a "shit show", and at around midnight the majority of us went out to the Discothèque. No Bar is the name of the place and is basically just a large dance floor surrounding the bar. Dancing on the bar and funneling beer are part of the experience. There were so many of us Gringos there that we out numbered the locals. It was a blast, and I have photos to prove it.
The following day I had to say goodbye to my new good friends Helen and Natasha. I wish I could have spent more time with them but such is the live of a drifter. Since then I’ve hooked up with Andrew from Australia and we have organised our trip to the Galapagos for tomorrow morning. For a final mainland party, we hooked up with a couple of girls from Switzerland and went to Otavalo for the day- at least that’s what we were supposed to be doing…
After walking around the Plaza for most of the afternoon, we headed off for a drink. That turned into three bottles of wine and progressed to dinner until 10 pm. By then it was too late to go back to Quito, so Andrew and I accepted the invitation to stay in the girls’ room in Otavalo and go out to the Discothèque. We were the only gringos in the whole bar, but the most popular as we shared our beers and danced like fools all night. I even got the chance to salsa with some local girls, however it was more like stepping on their feet as I tried to salsa- regardless, it was fun.
Today I woke with a bad hangover trying to remember if it was the tenth or the eleventh cocktail that did it- still haven’t figured it out… At any rate, after breakfast, Andrew and I hopped on the bus back to Quito and have been preparing for our departure tomorrow at 9:30 am.
Part of the preparation was loading my last 390 photos to disk some of which I’ve edited and added to this email. Hope you all enjoy. My next letter won’t be for about at least eight days, as I’ll be on a boat for five days around the Galapagos and three days hiking the volcanoes on the largest Island in the archipelago.
Take care everyone…
Matthew Goldrup
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