Mishaps, Monkeys and Mountains

Hesitant vs. Excited 

The adventures continued from Banos to Misahualli where we got to the beginning of the Amazonia and sampled a little taste of jungle life. We stayed at France-Amazonia which had real coffee and great information on day activities. The first afternoon we arrived we scoped out the area and went for an exploratory drive. I spent the night dreaming of insects (when asleep), but mostly stared at the ceiling thinking spiders were going to fall on my head. Although nothing of the sort happened, the presence of insects was everywhere in the incessant vibrating hum throughout the night.

The following day we decided to visit the ecological reserve Jatun Sacha to walk in the rainforest and were able to do a self-guided tour accompanied by an English information booklet. The walk was fantastic and awe-inspiring. Every so often there were various stations that corresponded with the booklet that explained different things we were seeing. After we finished, we stopped by another conservation site with medicinal plants. We were the only ones there and got a free tour with a super knowledgeable staff member. This was definitely my highlight of the jungle experience and it was incredible to learn about what plants are used to remedy various ailments from nasal congestion to contraception. We were able to try out a natural anesthetic used for numbing of the mouth, use sap to seal a cut on the hand that had antibiotic properties and learn more about hallucinogenic  plants like Ayahuasca which is used traditionally by those living in the Amazonia, but is all the rage with tourists pursuing eco/jungle travel. We continued on down the road and stopped at Kamak Maki, an indigenous Quicha village that is promoting sustainable tourism. Iain also got to meet a monkey here that became his new best friend.The finale of the day was visiting a famously old and gigantic tree on the outskirts of town. We managed to see it just before sunset and to witness its size alone was worth the visit.

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The next day we decided to check out of the hotel climb up to a waterfall and start making our way back to Banos. However, the day started out a bit rocky after I discovered an enormous fury spider in our bed after breakfast. This was terrifying and possibly my worst Amazonian nightmare. The night before I finally put our bug net to use for the first time and slept slightly easier knowing nothing was going to fall on my head. Little did I know this creature lurked beneath and I flipped out upon finding it. After the spider incident was dealt with we made our way to the town’s well-known waterfall location. It was an hour hike in and we wondered if we should wear shoes, but decided against it. After the first ten minutes we should have turned around to go back and get shoes because the trail was more like a dangerous mudslide. The walk turned into one of those situations where you think it can’t be too bad for too long and just push ahead because you’ve already come so far. It went from bad to worse after my flip-flop broke and from then on in we were walking barefoot for about 2/3 of the way there.  When we got to the waterfall it was crowded with Ecuadorian tourists who were celebrating Easter weekend. After taking a couple anti-climactic pictures we decided to head back slowly and surely (still barefoot) until I accidently put my hand on the craziest looking caterpillar we had ever seen. It was so strange looking Iain had taken pictures early to document its red head and feet and bizarre long yellow feeler/hair things. The evil caterpillar stung me immediately which resulted in a hyper-ventilating ‘get me out of the Amazon’ emergency accompanied by and tears. After making it back to the car it was time to leave the jungle.

woke up to this...

walked like this...

to see this...

got stung by this

After spending the night in Banos we headed into the Andes to attempt the Quilotoa Loop. We had read that the mountainous trip was no easy go and that the roads were anything from smooth, but ended up taking a wrong turn which took us deep into the cloud forest. We were extremely far down this road and the sun was setting when we came across an impassable portion. We ended up having to camp the night in the car on the side of the road, but managed to get out fine the next morning and make it to Chugchilan unscathed. However, we later discovered from a guide that a ‘dog’ Iain had spotted during a late-night bathroom break was quite possibly a bear. We spent a couple days in the area; one day we viewed the cloud forest from above by horseback and another we hiked around Laguna Quiotoa.

guess we can't go this way

 

new friend

 

We spent one night off a seemingly random road where we met Cesar. Cesar lives on a hill above were we had parked the car and works in the mountains growing potatoes. After offering Cesar a cup of tea and an axe that we didn’t need he asked if we would be there in the morning. Iain promised we would have pancakes and invited Cesar to come back. The next morning Cesar brought us potatoes in return for the axe and took his pancake to go in our cooler. Since we are leaving so soon back to Canada, we compiled an extensive array of belongings that he could take that we needed to leave somewhere anyways. It was so great for us to give someone our things that we would have no use for in a few weeks.

tea under the umbrella in the rain

After leaving the Andes we drove back to the coast and have stopped in Las Tunas where we are back to surf a few more days before the end of the trip. Our Finnish friends from Huanchaco, Peru are here too, and it is so awesome to be surfing without a wetsuit in warm water. We will relish the last week here in Ecuador. 

balcony view from Las Tunas