Deep into Ecuador

Monday Morning, August 14th 2006...This morning we descend into the Amazon Jungle region. The scenery as we travel has been stunning as waterfall after waterfall tumbles down the mountainside. This scenery is to dramatically change as we leave the mountain area and descend into the lush, tropical rainforest region.

I am however as interested in the people on the bus as in the scenery opening up around me. This local bus is quite a scene. A giant wide screen TV (still in its box) sits perched behind the driver and people get packed in like sardines. On the roof alongside all our luggage there is a full size fridge. This ramshackle scene crosses over precarious bridges as I journey deeper into Ecuador.

For me each day is the opening of a new horizon, and yet I am acutely aware that to the locals who make these journeys, their poverty means that their horizons can only ever extend as far as tomorrow.

On the journey down into Tena it gets very warm. When we left Papallacta this morning it was very cold.

At times the bus seems only just to cling to the road...there can be no laws about the total number of passengers and the closer we get to Tena the busier the bus gets...some air would be a novelty! The old man beside me has wet the seat (and my left leg) and to my right I am closed in by a rather large back-side...the rest of our group are at the back of the bus, but as the last one on I am getting to enjoy the local atmosphere.

As we make our way over the mountain passes you are aware that one wrong turn means adiós. At one corner there are two tombstones marking the unfortunate end of some previous travellers over this high Andean pass...we actually pass such monuments with a regularity that is all too frequent.

In Tena we explore the town and picnic by the river. I create great hilarity in the group when my trousers split as I climb up into the pick-up truck that is to take us into the jungle.

In the 16th Century the Spainard Francisco de Orellana ventured from Quito into the eastern jungle, in search of El Dorado...the mythical stash of Inca gold said to be hidden away in the jungle. He did not find gold, but he did discover Ecuador´s Rio Napo, which along with Peru´s Marañón, combines to form the Amazon. He followed the Napo into the Amazon mainstream and travelled all the way through the dense jungle to the Atlantic Ocean on Brazil´s coast.

We are staying with a Quichua family both enjoying their wonderful hospitality and experiencing jungle life first hand. One of the first things I notice is that it gets dark very quickly...there is almost no period between day-light and deep darkness. When it gets dark here it is genuinely pitch black. During our traditional Ecuadorian meal of locally caught Tilipia (fish), we are told that all the turmites crawling across the table to the light (i.e. the candles) are a signal that there will be rain tonight...and sure enough...there is a spectacular thunder and lightening storm.

The native family have made us most welcome on this our first night in the jungle and I really enjoy the rapport. With no electricity you have to make your own entertainment and papa treats us to a traditional folk tale...just as was traditional the world over, this is a long tale with a moral meaning.

On our second evening with the family we were treated to a description of a traditional wedding scene and enlightened as to the roles within the family. Women, in many ways, are still treated like domestic slaves and the traditional roles where the man provides and the woman provides for the man remain the norm. We learned some traditional dances on the Tuesday evening and we smoked a homemade and hand-rolled cigar from Papa's own tobacco plant.

It is amazing to be sleeping here in open huts (that are on stilts to make it harder for snakes etc to get in) with only a mosquito net between you and the elements. It gets very cold during the night, and talk about rustic, the toilet and shower are just as open to both the elements and each other...so make sure that you sing in the shower (well its actually just cold water from a pipe).

It is very humid in the jungle and the first thing I notice on Tuesday morning is that all my paper is damp. After breakfast of Granadilla (passion fruit) and Majada (mashed plantain, cheese and egg), I am painted this morning as the Man of the River for our hike along jungle trails to the Jatunyacu River, and let me tell you I have never been so happy to see a jungle hut as I was to get home after the heat and the hike. Our lunch is a traditional soup followed by chicken, vegetables and rice and then pineapple. Even our drinks are fresh jungle produce being the juice of the various fruits growing around us...you eat very well and healthily in the jungle.

Carmen gives me a haircut in the family lodge after lunch...and if you are ever in the jungle I suggest that you get your haircut at Carmens'...she does a great job!

When it rains in the jungle it really rains and after the showers we head off on a medicinal hike. Papa (Delfin Estela) is a Ayahuasca, or traditional medicine man.

I am not doing so well in the jungle with my belongings. Yesterday I put my foot through the ass of my trousers and from today Stonehenge will always be a part of the jungle as my necklace and I parted company on our hike. This afternoon my Guardian Angel gave notice that she wanted to stay in the jungle to protect all travellers and she parted company with my back-pack.

Ecuador´s Amazon is home to a wide variety of mammmals like the armadillo, the honey bear, the sloth, over 60 varieties of bat, tapirs, peccaries, the jaguar, monkeys and manatees to name just a few. Birds make up the richest group of vertebrates with approximately 1000 species. There are also over 500 species of tree per acre that have been recorded in the jungles of the upper Amazon (a concentration ten times greater than that in Europe and North America).

On our hike I am amazed at the knowledge that Papa has about each plant and its medical uses. I am witnessing first hand the realities of living in harmony with nature. Papa explains that when you take something from a plant, e.g. bark from the tree, that you must meditate infront of the plant to say thank-you...the plant is after all another living organism.

Living with the family raises as many questions as it answers. For example, should we be engaged in this kind of tourism? Are we exploiting the local people in the way our ancestors did?...the family certainly make you feel like the big white chief.

The other side of the coin however is that without the tourism dollars local economies would collapse, but I do feel a bit like a rich Westerner exploiting the locals.

Listen to the rythmn of the pouring rain...but there are no window panes. The heavy rainfall this Wednesday morning creates a true rainforest atmosphere. The cloud forest has come lower to meet and greet us and the rain drops are the biggest I have ever seen. The forest looks so mysterious today blanketing its secrets in cloud.

Today will be unusual as we are guided through the forest by our 7-year-old guide Nairon. Our hike will take us to view the Napo river from atop a cliff. I also get to have a facial in the Amazon with local mud drawn straight from the river bank.

We are to move this afternoon to the Shangrila Jungle Lodge on the Anzu River. I am finding it interesting travelling with a range of nationalities where the realities of the racial stereotype are beginning to show in us all.

My journey today only heightens the unfinished feel I get about Ecuador. Roads just seem to end and then re-start later with no reason or indeed warning! So many homes are half-built...it all seems so disjointed.

At the jungle lodge we have such luxuries as infrequent electricity. Nancy has just walked into my room with the phrase 'we don't have light?'. Her face is a picture when he realises that she is in the wrong room.

This evening we are treated to a night of traditional dance and Canelaso (a local drink that is true fire water).

At breakfast on Thursday morning I feel sick, and sure enough my 'Dehli Belly' is back. This is the morning that we will descend deep into a jungle canyon. It is to prove an awesome climb. Our guide Josè leads us to the jungle floor and we trek through genuine Indiana Jones territory.

It is now clear to me why guerilla wars last an eternity on this continent. If you have a knowledge of this territory it could camouflage you for life.

The trek is a treat and would simply not be possible in the litigious cultures that exist in either the States of Europe. The jungle is precarious at best and arguably dangerous. In a country of so much sizemic activity it would only have taken a tremour to trigger a landslide that would bring any of the overhangs down into the canyons and on top of us.

We don't carry any first aid kit (just Josè and his huge machete). I would not even know where to begin completing a risk assessment for this trip.

Whilst Shangrila Lodge is the jungle for the tourist, this mornings' trek is true jungle life. We wade through waters, we shimmy along canyon walls, we climb up through a waterfall (this is possibly the most exciting climb I have ever done...no helmets, no ropes...just your body, your wellies and the natural grips Pachu Mama provides. Just don't look down, or too far ahead, because this is quite a climb!).

Josè takes us deep into bat caves (so glad I had my rabies injections) where the bats fly wildly around us now that they have been disturbed. He awakens various poisonous spiders with his machete and as they crawl out to greet us I get up close and personal...but never touch!

It is impossible to describe the flora, fauna and wildlife we experience. My personal favourite is the Pambil or Planta Caminante or Walking Tree, with its legs splayed.

We are really lucky to stumble across one snake in the midst of consuming another smaller snake. We learn that the poisonous snakes in this area will have triangular heads whilst the snakes with rounded heads are not so dangerous. No photograph or second hand tale can really describe this wonder of Mother Nature. In an ideal world we would all get to see Pachu Mama in her naked splendour...then, just maybe, we might begin to think about our relationship with our environment.

When the rain comes in the jungle, by god does it come. You simply cannot see anything in front of you in this blanket of fast and furious water.

Today, Friday, we are due to head from the jungle to Baños and on to Cuenca but the roads are closed due to the eruption of Tungurahua. Ecuador is home to 71 volcanoes of which 21 are active. The country is home to 40% of the most active volcanoes in the world, 8 of which are in the Galapagos (or Fire) Islands.

We hear that the recent activity in Baños has caused deaths and so instead we are to head now to Cayambe.

On our journey we are stopped by the police with GEMA on their uniforms. We all have to get off the bus to be searched for drugs. I learn that the GEMA unit of the police are the drugs squad chraged essentially with looking for Columbians trafficing through Ecuador.

Being on a guided tour feels a lot like being at boarding school...but for adults. You have to share rooms (and mixing personalities does not always work) and you are herded here and there.

I don't feel that I like Ecuador that much. Maybe I am uneasy with the poverty we have seen outside of Quito? Yet I have travelled the world and spent time in 3rd world countries and never have I felt so uneasy.

I do though like the natural scenery as we journey around. As we headed South the streets became more of a dust bowl due to the dry nature of the climate. The poor areas began to appear dirtier than before (reminiscent of China), yet unlike China I just have a feeling that I am glad I have seen this country but it won't be on my list to return.

This drive we are currently on is initially heading back toward Quito and the farmland the further North we go reminds me somewhat of the UK.

In Cayambe we are to stay at the second oldest Hacienda in Ecuador, the Hacienda Guachalá from 1585. It is like something from a Zorro movie.

The Hacienda church contains a wealth of history and I am fascinated by the very large pots traditionally used for burial. The corpse would be placed in the foetal position to be returned to Pachu Mama and just as in ancient China the wife of a deceased Chief would be buried alive with his corpse.

Cayambe is home to the only volcano in the Americas to be crossed by the Equator line.