Spontaneity

Tuesday, March 4

Spontaneity: noun: the state of occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation.

This morning the dutiful volunteers all headed back to their hard manual labor at Lisan Yacu Station. Last night I debated – should I ask to join them as a pseudo-volunteer for another week, or bide my time in Tena, or head on to some new adventure?

Though I would have loved to see Lisan Yacu, I had not received an invitation to join the workers, and I didn’t want to intrude. I also knew that I would be out of internet contact in the jungle, and I wouldn’t be able to respond to any new information about my Galapagos visa situation. (I was hoping to be on the Islands four days ago, on March 1, but these paperwork processes often take longer than expected in Ecuador. I’m glad I took the chance to explore the Amazon and didn’t want around in Quito for the last week.)

When I woke up, I decided my time in Tena had come to a close. With that decision I packed my suitcase and headed downhill to the bus station. The place was hopping after Carnaval Weekend, and the man at the booth regretfully informed me that there were no more tickets on the bus to Quito.

Then he relented. “Are you traveling alone?” he asked. I said, “Yes,” and he offered me one of the non-ticketed seats on the bench behind the driver. I accepted happily – a forward-facing view out the windshield would help me avoid feeling carsick on the winding, mountainous road. Sometimes traveling alone comes in handy.

I had a couple hours to kill with my heavy backpack on, so I grabbed a brunch almuerzoand contemplated getting my haircut as a souvenir. I would have an Amazon haircut right now if I hadn’t run out of time!

The ride was wonderful. I sat up front and made fast friends with my neighbor, María Belén, a 21-year-old girl with two daughters. She shared my sense of humor and had an innate sense of how to speak slowly and clearly so I could understand all her Spanish. She explained lots of perplexing Ecuadorian phenomena, such as why the “full” bus had shut out a crowd of eager people at the station, but stopped to pick up a dozen people standing along the side of the road with their hands out.

“The people we’re picking up all have tickets already,” she explained. “They just didn’t want to walk all the way to the station this morning, so they’re catching the bus as it comes by.” That sounded like a risky option to me, and María Belén confessed that she had once missed the bus that way. “Now I always go to the station to catch the bus,” she told me.

As the hours passed and we neared Quito, the bus driver began picking up everyone he saw, packing the aisles and cab of the bus.

“Why didn’t he pack the bus this full before?” I asked María Belén.

“Because four hours is too long to ride uncomfortably,” she explained, as if the answer were obvious. “Plus, how would all these people get home if the bus were already full?”

I’m sure those bustling crowds in Tena would not have minded a standing-room-only ticket, but somehow the Ecuadorian system of chaos works out.

Suddenly, María Belén signaled to the driver and hopped out the bus door while we were still rolling down the highway. “This is my stop!” she hollered to me as we rolled away. “Stay in touch!”

When we arrived at Quito’s southern bus station, I took the public Trolebus all the way up to my go-to hostel in Old Town. Just as I arrived at the top-floor registration desk, Brian (my long-haired friend from before) greeted me with a hug.

“I’m going to the coast tonight on a night bus!” he informed me enthusiastically. His new traveling buddy, a blond Canadian named Aysha, would be joining him.

“Mind if I tag along?” I asked spontaneously. The coast was going to be my next destination anyway. I told the man at the registration desk “never mind” about the room. After dinner, I helped Bryan chop some wood, then took my packed suitcase back to the southern bus terminal for my favorite thing in the world (sarcasm), a night bus ride.

Spontaneity: noun: a way of life which leads to bus rides with panoramic-views, new friends, and sleeping in places you never imagined when you woke up that morning.

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Boa Boy

Monday, March 3

Plan A: meet our pre-arranged Ecuadorian guide at the bus station for a hike to El Gran Canyon, The Grand Canyon, purportedly the most magnificent site in Tena.

Plan B: wait for our guide until we are sure he is chuchaqi (hungover) from Carnaval and not coming; take the bus by ourselves somewhere else.

We ended up using Plan B. When even the optimists in the group decided our guide wasn’t coming, we decided to strike out for Los Lagos, a nearby waterfall hike. I’m sure the waterfalls weren’t as spectacular as the Grand Canyon, but they made for a fun outing. The trail was composed of knee-deep mud, and it culminated in a crowded, cold pool and crashing waterfall.

On the way were other cool sights, like a section of pure rock through which the river had carved a deep channel (a natural waterslide for the brave of heart/brave of butt), a huge hairy black-and-orange tarantula wandering down the path, and a little boy with a full-grown boa around his body.

I discovered the boy when I got bored sitting around in the pool, so I decided to go exploring for snails and moss and other mundane organisms. Instead, I found an enormous boa and his keeper! The boy was hanging around nonchalantly, trying to play it cool, but he was obviously excited to get my attention – and then the attention of all eight German volunteers as they crowded around. I shamelessly asked to hold the boa a couple times and even got my photo taken with it, but I don’t know where that picture disappeared to.

Edit: I found the pictures!!!

The boy reminded me so much of myself as a little girl, when I would catch turtles from the campground lake or snakes from the woodland park and show them off to anyone who would look. (Let’s be honest, I still do that.) The boy explained how he had found the snake in the woods yesterday and taped its mouth shut so it wouldn’t bite. He said he was planning to release it in a few days.

At the end of the day, as we were walking down the main road to the bus stop, we spotted the same boy walking with his little brother – but there was no snake to be found. The boy’s backpack looked pretty full, though. I guess that makes as good a boa-carrier as anything!

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Todo Es Posible, Nada Es Seguro

Friday, February 21

I woke up in the dark once again, but this time for a lesser cause. I had to catch the 6:30am Flor del Valle bus back to Quito, so I would be back at the Ministerio in time to pick up my visa. Everything went well, including the expected bureaucratic delays. I am so glad I had Gaby (the lawyer’s assistant) with me to pick up the visa. Even something so simple would be impossible without Gaby there to show me the third-floor room, or to ask the officer if he had forgotten our queue, politely at first and with increasing force until we were finally tended to. I was so relieved to get my Ecuadorian visa! This means that if all goes well, I might be able to get my Galapagos visa by Thursday and be in the Galapagos this time next week. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The rest of the day was chill. I had another Mercado Central lunch, this time a soup with sangre and cuero – that’s blood and leather, or cowskin, in this case. Can’t say they were my favorite flavors. I played some rainy, grassy soccer in the park with Brian, a long-haired hostel volunteer who always strikes up interesting philosophical or political conversations with me.

After dinner, I sat on the rooftop garden terrace contemplating my options. I could catch a bus to Baños for some cycling, rafting, and waterfalls. I could join a travel agency’s four-day trek around Quilotoa Crater. I could catch a bus to Puerto Lopez on the coast and visit my ultimate-playing friend from Seattle.

That’s when I met a friendly Swiss man who glasses, floppy brown hair, and a goofy grin. His name was Matthias, and he was planning to leave on a five-hour bus for Tena the next morning with his girlfriend, Rebecca. Matthias explained about his geography master’s project in the sleepy Amazonian town of Tena, the German-run hostel he would stay at, and the college-aged rainforest volunteers who would be there. Normally I would be shy about asking to join him and Rebecca on their trip, but I remembered I had been delighted when Daan confidently joined my travel plans in Mindo.

“Of course you can tag along,” Matthias told me. “We’ll share a cab to the bus terminal tomorrow morning. Breakfast at 7:30?” I ran downstairs to pack my things once again, thrilled at this spontaneous opportunity to spend time in my favorite biome in the world, the Amazon.

Saturday, February 22

Tena, here I come! I met Matthias’s girlfriend, Rebecca, at breakfast. With their nerdy passions, free-flowing itinerary, and Swiss-German humor, these two beautiful people formed an inspirational couple.

The bus ride was a magnificent journey from Quito’s high-altitude valley, up and over the eastern cordillera covered in the golden grasses of the Paramo, and down the slopes of the Andes through cloud forest, until we finally arrived in the Amazonian town of Tena. The climate, geography, and flora here are markedly different from Yasuni National Park, where I spent time earlier. Although Tena technically lies within the Amazon, it still has some altitude. The rivers are fast-flowing and rocky, not the lazy, muddy behemoths of the interior. The heat was less stifling, and the mosquitos are supposedly free from malaria.

I third-wheeled it all afternoon through an avocado-and-chicken bowl at La Tortuga Café and a stroll across the river. My bedroom was like a dream – a large window to the yard, a clean white tile floor, a comfy twin bed, and no roommate. Matthias assured me I’m still paying the $8.00 per night dorm-room fee for this lovely private room because the dorm beds were full. I’m not sure of anything, though, because there seems to be nobody in charge here. People cook in the kitchen and come-and-go as they please, but the reception is empty. I could sneak out tomorrow and no one would know the difference. But this place seems really nice, and I plan to stay a few days. Here’s to spontaneous adventures in the Amazon!

Matthias and Rebecca lead the way into the off-the-beaten-track hostel.

These giant snails (and their poop) were all over the hostel's garden.

A little red bug.

Tropical flowers grew everywhere.

Sweat bees, partaking in nectar for a change.

The panoramic view for which the hostel is known.

A Blue-Gray Tanager in the yard.

This mammoth bug lived in the garage. He must have moved in when the neighborhood was named "Antennas!"

The driveway.

Everything was written in German.

A table of plastic cups filled with dirt and seeds -- part of the hostel's reforestation project.

Sunday, February 23

I woke up planless yet again. Matthias and Rebecca weren’t around, but they had mentioned a little mini-mart down the road with groceries, so I decided to do a little early-morning bird watching while I walked there.

The hostel isn’t located in the jungle, but there are still lots of trees along the muddy roads and paths here. The hostel is in a new neighborhood named “Sector Las Antennas” for its location partway up the hill to the new radio/cell towers. Urban sprawl in the Amazon, yuck. Anyway, I saw some cool birds on my way to buy eggs and bread.

Silver-Beaked Tanager?

Yellow-Tufted Woodpecker.

Blue-and-White Swallow.

The same mystery bird from Mindo??

I then found the store, which is actually a living room filled with groceries. I was calling, “HOLA?” through the white ironwork over the open-air window when Matthias and Rebecca showed up for their breakfast. Through our combined efforts, we finally attracted the attention of the shop’s owner and purchased our individual eggs and white rolls in plastic baggies.

As I cooked breakfast, I introduced myself to the other members of the hostel and met a German couple, Nadine and Sascha, who were planning a jungle tour to Limoncocha. Of course, I asked to join! They said I was welcome, especially since three people would make the tour cheaper. We rushed down to a café to meet the guide, a young Kichwa man named Nixon, to decide the details. The couple wanted to make sure they liked this guide, after a poor experience on their last tour. Over juices, the plan was arranged and we agreed on a price of $180 per person for three days and nights. It sounds like a lot of money compared to an $8 per night hostel, but it would barely cover one night at a hotel in Seattle. Food, lodging, transportation, a full-time guide and cook, and three days in the Amazon – sounds like a good value to me!

I spent the afternoon walking through the rain with Matthias and Rebecca in a park called La Isla. It’s not actually an island, but rather the center of the “Y” formed by the confluence of Tena’s two rivers. Although both sides of the river are highly developed, this central region has been preserved as primary forest. In the park, we found captive monkeys, herons, turtles and caimans in a sort of zoo. Wild squirrel monkeys also abounded. In the gazebo, I came across a white-haired lady from Oregon studying her Spanish homework. We talked for a while about her nursing volunteer work, and she showed me a giant tarantula she’d been eyeing. She reminded me so much of my mom!

The tower and bridge over the confluence of Tena's two rivers. A sign proudly states, "Brought to You by The Petroleum Industry."

Three indigenous figures in a public park.

This evening, I scrambled to prepare for the trip to Limoncocha. It begins with a 7-hour night bus through Coca all the way into the interior Amazon. Talk about adventure! I packed food, got money out of the ATM, stored most of my luggage at the hostel, and caught a taxi down to the bus terminal with Nadine and Sascha. There, we were greeted with a new guide, Fausto, and Nixon hurriedly explaining that he couldn’t come after all. Fausto was carrying our rubber boots and several cardboard boxes of fruits, vegetables, grains, toilet paper, and water. They say in Ecuador, Todo es posible, nada es seguro. Everything is possible, nothing is certain. I have never heard a more apt slogan.

I found my window-seat next to Fausto, wrapped my orange bandana around my eyes, and settled in for a long, bumpy night.

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