Ayampe Memories

Ayampe, at low tide. Walking along a seemingly endless strip of beach like this, with the one you love, where the sea rolls into the rolling hills, it's hard to decide when it's time to turn back. Here was the last stop of our weeks along Ecuador's central coast, a little wooden shack town like so many others. Lying along an exposed stretch of coastline, the ocean tumbles into the beach here too hard for a port to have emerged from this little patch of green amongst the surrounding drylands. And unlike the party town and gringo haven of Montañita to the south, the surf's not big enough to draw many people with their boards, although we did see a couple of people giving it a try one afternoon.

Once again, though, I've started at the end of the story. Before we got off a bus at what appeared to be a stretch of road like any other, and I walked down the dirt road into Ayampe for the first time, we had spent a few more days in Puerto Lopez after our trip up to Agua Blanca. Or perhaps it's better to say that we spent our nights there, as the days there were dedicated to exploring as much of Machalilla National Park as we could.




















El Parque Nacional Machalilla is divided into three primary sections, both politically and geographically. The village, ruins and surrounds of Agua Blanca, which made up the first area of the park we explored, lie further inland, along the fringe of the divide between low dryland scrub forest and higher up, cloud forest. The second principal area of the park, as you can see, is made up of the coast itself, alternating repeatedly as you go between beaches and cliffsides covered in palo santo, until the view disappears into the clouds. Those clouds, representative of the weather constantly carried inland from a cold Pacific current, help keep Ecuador's temperature perennially mild even here along the coast. Just as the northern Pacific renders the US west coast balmy at times of year that the rest of the country is buried in snow, the central Pacific cools much of what would otherwise be constantly sweltering lowlands.

Here we spent a day, wandering the trails that led us in and out of beaches, dry aromatic forests and high up overlooks, before hopping into one of many motorcycle-driven taxis back into Puerto Lopez:




















Another night along the town's beachline malecón and the next day had us on the way to the last principal section of Machalilla's diverse spread of ecosystems tucked into one of Ecuador's many corners: la isla de la plata, which lies two hours by boat from Puerto Lopez. And, as fate would have it, we embarked onto Pacific waters that day during the height of humpback whale season.




















It turns out that humpback whales, spending the bulk of their days feeding in polar waters, come down to the tropics to breed and bear their young. By the time we got there, these whales were already rearing their calves, born at around 2 tons. Despite their enormous birth size they still looked small next to their 40 ton mothers, who swam and occasionally breached the surface alongside them, seemingly unperturbed by the flocks of tourists in boats doggedly pursuing them with their cameras ready (myself included).

We chased the whales for an hour or so, taking turns with the rest of the day's tripulation, climbing onto the roof of our small speedboat. At that height on our little vessel every pitch was exaggerated and threatened to knock you off your feet, or hands and knees, but we were willing to put up with that to get a better look and with luck, a better snapshot of whatever part of those massive shapes might poke out from the depths. Like any good fisherman, I'll say that I saw plenty more than I managed to catch, on film. For those of you absorbing all of this vicariously as you are, this tail will have to do.

Soon we were nearing the desert isla de la plata, known casually as the poor man's Galapagos for its similar (but smaller) slice of fauna and much more accessible location from the mainland. In some ways it might be said that here the wildlife is under less threat from human pressure despite its vicinity to the coast, as here there are no permanent settlements. While the burgeoning Puerto Ayora, the Galapagos' main tourist reception area, swells to a population of over 10,000, the only structures to be found here are a ranger's station near the wet landing area and a few lean-tos for shade along the trails. Perhaps part of its relative isolation is due to its shape:




















A jagged rock poking out from the sea, this island harbors no calm beach to welcome the visitors who wade to the shore. Once you're on land, however, there are few physical barriers presented by the local flora, as la isla de la plata is a true desert island and what plant life there is is stout and sparse. Nonetheless, the relative lack of predation here has given sanctuary to those same birds that have made their home on Ecuador's more famous archipelago. Most notably, the blue-footed booby.




















It had been a year since last I'd seen this mating dance, but once again I bore witness to the long, ceremonial courtship punctuated by the male boasting his greatest attributes. Which consists of some ritual waddling to feature those big, blue feet, intermittent wing stretching, followed by hollow whistling, as well as the male picking up twigs in his beak, presumably to demonstrate what a good nest he'll build for all those eggs she'll soon be laying. As was also evident in the Galapagos, here these birds pay no mind at all to the scores of babbling onlookers crashing their party. Indeed, this pair was photographed right next to the trail, worn well into the sand by the many tourists that have crossed it, and still the birds go on.

Here were also to be seen other, less famous sorts of boobies. The masked booby for example, so called for the black face it wears in contrast with its otherwise white feathers, is the biggest of the boobies. The red-footed, smallest of all boobies, is notable for its more conservative custom of nesting in trees, as opposed to the brazen nesting on open ground practiced by the other varieties, where any predator would have easy pickings.

Our tour guide told us all this in Spanish. Other than Nancy and I, though, our group consisted of Europeans and Asians who spoke English in addition to their own languages, but no Spanish. The guide nominated me as the unofficial translator as a result of these circumstances, which I was happy to do despite the lack of compensation. I was arguably able to absorb more of the information than I would have otherwise, having to think about it enough to render it into another language. Also, I suppose I'd heard it all before when I visited North Seymour the year prior. It also filled my head with the notion of someday returning to Puerto Lopez during whale watching season, getting a part time gig on a boat doing interpretation and otherwise digging on the beach lifestyle for a few months. Doesn't sound too bad, maybe it will even happen someday.

So, while we were given all this information about red-footed and masked boobies, we were also lured by the temptation of more humpbacks, and in the end our group opted not to follow the trail to these other birds but to get back on the boat, do a few minutes of snorkling, and then head back out into open waters for a chance to get another look at the whales.

After some time swimming with the tropical fish in the shallows around the island, we sighted up a few more whales on the way home. That night we took our dinner in the preferred way when we're on vacation, on a streetside patio with a deck of cards and a cribbage board. That's the kind of set up that can leave you for hours to take in the environment. Our meal was punctuated by a visit from a couple from Singapore who accompanied us on the whalewatching trip, and after awhile we learned they were staying at our hotel as well. The next morning we shared breakfast with them, after which we said our goodbyes to them and to Puerto Lopez.

We headed back up to the dusty main strip of the town and got on the first bus heading south. The road stayed close to the coastline for several kilometers, weaving along a few other small villages before it veered out of sight of the ocean. As will often happen on road trips of even short distances in Ecuador, the landscape began shifting noticeably from dry to lush. It wasn't long after this little change in climate that we were deposited alongside the road, at the intersection with the little dirt road into the woods that led to Ayampe.

So it is that we've ended back up where our story started, in this little town by the sea. There's an ecolodge situated on the outskirts of the town, right along the beach. It had quaint straw huts with well-appointed interiors and prices rivaling the more tourist-oriented accomodations back in Cuenca. It also had a restaurant in the main hall with a nice menu, and while we took them up on a few meals during our stay, when it came to sleeping we chose Cuatro Estrellas, a more modest set of cabins carrying a $5 a night price tag and a shower like a garden hose. But while the bathroom was less than ideal, our cabin itself was quite nice, and for that fee we had all two stories of it to ourselves, complete with a porch and balcony, each with their own hammocks. Cuatro, the owner and namesake of the lodging, was napping in the downstairs hammock when we arrived. He awoke as we walked up to him, and flashed us a grin which belied his name: four gold teeth, shining in a row. He obligingly gave up the hammock and left us be, after we had hammered out the details of our stay, and once we had gotten ourselves settled in, we went for one of many walks around the village and the sea.

Ayampe was settled along the banks of a stream that must have once flowed unobstructed across the beach and into the ocean, but as often seems to be the case in beach towns like these, at some point the locals engineered a sandy dam that created a freshwater wetlands suitable for their needs as a community. And as for our needs, it served as a fine place for skipping stones.




















It was on these walks that the reality of the imminent close of our extended vacation began to reveal itself, and a dull melancholy settled into me one night as I sat with Nancy on the sand, watching the evening tide. Here the ocean had been lapping the beach of Ayampe for countless days and nights, always, through the histories of all the people and cultures and civilizations unfolded near and far from this little place and then, with time, faded away. This particular night, we were there to see its centuries of motion all represented there, and the next night, we'd be back in our own bed, high up in the sierra. What is it about the last moments of a carefree vacation that can project one into time in such a way, backwards and forwards? That night in Ayampe a hundred memories flooded my mind, from all corners of my experiences, and I shared a few of them with Nancy before they receded once again into the darker depths of my mind, not to be thought of again, probably, until now. She listened, and witnessed the sort of mood that was washing over me, and after some time like that we walked in our bare feet back towards the town.

Indeed, the next night we were back home, clearing out all the funky things we'd left in the fridge and settling into our bed, many hours, hundreds of kilometers and several bus rides away from that little beach which we chose for the last days of our trip. After we had washed the last of the salt from our bodies and we drifted into the deep, long sleep that only your own bed will grant you after weeks on the road, I was there again for a moment, on the edge of the sea, in Ayampe.

Agua Blanca

The road into Agua Blanca. Seeing such a pathway, you might wonder just where it is, and to where it may lead. These are the just the kinds of questions I'll be answering, so you're in luck! Because this is part two of my recollection of last summer's trip along Ecuador's ruta del sol.

Where we left off before, Nancy and I had just climbed onto a bus which went barreling into the misty hills that constitute the northern reaches of the Cordillera Colonche, dividing the country's lush and prosperous agricultural land from its dry central coast. As diverse as Ecuador's many ecosystems are, places like these, for me, represent this country best. Green, steaming hills all around, covered by wild, relentless vegetation from top to bottom. I suppose it was a vision like this that filled my mind when I first dreamt of Ecuador, and first impressions such as these, even when conjured by one's own imagination, are hard to let go. I can also imagine that the first people who spoke languages like English and Spanish to land in the area were greeted by sights and sounds like those found here.

As the bus rolled along, en route to Puerto Viejo, we passed through several villages like Pichincha, El Progreso, San Placido, and Alahuela. The bus made a few stops in these little settlements, little more than strips of wooden cabins and shanties built along the narrow highway. So small are these towns that they share their schools between them, and at one stop what appeared to be the entire student body of the local high school piled on board, packed in tight until the next town over. Also boarding was a woman and her daughter, who had a small tropical bird in her charge. The bird, looking a bit over-handled and bereft of much of its original plumage, was nonetheless clearly the beloved pet of the girl, who kept it perched in her small hands, and did her best to protect it from the mob of people all around her, casting her eyes nerviously around at all the lanky teens looming over. Luckily for her, a young man gave up his seat in the front row, and the mother, daughter and bird all fit in snugly.

So it went until the next village. Nancy and I secure in our seats, surrounded by the sea of uniformed teenagers rocking with every curve, the boys doing their best to let the movements of the bus send them into the nearest girl. Nancy remarked how healthy and happy they all looked, and attributed it to the impeccable climate we found ourselves in. I pointed out that they probably don't look so happy when they're on their way to school rather than on their way home, but I couldn't deny how beautiful and undisturbed the land was, all around us, nor how alive the air felt. Neither too hot nor too cold, the humidity contributing a freshness to the air absent at the higher altitudes we were accustomed to, and the untouched surroundings themselves contributing a like freshness to our spirits.

When we arrived in Puerto Viejo, we changed buses at the terminal and were soon back on the road to Puerto Lopez, by way of a little town named Jipijapa. Passing through both of these towns, we got enough of a look to pique our curiosity about them, but not enough for us to actually get off the bus and spend any time there. Puerto Lopez and the beach were definitely much more on our minds, and these two places were too far inland to tempt us into checking them out, despite the obvious intrigue of a place called Jipijapa.

By the time we got into Puerto Lopez, the sun was going down and we were on a bus with standing room only. Tucked into the aisle, hanging on to the luggage rack with every curve in the road, I did my best to get a look at the landscape, and maybe a look at the ocean. I had noticed on the previous bus how our surroundings had quickly become dry and sandy upon leaving the mountains, but now, ducking to get a look out the low windows, I saw the trunks of trees girding the road on both sides.

Finally the bus pulled to the side and a lot of the people onboard got off, the two of us included. We found ourselves on the curb of a wide, dusty road with low buildings on each side. In the dusk, it looked like a scene out of an old western. As you might expect upon disembarking from a bus in a small, tourist town like this one, a few locals approached us and started trying to sell us stuff. In this case, the offer was for lodging, and the prices were plenty cheap. But we reckoned there was still enough daytime to wander around a place as small as this, and take a look at our options for the night on our own.

Indeed we did find ourselves a nice place, and after a walk along the shoreline and something to eat on the beach, we retired to our room and watched Ecuador's own Jefferson Perez earn Olympic silver for his speedwalking prowess.

In the morning, we got a better look at our choice of lodging:




















And then we went back down to the beach for breakfast:




















Thusly fortified, we decided to make a trip for the day to a place in el parque nacional Machalilla we had heard about, called Agua Blanca. We didn't know what to expect from it, other than that it was in a national park, and so ought to afford us a walk in nature, and that the road in was just about 10 minutes outside of Puerto Lopez by bus.

And so we walked back over to the town's dusty main strip, bought some fruit in the market there, and hopped on a bus heading back the way we had come. We told the bus driver where we wanted off, he charged us a quarter each, we saw the first ten minutes of a Van Damme movie, and just like that, we were there.




















Here you can see the peculiar landscape that is inland Machalilla. The dry riverbed, while not actually conveying water along the surface, still bears it underground. Hence the green riparian area seen all along its wide flood basin. As I discovered in New Mexico, even dry rivers are still wet, as can be divined by the presence of big cottonwood trees lining the intermittent streams of the high desert. While there are no cottonwood groves to be found in Ecuador, the principle is the same, where this lush greenbelt is thriving amidst the desert. Also like the mountain drylands of the southwestern U.S., higher altitudes bring more precipitation down to earth, and so you can see the desert sandwiched between subsurface moisture and thick cloud cover above. The higher reaches of the surrounding hills, smothered as they are by these nimbus banks, harbor yet another ecosystem, a cloud forest perennially hidden from below.

Our hike brought lots of cacti, donkeys and songbirds onto our path. The cacti and birds were no surprise, but the sight of donkeys made me wonder just why there was grazing going on in this national park. The answer soon began to reveal itself:




















This wooden hut with a banana plantation for its backyard was one of many dwellings we came upon as we entered the comuna de Agua Blanca. Here we had found an intentional community of sorts, dating back to the early 20th century, before this area's designation as a national park. We soon learned that the people of Agua Blanca, which proved to be a thriving village of several hundred residents, were organizing tours throughout their portion of the park, and had also turned some of its land to their own use, including agriculture and herding of donkeys and pigs. Living in the desert as they are, they also were diverting water for irrigation of their small scale farming. This water was high in sulphur and thus unsuitable for drinking, but it looked like it brought up their produce just fine, and also provided one other benefit for the villagers, and for visitors like ourselves:




















A sulphur spring. Good for swimming, even if it turns any metal you might be wearing an amber yellow. Also good for the skin, apparently, as a number of people dove to the bottom of the shallow pond for fistfuls of brown-black mud which they spread all over their faces and entire bodies. Near this place, considered sacred to the people of Agua Blanca, as our guide told us, they also hold temazcal ceremonies, which I've described in previous stories.

That leads me to the spiritual, and political, side of this community. First, I ought to mention that the current residents of the area are far from the first.




















Here lie two people buried together in a funerary urn. What is known about these people? According to the description card, these two might have died anywhere over the span of more than 700 years. But the culture lived on until after the arrival of the Spaniards, and it was the people living here who were among the first that Europeans met in the area. This particular civilization, however, was the last of at least a half dozen cultures who had influenced this area before the modern era.

The people living in Machalilla today have endeavored to portray a connection between themselves and the ancient cultures of this place, from comparisons of photographs of the present day residents to faces on ceramics that they've discovered, to a true reverance for the ancient people's traditions and ruins. Having now visited Agua Blanca, seen some of its practices, and spoken with a few of the villagers there, I can say that I have a respect for the way of life they have cultivated. That said, I can also see the conflict that exists by virtue of a modern village operating within a national park.

The interesting mix of ecosystems I described above is peculiar to this park, which contains the overwhelming majority of these types of forests. In fact, of all of Ecuador's coastal area, only 1% of that area is dryland forest like this. However, this range of forest once encompassed one quarter of Ecuador's western lowlands, and it is probably by virtue of its protection as a national park which has allowed it to remain here in the midst of encroaching agriculture and development on all sides.

It can't be denied that the activities of the village of Agua Blanca are also impacting what's left of this ecosystem. Having been in the area before it became a protected zone, they've got a right to be here, but it's to their credit that they've worked as actively as they have with a worldwide coalition of NGOs and governmental organizations alike in order to assert their presence in a positive way. Amongst the inevitable effects of humanity existing inside of a place meant to be wild, there is a palpable sense of conservation to be found throughout the village. One that is bolstered, in my view, by the naturalist philosophy inherent in this community's own brand of spirituality.

Summer road trip! August, err, 2008.

It's July 2009, which has gotten me to thinking about Summer vacation. From last year.

Last August, I was living here in Cuenca, upstairs from where I live now. I was living with my wife Nancy, who wasn't my wife yet at that time. Now, as I sit writing, two flights of stairs down from our previous home, counting the last few days before our baby is born, I've found the time to recount part one of our trip around Ecuador's central coast. Seeing as how we didn't get the camera out until the second leg of this trip, I hope my words will paint a clear enough picture.

Being the couple of teachers that we are, we were looking at the first few days of an extended summer vacation. We agreed that a fine way to spend this time would be to visit some of her extended family and take a road trip along the coast at the same time. Her uncle Jorge has established his family in Quevedo, a busy town in the middle of the country's tropical banana belt, the flat, broad agricultural area situated in a sweltering climate between the cool of the Pacific and chilly heights of the Andes. In recent decades this region has been devoted largely to the production of the banana, that cash crop for which tiny Ecuador is responsible for about a third of the world's production. Tio Jorge is involved in some agricultural projects in the area and his wife Nelly had invited us up for a visit while we were at a big family reunion in La Troncal a few weeks before.

Quevedo, about halfway between the mountains and the coast and considerably further north than Cuenca, seemed like a great jumping off point to hit the coastline from. So we hopped on a bus and watched the climate change from eternal spring to tropical summer.

Cuenca is an Andean city situated at high elevation, like many South American communities. These places were colonized originally by native people drawn to such areas by virtue of their mild climates year round, natural defenses from outside attack, and freedom from disease-carrying insects like mosquitos. It's easy to see why these kinds of places were attractive for colonization, as Cuenca truly enjoys a predictable, lush climate that never reaches temperatures I would consider uncomfortable. Low latitude and high altitude are a great combination.

As you wind down the mountainside, however, you can see in minutes how the landscape changes dramatically with the rising temperature. The equatorial latitude affords as steady a climate near the sea as it does higher up, but lacking the thin air of the mountains, the pressure builds up the heat and humidity to a level that scarcely diminishes even at night. Often, this ecosystem at the margins of the coast and the Andes is cloaked in a fog, making the trip - along steep, twisting roads plagued by landslides - hair-raising and exciting. Other times, the view is clear and you can see the endless tropical plains from a high vantage during your descent. At first, a few houses appear along the road with a few scraggly banana plants scattered around the property.

Then, if you doze off to unplug from the stomach-churning, winding journey, you open your eyes along a road cut straight through a massive plantation, the big leaved bananas all around you defining the tropical environment as much as the locals sitting outside their wooden shacks, darkened and shining in the heat. The riders on the bus have all been stripping off their jackets and long sleeves, and the windows open to a hot breeze with the faint smell of slash-and-burn smoke curling through it. You reach Puerto Inca, the bus slows and stops in traffic, and through the window la musica costeña playing on the street reaches your ears just as a man climbs on board selling juice in bags tied to straws, his s's all heavy h's and all his consonants run down by the vowels.

This goes on for hours, plantations then towns, bananas, sugar cane, rice paddies and African palms. Napping, looking out the window, watching your loved one in the seat next to you, eyes closed and chest rising and falling gently under her tank top, maybe her head on your shoulder, maybe her hand on your arm. Then, back to sleep. So it is that you arrive in a far-off place by bus.

And, eventually, we arrive. Us standing along the highway breathing the humid air and Tia Nelly walking up a dusty road towards us, smiling, hugging and kissing us. Then we're in their home, me in the hammock and eating ripe plantains with cinnamon in a bowl of fresh milk, Nancy making juice with Nelly in the kitchen and her two teenage girls who would be my cousins sitting on the couch together, watching me quietly.

The next couple of days are there in Quevedo. Tio Jorge shows us the house he's building on the back of the property, made almost entirely of wood from tropical trees he grows on some land he owns outside of town. We sleep there in his new house, in a bed draped with a mosquito net hanging from the ceiling, almost giving it the air of a four poster. Jorge works all day, during which Nelly takes us downtown. A quarter bus ride provides a handy tour of the city, from the dusty outskirts where we stay, across the river and into Quevedo's heart.

Quevedo, a steaming city of 100,000, a fraction of Guayaquil's chaotic metropolis, still captures for me the essence of city life in Ecuador's coastal interior. A walk down the street puts you in the thick of heavy pedestrian traffic sporting t-shirts, flip flops and shorts, all navigating in and out of ground floor retail shops resting at the foot of several stories of glass and concrete. Street vendors hawk their cheap sunglasses and cell phones, and if you look out of the ordinary you're that much more of their target. Billboards perch above the congested boulevard running past its center plaza and it seems like every window of the mid-rise buildings girding the lanes of traffic are advertising something.

That night we shared a final dinner with Jorge and his family. Also joining us at the table were a couple of distant cousins who lived around the corner, a humble husband and wife with their little newborn.

Nelly, to whom I had mentioned off-handedly in La Troncal that I enjoyed plantains, had been dutifully serving them up to me with every meal, both green and ripe, and cooked more ways than I had known were possible. So far I had sampled her bolón de verde, molo, tigrillo, patacones con queso, as well as the ripe plantain with milk I mentioned before. We were in banana country, and there was no shortage of material, nor variations on the theme.

Tonight came more ripe plantain, boiled then fried, and served alongside piping hot rice and beans. A simple but tasty dish. That night I was feeling Quevedo's heat, though, and the hot meal was provoking me into a sweaty and unenthusiastic guest. Along with our meal came a cool and sweet, fresh raspberry juice, of which I downed three glasses in short order. These extra portions of juice were all served to me with gusto by Nelly, but it seemed I had prematurely exhausted her reserves of refreshment for the meal, and I was still good and thirsty.

At one point in the meal I retired to our room to chug down some of the water I had stored in our bags, and then to the bathroom to rinse off my face. This gave me the wherewithal to power through the rest of my dinner, although I had apparently excused myself hastily enough to alarm Jorge and his family. I had to insist a few times that I was going to be alright, after all, before they would take my word for it.

Inwardly, I imagined that they were amused to see the new gringo in the family trying to tolerate their heat and humidity. Most Ecuadorians who have voiced their opinion of the North countries to me have implied, one way or another, that it's cold up there. Truly, lacking the distinct seasons that we are accustomed to in most parts of the U.S., it would be hard for someone who had never left this latitude to internalize the two different worlds presented by Ohio in January, compared to Ohio in August, for example. Conversely, I've watched people from the U.S. try to wrap their heads around Ecuador's eternal Spring or Summer, doing their best to divine some sort of seasonal change out of the subtle variations of the buds on the trees or minutes of sunshine at the end of the day. We all carry our conditioning around with us, even after we leave our own borders.

After dinner we walked the cousins home, and Jorge and I shared a chamilco - a cigarillo - rolled by hand into a tobacco leaf. I'd picked them up while we were in Vilcabamba a few weeks before, and Jorge's moustachiod face lit up upon their mention. I'd never seen him smoke, but I thought he might appreciate them, somehow. Hell, I don't like tobacco much either, but we all enjoy a nice treat from time to time.

The next morning Jorge was already gone when we woke up, and after a shower and another satisfying breakfast by Nelly, we decided it was time to get back on the bus. Nelly and her daughters accompanied us to the terminal, on another roundabout tour of Quevedo on a city bus. On the way Nancy pointed out some of the sexual innuendo being spouted on the talk radio. It would seem that the social conservatism of the Sierra was one of many cultural variations not shared at lower altitudes. She told me you could never say those things on the radio in Cuenca, and indeed, a quick glance at the faces of our fellow riders revealed an indifference to language that was making my expressive companion blush.

A few minutes later we were off the bus and onto another one, having just made our round of goodbyes. The next time we would see Nelly and her family would be in Biblián, at our wedding at the top of the hill. But at that moment, the furthest we were looking ahead was the beach, Puerto Lopez, and Ayampe.

El presidente

Last night I was walking home from work and decided I wanted to take a detour down to Parque Calderon, where I'd heard there were a lot of Carnaval festivities going on. Sure enough, there was a big castillo and people sending glowing globos floating up lazily into the sky. I hung around for a few minutes, watched the people and their families, and then proceeded on my way home.

Rounding the corner, I saw a small group standing on the sidewalk, facing a parking garage exit expectantly. Remembering that one of my coworkers had said that Presidente Correa was in town and having dinner in the area, I asked someone if that's why they were there and got an affirmative nod. Bueno, pues. I had nothing better to do at the moment, so I joined the little throng of loiterers.

Also present was a large group of police officers and military men, some in riot gear, others in their dress uniforms. Further confirming the eminence of an important figure was the motorcade of parked vehicles taking up the entire block. The officers weren't at any kind of attention and none of the cars' engines were running, which made me think we could be waiting for awhile. Indeed, about twenty minutes passed before there was any action whatsoever, during which our little group had more than a few cast changes, as some people lost the will to wait and others filed in to replace them. During this time I managed to casually work my way up into the second row and right in the middle of the group. Only a few stout, elderly women were now standing between me and the front line of the action, and they were stout enough that they didn't pose much of an obstacle to my view, anyway.

We all stood around, shifting about with waning patience, when all the engines of the motorcade started one after the other. A renewed air of anticipation ensued, as people shuffled closer together, and the militares were ordered to give an about-face towards us, just in case we got out of hand. They obligingly stood at attention, facing us stiffly at first, their clear plastic riot shields raised. Then, as the minutes once again ticked by uneventfully, they lowered their shields and, facing us now as they were, starting making some casual conversation with the crowd. The younger ones, in a bid for greater relevance, began revealing what random bits of information they had about the President's goings-on. He was here in Cuenca to talk about the economy, he had dined on trout from Cajas, they would say, with knowing smiles.

Meanwhile, the castillo of fireworks one block over on Parque Calderon began letting fly, and loud cracks, bright flashes and the smell of sulfur filled the air. This seemed to put some of the soldiers on edge, some of whom once again raised their shields and stood yet again at attention. It was probably good that they did, because it wasn't long after the castillo expended its arsenal of assorted noisemakers that the President and his entourage made their sudden appearance.

They emerged from stage left of the parking garage, and through the door we could all see him. The crowd around me began pushing forward in excitement. He made for his car at first, but the crowd erupted in a collective cry that urged him over. The man at my right yelled repeatedly, "Presidente, una palabra con el pueblo!" and his sentiments were echoed all around. And yes, Presidente Correa emerged from the parking garage and approached us in the street, the military now pushing hard against us as the small crowd rapidly turned into a crushing mob of people. Somehow in these few seconds a lot of people managed to get between me and the front row, which was probably for the best because those little ladies in front now had plastic shields pressed against them and a mod pushing their faces into them. Unmindful of this, the ladies held out their hands and the President pressed them in his, saying a few quiet words to each of them, or at least they sounded quiet to me as my ears filled with the increasingly wild yells of the crowd.

People pushing frantically around me to get closer to the front, I stood and looked at the face of the man who had in the span of 4 months achieved the passage of a new Constitution that would allow him to be the first in generations to be permitted to run for a second term in office, pushed forward a controversial mining law that set him against many rural communities who had helped put him into power, and who in recent weeks saw a heavy new tax leveled on imports which would drastically affect the sales of wealthy merchants and small importers around the country. The man who had with the New Year announced that he would renege on the greater part of Ecuador's foreign debt, calling it the illegitimate dealings of past dictators. Here he was, smiling and shaking hands, receiving the full brunt of unbridled mob support. I caught the wild eyes of one of the young military men, pushing hard against the enthusiastic crowd.

Seconds later, the President climbed into the white SUV that had pulled out of the garage and into the street behind him. Once in the vehicle, the guards let up their front a bit too early and as the motorcade moved forward, some few people broke free from the crowd and in a moment of abandon went chasing after the car of the president. The motorcade kept pressing forward and picking up speed, and soon left even these wildest supporters behind, though some of them continued running after. I, still standing where I had been the whole time, was far behind the action. The crowd was dispersing, and once again I began the walk home.

The sidewalk was still full of people, and as we moved slowly towards the end of block together, I watched the faces of the people around me. Everyone was smiling; the little girl in front of me, her hand in her mother's, recounted excitedly everything she had seen. I noticed that two of the people ahead of me were amongst the women who had been in the front of the crowd, their faces now lit up with a shared and wordless joy.

When this moving remnant of the crowd reached the corner it split up further as people went their separate ways. As I went my own, I thought about this smiling, confident President and the wildly enthusiastic reception he had just received. Decades have passed since the last time a President has completed his four year term and not having been ousted or assassinated. Presidente Correa has enjoyed a level of support that few people can remember and has lately been spending his political capital seemingly more freely than ever. In more recent memory, Ecuadorians have watched their currency inflate and collapse, to be replaced by dollar bills bearing a foreign language and the dead Presidents from another place.

Today, Cuenca's finest streets are lined with banks full of people who choose to put their faith once again into a system that corrupted their Sucre rather than stuffing it under the mattress. Today also, they put their faith into their President, and hope for the best. As we from the United States do with ours. Que nos vaya bien!

The valley of life

In August we made our way down to Vilcabamba. It's a tiny village in the province of Loja, near the Peruvian border. To get there from Cuenca you take a bus to the city of Loja, a long and winding trip that the people at the ticket counter say will take 5 hours but always seems to take longer. Along the way you pass through several fascinating villages in their own right, like Susudel, where I did a temazcal sweat lodge last November, and Saraguro, where the the men wear their black hair long and braided, and they all still wear their traditional black clothing. The Saraguros, with their black hats, black jackets and flowing black skirts or pants cut above the ankle, are easily recognizable when they come to visit Cuenca. The story goes that they still wear black to mourn the death of Atahualpa at the hands of Francisco Pizarro.

Loja itself is a small but bustling town, and probably one of the most secluded provincial capitals outside of the jungle. Like most communities in the Sierra, it's girded by impressive mountains, but the ones around Loja are still well wooded, unlike in many places where the original high mountain forests have given over to steep cornfields. Its well-appointed historic center is tucked away from the bus routes, so you've got to make a point to check it out if you're passing through. A lot of people, on their way to the renowned Vilcabamba, don't give these other destinations a second thought, but I haven't found a community in Ecuador I didn't want to spend at least a day or two in. Even more, if you've traveled with me before you know that anywhere I go, I start making plans to live there. Hence my year and counting in Cuenca, where I had planned to teach for 6 months when I arrived.

There are buses headed down to Vilcabamba from Loja every 30 minutes, and the ride lasts only an hour. Along the way you realize that if it weren't for its reputation, Vilcabamba would be a hidden mountain village like any other. Far away from any major cities, deep in the mountains and down a twisting, narrow road, you pass through several villages as tiny, beautiful and fascinating as Vilcabamba is. But by a twist of fate, it was Vilcabamba that got famous. As such, it receives an incredible amount of tourists, most of whom unfortunately, in their rush to see as much of the hot spots as they can in the travel time they've alloted themselves, hurry through much of the surrounding countryside to relax there, between trekking to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos.

You might be wondering by now, why is Vilcabamba famous? I've heard a lot of varying explanations, but the common thread is that people in Vilcabamba live for a long time. Some people say that the oldest residents have lived to the age of 130 years. The rumor is that it's the clean air and water that contribute to the locals' longevity, but the stories I've chosen to believe say that people there don't actually live longer than people anywhere else do, on average. It's that, because of the way land records have been kept there, titles to property have either remained in people's names long after their death, or that a father and son by the same name end up holding the title, between the two of them, for up to 130 years. Examining these deeds, what with one name on them for that length of time, would seem to indicate that someone had indeed lived for that long.

The other confounding variable I've heard about is that people here haven't historically been hung up on staying young. On the contrary, age is, or at least has been, a source of respect from those around you. As a result, it's been the case that people would exaggerate their ages rather than try to hide it or underestimate it as we might be inclined to do. One researcher had reportedly visited Vilcabamba to meet a man who people said was in his 70's, and returned less than 10 years later to meet the same man who was now allegedly in his 90's.

So it goes. Most of the claims to longevity here in Vilcabamba have been systematically disproven by curious researchers over the last several decades. But the locals are still faithfully making their claims about the healthfulness of their food, water, and climate, and tourists still dutifully make their way here to check it out. The fact is, it doesn't matter to your average traveler whether the valley is a healthy place or not. They come, more than anything, because it now has a reputation as a tourist destination. It's got nice places to stay, established hiking trails, and plenty of other travelers around to swap drinks and stories with. And, like just about all of Ecuador, the surroundings are beautiful and never too hot nor cold. What more could you ask for?




















On this trip, we arrived in Vilcabamba in the afternoon, with time enough to have lunch in town and then find our accomodations for the evening. We ended up eating at a restaurant with Mexican food on a corner of the town plaza, and spent our repast drinking Pilsener, eating burritos, tossing a game of Cribbage and watching the people go by. At least half of the people we saw were travelers, coming mostly from Europe. There were also a fair share of other people from Latin America, and even a handful of locals. But if Mexican food in a small Ecuadorian village wasn't the first clue, Vilcabamba is a town that caters to travelers. After we paid our bill and began seeking out a room for the night, we began to find out that the many hotels scattered in and around the town are accustomed to tourists as well. Not only for their fluency in English and well-kept grounds, but also for the unusually high rates for a bed.

When I say the prices are high, I should also say that for $24 a night, you can get a private cabin with nice, hot water and a cozy hammock on a deck with an unobstructed view of the valley. I mean, that's what we did. I had stayed at the same hostel on my previous trip to Vilcabamba with my dad, and while I had hoped to try out some of the other accomodations, it was ultimately the promise of German cooking and beer that lured me back. The beautiful setting is also a nice hook.




















Due to Vilcabamba's continued popularity amongst travelers, it hasn't only been locals who've realized that there's money to be made there. The Izhcayluma hostel, for instance, is owned and operated by German expats and travelers, and while they're happy to enjoy the local culture and the fine surroundings, they, like any traveler, like to have a taste of home from time to time as well. And as such, their guests can request a plate of spaetzle and a big, dark beer alongside. Nice! Especially after a year of Pilsener. Not to say I don't enjoy the Pilsener, but given the rare opportunity for an alternative, I'll take it.

So after a night of German pasta and beer, and darts tossed in a bar full of people trading adventure stories in various second languages, we awoke to a chilly morning and breakfast of crepes, overlooking the village of Vilcabamba in the valley below. Then we took a bike ride.

The hostel also provides a small fleet of mountain bikes for its patrons, albeit in various states of repair. After test riding a few around the grounds of the hostel, we settled on a couple that, while occasionally slipping out of gear, did have functional brakes and chains. We then made the rapid descent back into Vilcabamba down the steep hill that separates it from Izhcayluma. My enjoyment of the fast-paced downhill was tempered by the knowledge that what comes down must go back up, and that my clunky vehicle would not be doing so in a very efficient way. Nonetheless, in a few minutes we were back in town and on our way back out the other side, on the road to the entrance of Podocarpus National Park.

We were able to ride on a dirt road that followed a river up one of the valleys adjacent to Vilcabamba, which was dotted by an interesting mixture of countryside and communities, shared by locals and expats. It was a common sight to find signs along the way written in either English, Spanish, or both. Also apparent was a humbler cultural heritage that predated Vilcabamba's present notoriety.




















Eventually we reached a bridge across the river which indicated (misleadingly) that it was the entrance to Podocarpus. We found a hidden place to stash our bikes, crossed the bridge, and made our way up the steep trail on the other side of the valley. At this point of the journey we were still well within a small community, and had to wind our way between houses, power lines, small barking dogs, and obstinate donkeys who stared at us from the middle of the trail, with what we interpreted as either menace or callous disregard. But while they refused to give way or stop looking at us, they also never made any attempt to bite or kick as we passed them by.

Once we got past these first few barriers, the little settlement gave way to wide open spaces and the occasional signpost promising Podocarpus up ahead. The name Podocarpus comes from the scientific term for Ecuador's only native conifer, apparently featured prominently within the park itself. I'd like to show you a picture of the park's namesake, but as fate would have it, we never got to a place resembling a forest. While we did wend through some small groves of trees, none spread much further than a few hundred paces. Instead, our environs consisted of the vast panoramas of open hillsides that are typical of a hike through the Ecuadorian countryside, such as the one pictured below, with the lovely and talented Nancy Macas in the foreground:




















So went our hike. While there were several signs along the way promising the eminence of podocarpus, we walked for several hours having never glimpsed it. Having had brought only a banana and a bottle of water, we were forced to turn around eventually, vowing to return to Podocarpus in the future by way of Zamora, a jungle town to the southeast of Loja. After we had finished all but a few gulps of the water we'd taken with us, for awhile we played the age-old game of "let's just hike around that next bend and then we'll turn back." It wasn't long before that got us into one last forest grove, which seemed as appropriate a turning back point as any.

When you go hiking, you never really know what's in store. In various hikes of mine I've had short hikes become all day hikes, daytrips turn into overnight camping, and hunts for hot springs prove fruitless. I've had other hikes go the way I expected them to, if not reveal beauty I could have never predicted. If this one had begun with unfulfilled promises of big trees, what it delivered was scenery equally as striking. Which reminds me of the philosophy that there are two basic aspects to our lives. The first, like the scenery you see on a hike, consists of those things which are bigger than ourselves and entirely out of our control. Whether those things come to us through fate, destiny, luck, karma or some other means is also interesting to think about, but irrelevant as they occur in the moment. They can bring good things or bad, but all we can do is let them come. The second, the one that is completely within our control, and which ultimately defines us as human beings on our journeys, is our personal reaction to those first things.

Bienvenidos a la selva

For my next installment of belated recollections from the past, I submit to you my first trip to El Oriente, Ecuador's wild west. Or rather, wild east. And while the western deserts and mountains of the United States are tamer than ever, the jungles that make up a bulging third of Ecuador's territory to the east of the Sierra are still, to a great extent, salvaje. And, since I made my way there back in February, during the peak of Carnaval celebrations, it was a lot more wild that I'd wager it is on a regular basis.

Here I am, in Tena, with a monkey. It's a spider monkey, so named for it's ability to maneuver through tree limbs using its tail like another limb. Which makes for five tree-climbing appendages, not eight, but that was close enough for whoever came to the Amazon and christened them long ago. The look on my face might lead you to think that I don't like monkeys. I get along with them pretty well, in fact, but I'll elaborate more on that further along.

Tena is the nearest jungle municipality from Quito, Ecuador's capitol city and a major tourist destination. It's proximity to both civilization and wild jungle makes Tena a town geared to tourism as well, and thus, one of the more attractive of the established communities we visited on our tour. Tena, on the other hand, is one of the farthest towns from Cuenca, where I teach and live. By the route we took, we found ourselves bussing about 14 hours to make our way there, stopping in a couple of other jungle towns on our way. Those two, Macas and Puyo, were worth exploring in their own right, more for the excursions deeper into the jungle that you can arrange from town than the communities themselves. To do a jungle trip right, you ought to have at least a week to get deep into the undisturbed rain forest, for the simple reason that, being undisturbed, there's no roads in and you've got to do some walking. This time around, we had five days free, and so contented ourselves to explore the settlements carved out of the jungle as we did in the jungle itself. We weren't disappointed.

By the time we crawled out of our bus in Tena, it was already late afternoon. So with our packs weighing heavily on shoulders bent out of shape by the bus ride, we walked downhill from the bus terminal to the town center and our beds for the night. Along the way, being Carnaval, we got very, very wet.

Carnaval is what I would refer to as a reactionary religious celebration. In other words, while Carnaval itself is not particularly religious, it wouldn't exist if it weren't for another celebration which is. The holiday that gave birth to Carnaval is Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of the 40 day Lenten period of traditional fasting, sacrifice and devout observation of the miracle of Jesus' transubstantiation. The prospect of all that fasting and quiet meditation led some Catholics, long ago, to get their kicks in before their 40 day purge. The idea of a party appealed to enough people for these binges to become annual celebrations of their own, manifesting in the French culture of New Orleans as Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, so named for the consequence of all the eating and drinking the day before Lent. In many parts of Latin America, we have Carnaval, taking the idea of Mardi Gras a step further. After all, why celebrate for just a day? Carnaval is traditionally recognized as a weeklong celebration, but my experience has been that it starts a little after New Year's Day and keeps getting bigger and bigger. And even if you're not Catholic, everyone gets to play, usually whether they like it or not.

My first experience with Carnaval was a mysterious splash of water behind me as I was walking down the streets of Cuenca. I looked around, but couldn't tell where it came from. There was no one around, just a wet spot on the ground. I shrugged my shoulders and kept on walking. In the coming weeks, however, it became very clear what had narrowly missed me. With a disturbing frequency, I became witness to many personal attacks executed in broad daylight. Often the perpetrators operated from motor vehicles, with a variety of weaponry. Their targets were always the same: unsuspecting passersby. The more unsuspecting, the better. Couples and gringos, wrapped up in their own worlds, were the most vulnerable.

A case study: a group of five CEDEI teachers are walking down a quiet street, too involved in their own conversation to take notice of the attackers waiting, plotting, above. Then, comes the strike, all at once: uncounted water balloons, some off-target, but some bound to connect. Amid the screams and confusion from below, drifts down the devilish laughter of four boys from their upstairs balcony, already armed with another battery of balloons, dripping, swollen and sagging from their hands.

A grim portrait. And there is little we possess in our arsenal of defence, save our own wits. The playing of Carnaval is technically illegal in Cuenca, but as I also witnessed, the police themselves are complicit. One day an armored car was driving slowly down Gran Columbia, a main thoroughfare in Cuenca's center. Through the slot in the side of the vehicle, designed for visibility and protection, jutted the barrel of a watergun, blasting distracted pedestrians with precision.

CEDEI teachers, especially women, seemed to be particularly obvious targets. A group of three of them were walking through parque de la madre one day, enjoying ice cream cones. A driveby hurling of a water balloon left one of them wet in the face, her cone empty, and her beloved scoop of cookies n' cream laying uselessly on the ground. Que pena!

Some teachers, perhaps traumatized and desperate from too many drenchings, choose to join rank and buy some innocent-looking little rubber balloons at the corner store, turn them into weapons at the nearest sink, and mount their own ambushes. The rest of us opt to stay on the defensive. Which is very challenging, especially considering our own places of work are crawling with the most common source of attack, namely, cuencano teenagers. I found that as long as I keep my head up, they stay their attacks. Sometimes, out of respect and fear for those that hold the gradebooks, the group of kids ubiquitously hanging around the front door of CEDEI have the courtesy to ask me if they can throw a balloon at me. Nope, sorry.

Nonetheless, I chose not to take up arms, deciding that if I wanted to stay dry, I couldn't in good conscious add to the water level. That said, I did toss one at a few CEDEI preschool teachers as they walked past our BBQ, but I would've done that whether it was Carnaval or not.

On the street, I developed a strategy for my self-defense. I walk around with my eyes lifted upward to the terraces that lie on the rooftops of nearly every building in town. I noticed that even if there were kids upstairs from me, they wouldn't throw if they knew I saw them, because then I'd just dodge out of the way before the balloon reached me. I stroll slowly, confidently, choosing one-way streets where the oncoming traffic comes in front of me, lessening the chance of sneak attacks from behind. Overall, I would venture to say that my strategem was successful, seeing as how I managed to stay dry throughout my entire Carnaval experience in Cuenca.

But this fortune did not carry through to Tena. Perhaps it was due to the general laid-back lifestyle in Cuenca that helped keep me dry, or that the last days of Carnaval whip the revelers into a heightened frenzy. But we weren't in Tena for more than an hour before getting soaked. Water balloons, water guns, buckets, hoses. Kids on rooftops, kids with big barrels full of water in the streets, splashing it everywhere. Don't stand around and laugh at how wet you are or you'll just keep getting wetter. Even on the bus ride to Tena, kids waited along the sides of the road, ready to hurl a balloon in any window cracked open for relief from the humidity inside the bus. Fortunately, our hotel was several blocks from the main drag, and despite the late hour, the jungle sun had just about dried us off in the calm of the walk on the backstreets.

The next day we wandered out into town, where we met the aforementioned spider monkey.

He seemed, judging from his ample belly, very comfortable living in town, and he probably was. If pea-brained pigeons can make a living in cities around the world, an animal with thumbs and a prehensile tail ought to do pretty well. In fact, smaller villages such as Misuhualli, deeper still into the Amazon, are crawling with monkeys who have adapted to life in towns catering to tourists by stealing their drink bottles as they sit in the town square. Rumor has it these monkeys have developed a habit for the caffeine in soda and know where to get their fix. They don't have any trouble opening the cap, and once they have the bottle they go high up a tree where you'll never get it back.

This monkey, though, was very calm, albeit alternating repeatedly from sitting upright to adopting the more casual pose it struck in the first picture. It also made lots of funny faces for no particular reason, and made all kinds of odd gestures with its hands. After we had communed briefly with him, we walked down to the Rio Tena, which divides downtown from the more commercial district.

The river was wide and calm, flowing slowly down to the nearby Rio Napo, which by and by is a tributary to the Amazon itself. As such, any water here, just about 250 miles from the Pacific Ocean, will ultimately drain all the way to the Atlantic. The Sierra region of Ecuador straddles the continental divide, and any water to the east of it, no matter how close to the Pacific it might fall, will flow inexorably in the other direction.

At the confluence of the Rio Tena and the smaller Rio Pano (not to be confused with the much larger Rio Napo) is a park called La Isla, a small zoo featuring several jungle creatures for the enjoyment of tourists who will never venture any deeper into wilds. And, for some reason, an ostrich. Also in the menagerie lived a few monkeys, most of them running free. One of them, of a much smaller species than the spider monkey we met in town, was very friendly:

He spent several minutes crawling around my neck, head, shoulders, back, arms, and water bottle, doing his best to chew his way through the lid. He never tried using his hands, which were, admittedly, more like paws, and opted instead to use his teeth like a common animal. It's little guys like this that help bridge the evolutionary gap between primate and rodent, probably. His small size proved to be a disadvantage, as shortly after he leapt to a tree nearby, a much larger monkey decided he wanted to take him away. There was little the small monkey could do, as the bigger spider monkey kept a firm grip on his tail and wouldn't let him go. After wrestling for a little while, finally the big monkey just picked him up and hauled him off, in footage resembling a candid sasquatch sighting:

For a moment, it seemed like the small monkey might have been able to make his escape, but the spider monkey once again seized him by the tail and climbed up into a tree. Once amongst the branches above, the little one made his last bid for freedom, but ultimately, it was the tail, that enigmatic fifth limb lost to us higher primates, which was his undoing. In a dramatic display of agility and determination, the spider monkey, dangling from his own, got hold of the white one's tail as he dropped wildly, pulled him up into the canopy, and that was the last we saw of him.

Crazy monkeys. So like us.

Later that afternoon, we went for beers at a little grass hut doubling as a bar. Fortunately we were able to find seats under the thatched canopy of the hut, as the sky soon opened up into a mighty downpour that lasted for hours. The three of us were impressed by the intensity and duration of the rain, but the locals just shrugged and calmly waited it out, sucking down Pilseners to pass the time. That seemed like a fine idea to us, and once the rain subsided we were ready to take in more of the local color.

We walked over to the town square, which in most Latin American towns I've visited is given over to an urban park with stone walkways, benches and colorful flora. The people of Tena opted to build an amphitheater in theirs, and that night, being one of the last nights of Carnaval, there was a concert series with several singers and bands performing. There was also a lot of carioca. Not to be confused with karaoke, which you'll hear about later. Carioca is the name that somehow got applied to those cans of toxic, colorful foam that kids love to play with. Ecuador must be the world's largest consumer of carioca, judging from the quantity of it that circulated even the small town of Tena. A can, once in the hands of a child, lasted about 10 seconds, as he would immediately empty it all over whoever was sitting next to him. The sight of little kids running around with an enormous glob of neon pink foam stuck to his head and face was a common one, and, being the only gringos anywhere to be found, we were easy targets.

It began with the occasional spurt of foam from behind, higher up in the grandstand. At first we all laughed, but bit by bit these infrequent blasts came more often, and in larger doses. We quickly realized that we were surrounded by armed children who were rapidly losing their inhibition to lay seige on foreigners. The first few shots appeared to be to test their limits, and when neither the gringos nor their parents did anything to stop them, they began to thoroughly enjoy attacking their unarmed victims. We got tired of being easy targets and bought a couple of cans. Holding one, I waited for a kid to spray me. Then I spun around and let him have it, dousing him good on the side of his face and then even better on the back of his head as he turned tail.

Unfortunately, now that we could and did defend ourselves, the last vestige of self control came down and we were fully assaulted by children on all sides. We fought back well, turning a few on their heels, but in the end it was a war of attrition and our limited arsenal was no match for their numbers. An image of the fallout:

A look at the crowds around us well illustrates how we were targeted. Only those people who had the misfortune to sit in the crossfire are wearing foam, and a look at the faces of the audience reveals a disturbing indifference to the aggression. My theory is that years of this sort of spectacle have rendered the locals numb to the diablitos (as these little kids are locally referred to during Carnaval) and their shenanigans. As for us, we drained our cans on a few more grade-schoolers and went home. Along the way, the foam that covered us melted in the light rain, into a bizarre and strange smelling film that, thankfully, rinsed off easily in the shower. We all decided that we'd much rather get hit in the face with a water balloon.

For our last full day in Tena we went whitewater rafting on the Rio Napo. The river rapids were frequent but mellow, never once threatening to flip our raft. In order to give us more bang for our buck, our river guide chose to take a few extreme measures to make sure at least a few of us got wet. The first was his offer of River Rodeo, and he insisted on a volunteer before he would explain the rules. Emboldened by the calm waters, I raised my hand, and was promptly ordered to sit up on the nose of the raft with my feet dangling over the front of the rubber boat. All I had to hold onto was a small metal ring which I managed to get a couple of fingers through, and I slid around on the wet nose of the boat with every bump of a rock. We went through some rapids, admittedly small ones, and I got through them without getting bucked off the raft. Even I was able to toss one arm into the air for awhile.

Our guide seemed disappointed and asked for another volunteer. Vince, one of my fellow travelers, got the honor and parked himself up front. Another ride through the rapids left him perched safely on the nose of the boat as well, and our guide, a burly but athletic Ecuadorian raised in El Oriente, jumped up to the front of the boat and with a sudden shove to the back, Vince disappeared into the river.

A few seconds later he emerged alongside the raft and we hauled him back in. We all were wearing lifejackets and helmets, and the river so wide and slow that Vince was never in any danger, even if he hadn't been a trained swimmer. The waters are so mellow and gentle between rapids, in fact, that during a particularly long stretch of smooth sailing our guide proposed another game. This time, he ordered us all to the back of the boat, and, running a rope through the metal ring up front, joined us in the stern and with a pull of the rope, lifted our raft so that it was floating vertically down the river, nose straight up in the air and us hanging on to whatever we could to avoid flopping out of the back of the raft and taking the whole thing upside down on top of us. For a few seconds I wondered if we might try to go through the rapids this way, but long before any came along he let the boat smack down into its proper position in the water and we got back into our places.

I've heard of some other jungle rafting experiences that have left rafters spinning violently in class 4 rapids under their raft, getting dashed against rocks as they struggled to swim up along side a boat equally out of control in the whitewater. In light of those kinds of stories, I was glad most of our excitement was manmade and under control, even as I had hoped for a little bit wilder of a time going through the rocks.

That night we had our last dinner in Tena, at a restaurant open late. While we were eating, we couldn't help but notice the horrible singing that constituted the music we were listening to. Could that possibly be a professional singer? A trip to the bathroom by Lauren revealed a karaoke bar on the other side of the building, and we decided to check it out. The song list was rife with love ballads in Spanish, which one girl was systematically crooning one by one in a broken cadence of long, high notes.

An exhaustive examination of the list revealed one song we all knew: Another one bites the dust, by Queen. I was a little skeptical of this choice, because while we all knew the refrain, there were a lot of other words in that song I'd never bothered to pay attention to, but we came to sing, and this was our only option. One equally shameful display of virtuosity later, and jobs done, we finished our beers and walked out to a resumed performance by the same girl who'd been singing, all night long.

There was something poetic about songs sung so badly but so proudly, late at night at what may have been the only karaoke bar in the province. Amid the songs of jungle birds and insects that make the real music of the Amazon, those off-key lyrics are a fine example. Human beings will never be able to approach the beauty of the jungle with anything that we carve out of it. Right now the only sizable comunities in El Oriente of Ecuador hug the bottom of the eastern cordillera. Further east is the wild jungle, wilder and wilder the deeper you go. With all the oil still waiting quietly under much of it, I hope it stays that way a long, long time.