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Sunday, February 12, 2006
Baños - below the volcano
Baños, Ecuador
I've spent the past couple nights in Baños, a town that attracts both
Ecuadorian and foreign tourists. Baños, whose name means "baths", lies
just below the active volcano Tungurahua, which at various times over
the centuries has erupted and threatened the local inhabitants. Only a
few years back, the volcano blew its top, forcing the evacuation of the
community.
The volcanic activity has produced hot springs, which provide hot baths
for locals and visitors.
Baños lies at a comfortable 1800 metres (5,000 feet) which gives it a
pleasant climate, rich with flowering trees and other plants. Currently
though, it's the rainy season, which has meant the town has been
shrouded in clouds, and there are periodic rainfalls.
It's also a centre of Catholic pilgrimage, as people come to visit the
Basilica of Our Lady of the Holy Waters. There, the virgin, has been
responsible for forestalling many disasters, including volcanic
eruptions.
Today was one of the nicer days in a while, and I took advantage of it
by renting a mountain bike and descending the canyon in the direction of
the jungle village of Puyo. It's downhill most of the way, so there were
only a few times when I had to pedal uphill. Most of the time I could
glide. Numerous waterfalls marked the route, including the most
spectacular Pailón del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron), which involved a hike
down from the main road through increasingly jungle-like vegetation.
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Monday, February 13, 2006
The edge of the jungle
Tena, Ecuador
I'm now in steamy hot Tena, a town of about 20,000 people on the edge of
the jungle. Tomorrow I head off for several days in the primary
rainforest, staying in a jungle cabin not too far from here.
I left Baños this morning taking a bus along the same route towards Puyo
that I took by bicycle yesterday. At the first tunnel, however, traffic
had come to a stop. Word was that a landslide had closed the road, and
traffic wouldn't move until 3 p.m. It was now only 10 a.m. We were far
enough out of Baños that going back wasn't too practical an option.
Faced with the likelihood of a wait of five hours or more, I decided to
investigate walking. I asked a cop if pedestrians could pass. He
indicated they could, so I grabbed my pack and began hiking through the
tunnel. What I didn't know was that the actual landslide was still about
5 km away. I crossed it around noon. As I headed to the next village in
the hopes of getting transportation to Puyo, traffic began passing me,
and I flagged down my original bus. Evidently the wait had only been a
couple hours instead of five.
The driver tried to make up for lost time, barrelling down the canyon,
passing on blind curves with deep precipices to the side. I felt secure
though -- he had a couple plastic Virgin Marys on his dashboard, and
they flashed in red and green lights whenever he hit the brakes. You
need faith to take buses in Latin America.
Later that afternoon, I arrived in Tena. It was very hot and I was
sweating and thirsty. After a few cooling drinks of agua mineral, I set
off to a nice little zoological park on an island in the river. It was a
jungle setting with lots of lush tropical trees and plants. The handful
of animals had lots of room, and monkeys ran around freely, jumping
between trees. I tried to photograph a few little ones who jumped faster
than I could focus the camera.
Tomorrow I head off early in the morning for three days, and will be
without Internet.
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Snakes, bats, and medicinal plants
Currently I'm in Bahía de Caráquez on Ecuador's Pacific coast. The
following was written by hand several days ago in the jungle when I
didn't have access to a computer:
Written February 14, 2006, Shangri-La Lodge, near Tena, Ecuador
My Quichua Indian guide Victor pulled down a plant and cut off some
leaves. These, he told me in Spanish, were an antidote in case of a bite
by a poisonous snake. Apparently there are several poisonous snake
species in the area, whose names he told me, but the only one I
recognized was the coral snake.
Twenty minutes later, along a dense jungle trail, he pointed to the
ground – a snake. It was small and dark and blended into the ground and
I didn’t see it until he pointed it out. I slithered away at lightening
speed. This one, Victor told me, was poisonous.
“Would you die if it bit you?” I asked.
“Yes, in about 25 minutes. But we’d be okay because of these leaves,”
Victor told me, pointing to where he had put them in his string bag.
This is primary rain forest in an area where much of the land has been
cleared, or has been overgrown again with secondary forest. I was alone
with Victor, and I had to trust in his knowledge of this environment,
which had been passed on to him by his father and grandfather. The
jungle, I soon learned, for the Quichua people, was a huge supermarket
and pharmacy, but it took an enormous knowledge of its many plants and
animals to know which were beneficial and which were potentially
harmful.
We wore rubber boots, which were prefect for walking in the rain forest.
After descending a steep and muddy hill, and passing many squadrons of
army ants and worker ants to the loud sound of chirping insects and
birds, we arrived at a stream bed. Walking was easy in the stream which
formed a natural pathway clear of most of the dense undergrowth. Victor
warned me not to walk on the black rocks, which are very slippery, but
instead on the brown ones that provided a lot of traction. I also had to
beware of places where the stream would come over the tops of my boots,
but for the most part it was shallow.
Victor pointed out other medicinal plants – one that is a natural
anesthetic against tooth aches, one for stomach problems, one for
colicky children, and one with a distinctive smell that chases away bad
spirits, and can get rid of headaches.
At one point he reached into a mossy tree and pulled out some small ants
onto his fingers, which he invited me to taste as they crawled around.
Lemon ants. I hesitated, but ate them anyway. Not being used to eating
live ants though, one bit my chin causing a sharp sting that surprised
me. We both laughed.
At last we reached a junction where one trail led up a hill and another
up a narrow stream canyon. Victor looked me over, and decided I was
capable of the stream canyon. This was an experience. The space between
the walls of the canyon got narrower and narrower so that at times they
were less than two feet apart, and I had to turn sideways to squeeze
through. Though tough, this wasn’t too bad. But then the canyon came to
a dead end. Here we would have to climb its walls. Victor told me to do
exactly as he did, to put my feet forward against the wall in front, and
sit into the wall behind, pushing behind me with my hands. Fortunately
the gravelled rock wasn’t slippery, but it was somewhat difficult, and I
was afraid of slipping and falling. Higher now, we edged up the canyon.
Victor flicked sand up into a dark area we were heading into, and out
flew literally hundreds of bats. He kept flicking sand, and more
emerged, now zipping around our heads. As we squeezed upwards, between
the narrow canyon walls, I could feel the breeze from their wings on my
face. These bats won’t bite, Victor reassured me. They are fruit-eating
bats and not vampires. Still, this did seem quite different from my
usual lifestyle in Ottawa to be slithering up a narrow canyon amidst
hundreds of flapping bats.
Over the course of this and another walk in the afternoon, Victor showed
me other jungle knowledge – how the fronds of large leaves can be woven
to make a temporary shelter (why carry a tent?) or can make a
camouflaged blind from which to hunt with blow darts or arrows.
The jungle was amazing, with so many broad-leafed plants, great ceibo
trees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and incredible sized Conga ants. This
was a walk unlike any other I’ve taken.
Shangri-La itself is a cabin complex perched in an incredible location
on the side of a cliff overlooking a big loop in the muddy brown Ansu
River, a tributary of the Amazon, beyond which stretched miles of
forest, and in the distant haze the foothills of the Andes.
The complex is built on many levels, and of wood. Until the last of
three days, when a tour group arrived, I had the place pretty much to
myself, along with the Ecuadorian staff. There’s a large open sheltered
area at the top where numerous hammocks hang, and that’s where I’m
writing this.
Last night when I arrived in Tena, there was an incredible thunder storm
with flashing lightning. The thunder was the loudest I’d ever heard,
practically shaking the buildings. Even my driver, who should be used to
these weather events, commented how loud it was – like a war.
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