We spent four days of last week in the Ecuadorian Amazon, 30 bumpy minutes outside of the city of Tena, learning how much life can improve when you’re half an hour from the nearest power outlet and surrounded by deet-hungry mosquitoes. Special thanks to my anti-malarial tablets for making this awesome stay possible.
We bunked down in a ridiculously cool two-story shack that our backpacker-friendly host family had constructed in the middle of the jungle. Reaching the encampment from the dirt road required knee-high rubber boots and a 10-minute trek, which turned out to be a lot more awesome than inconvenient. Overlooking the Napo River, a famous rafting destination, the shack served as our base of operations as we spent the week adventuring through the rainforest and brushing up a little more on our Spanish.
I don’t know what to write about first. The waterfall hike? The laguna hike? The second iteration of the aforementioned waterfall hike, in which we free-rappelled down the same 25-foot cascadas that we had climbed up twice before? The mind-blowing night skies, the likes of which can only be seen numerous kilometers from civilization? The afternoon that we spent panning for gold in the river – with some actual success? Maybe the morning riverside yoga sessions, or the nighttime campfire jams? What about the fact that our amazing host family cooked us native Ecuadorian cuisine all week, serving it up hot and fresh right outside our shack? Or the fact that we’re even here at all, instead of in math class or something? It’s a challege to keep track of everything, and even harder to do it justice in words. So many experiences, so much gratitude, and such a short time. I can’t believe it all went by in four days.
Unfortunately, though, it did – which would suck, except we’re now in the bustling tourist hub of Otavalo. We’re here for three nights, and it happens to be a blast here as well. We arrived on Saturday morning, settled into our hostel (has running water AND electricity), and struck out to explore the famous outdoor market. It’s a really cool scene, and our haggling skills are getting sharper all the time. Most of us, if we hadn’t already, bought ourselves ponchos made of llama wool. We’d look exactly like an indigenous tribe if we didn’t look so much like tourists.
Today we taxi’d/hiked up to a famous tree, El Lechero. It supposedly has healing powers; it definitely looks like it has healing powers; if these bug bites stop itching any time soon, I’ll be inclined to believe that it does, in fact, have healing powers. It was a great way to spend the morning, healing powers or not, and we followed it up the right way: with a stop at a nearby bakery.
In Ecuador, a dollar can buy two generous slices of cake. There are some American stereotypes that we’re more than happy to uphold.
