Ecuador

Tuesday could not have been a worse day for me. I came to school and locked horns with the registrar some more. I can't wait for the day they get their act together. But also, today was the day of interviews. I did not have class with Spanish because I had an interview with someone in the cultural heritage group in Cuenca to gather information on the day of the dead for a Spanish paper. The interview should not have even been made. She did not want to give me the time of day. She immediately led me to the library and told me more or less "here, find what you need." Gee thanks! I could have done this myself! Grr. A wasted morning preparing interview questions. I don't even know why I tried. The second interview was actually a reversal, I was the interviewee for the Admissions internship.

We had class for Ecology in the afternoon, however it was not in the school. We were told to go on a bus towards the mountains of Cajas in order to find this refuge site where we could see some of the endangered animals that we have been learning about in class. I wanted to take an early start and traveled off on my own before the swath of my classmates took the same bus line. I had the directions, "just before the second speed bump, on the left, down a road, over a bridge, it's the first house on the left." That couldn't be too hard. But I missed an important detail, it was the second speed bump after going through the first town we passed. Ohh, if I knew that my day could have been different.

I got off the bus, feeling slightly proud of myself for taking the initiative to go on my own to find this refuge. I started down the street on the left, and took the long, long road, crossed the bridge, and then hiked up the mountainside until I saw the first break off on the left. It was definitely a school, and not a house and there was no refuge site in sight. At that point I got the call. "Hey Zach, where are you?" I tried to figure where I was with poor knowledge because I hadn't really focused on anything but the slowdowns and bumps of the bus on the ride up. But I had to walk all the way back down and up to the main road. And I was getting really hot under the sun in my double jackets to keep myself waterproof. I considered hitch hiking the five minute walk back up the hill just to save energy, but I convinced myself I needed the exercise and energy if I ever wanted to reach the summit of any volcano, let alone Cotopaxi. So I walked up the hill again, and nearly made it to the bus when I was confronted by two dogs who were not pleased to meet me. They ran around behind me, just like every other street dog, only to bark at me from behind, or so I thought, but I felt a sharp pinch on the back of my thigh. Ohh, it stung, like closing your finger in a car door. I just hurried out of there trying to make it to the bus and safety. I checked my jeans and they weren't torn from the bite, so I figured it hadn't broken skin. Now I just concerned myself with finding the refuge. It took me another twenty minutes of going back towards Cuenca, realizing that I hadn't gone far enough, then going all the way back past the two dogs that caught my eye once again, and finally to the refuge. I checked when I got there and saw a to my dismay two dark scabs where the dog got hold of me. Now I started to worry and the pain in my thigh remained painful like the dog still clung to me.

I asked our Ecology teacher what I should do. She said "well, the best thing to do is find the dog and get the number of the owner so you can get news of any weird behavior in the next two weeks. Otherwise, if you can't find the dog, look into taking the shots." I was in no mood to go find the dog that just bit me, especially if I had no method to defend myself. Anyway, I had my phone interview with Brian in twenty minutes and I had no bars on my cell phone. My worries continued over the course of the night. When my host mom arrived, I let her know what happened and finding out about the injections made my stomach turn. If needed, I would have to get seven shots in my stomach, but with a phobia of needles even when I can avoid seeing them inject me, the thought of having it right in front of my eyes made me feel dizzy. I cleaned what I could of the wound, even though it was completely useless now seven hours after the bite, but around the scabs my skin turned a dark shade of green. I just wanted to give up right then.

The next morning, my anxiety lead me to search up symptoms and treatment of rabies. What I found didn't settle my fears. A brief synopsis of what I read: "once symptoms start, you're a goner." So after consulting with Narcisa, we decided that we should look for the dog, against my will. I had remembered precisely the place where I got bit and the probable owner, but it wasn't as easy as I would have hoped. We asked the lady if she had two dogs, as we could see one and I recognized it because it looked like a mop, but she refused. After asking her a third time she said "Oh! Maybe you mean this dog!" And out came the suspect. We asked if the dog had vaccinations but she avoided answering that as well. "No se preocupa, no se preocupa." (Don't worry yourself, don't worry yourself). But we had every reason to worry. We informed her that the bite broke skin and her calm face went pale. But after asking again she said the dog had gotten a shot. Right... I didn't believe her for a second. But we gave her a number to call us and told her we would return in fifteen days, hopefully to find that wretched dog still alive. On the way back to Narcisa's car, we asked a friendly neighbor if there was another dog that could have bit me, after all I had only the few seconds to recognize it before it bit me, and after than, I focused only ahead of me to keep my pace quick to leave that place as fast as I could. The neighbor said that that dog is the bad seed in on the street and that the probability of it being the predator was pretty high. So I found it, I think. I can rest in peace for just a little while until the second search to find the dog dead or alive.

The first day in the jungle was an early start with breakfast that I could not eat. The lake reflected back a beautiful sunrise in a cloudless sky. I think one of the most unexpected parts about these entire weeks was that it never rained until our last day, as if to remind us that a return would bring us what we had expected.

We took to our canoe for a short ride to a carved out path of an old Huaorani family that settled there. The first thing that I saw was paja toquilla, the palm plant used from the coast land to make Panama Hats that I read so much about the day before. It didn't occur to me that the plant might have other uses than just providing the fiber to make hats, but it seemed like its uses were infinite. Our guide Fausto knew his stuff. Just like two days before, we could stop at any point and he'd have something to say. One of which was an enormous ant. I had heard of ants like these, only in Africa, ants, that go in hoards and encompass their prey, no matter how big and leaves just it's bones hours later. This was not quite the same. In fact the exact opposite was true. The ant had a punch to its bite, so overwhelming its prey in numbers is not necessary. In fact four or five bites from one of these ants could kill a baby human. I kept my distance. The diversity of ants never let up for a moment. Around one corner would be leaf cutter ants; another corner stood a hollowed tree that housed hundreds upon thousands on nasty little biters. Some of them gave you a good sting, others you couldn't even feel the bite. But perhaps the most peculiar of them all were the lemon ants, not called lemon ants for their association with a lemon tree, but because they in fact TASTE of lemon!

As soon as I started getting comfortable with the slow pace of our exploration, Fausto took off running. We took off after him, in fear of being lost like the two German and French couples we heard about the day before. I had to keep my head down and keep ducking this way and that to keep from running into spider webs or low hanging trees. Anything I brushed up against gave me a sneaking suspicion that I took something along with me for the ride. We ran for what seemed like fifteen minutes until we had a clearer view of the canopy and there was a colony of spider monkeys leaping from tree top to tree top. No one was in any mood to keep the chase going, though. I did a little ants-in-the-pants dance to shake off the sensation of being covered in bugs from the run.

We went back to our stroll through the jungle at which point we came upon a tree of such monstrous size that I can only compare it to a redwood, only it's base was wider than the redwoods I have seen. Hanging down to the ground were vines, reaching up to the heavens above it seemed. The first branches of this tree spread out above the canopy of all the other trees. I was in no mood to test my endurance at climbing the vines to find out that I would give out too high to simply drop back down, but others took on the challenge, not getting more than twenty feet off the ground. The indigenous, according to Fausto, used this climb to the first branches as a little test of going on past adolescence. I felt dizzy just looking up that high.

The next day was spent in similar fashion. We took a little twist in the afternoon to get in some fishing. I was a little giddy about that having already seen what some of the guide members had dredged up from this river. It was like watching Okie noodlin’, the way the boosted of their fishing technique. But the fish were far more exotic than an enormous 80 pound catfish. There were fish with spikes and armor of similar size and weight. The most frightening fact was that one in particular was apparently only a juvenile. Its adult size reaches about five or six meters long! That’s a shark if I have ever heard of any!

I found out precisely why anyone would be proud of their fishing. I was handed a clean hook on a string and given a raw slab of meat. Huh? Piranha fishing. It was possibly the hardest bit of fishing I have ever done. They would strike the meat just for you to help in their tearing off the bait while avoiding being hooked. But I got a lucky piece of bait. One with a sturdy piece of scale attached to the meat. The scale seemed somewhat familiar, probably because it was a piece of the armored catfish I saw earlier in the morning. The piranha couldn't keep from getting their mouth in the hook if they wanted the meat and so I pulled in the one and only piranha. The smallest, puny fish you'd ever seen. If it were just the foreigners fishing, we would easily have used more fish meat in bait than caught in fish. I pulled him out of the water and my knees started shaking. I had to put THIS in the boat with me? My toes had to have looked better than that stiff piece of scale and bone that the piranha had on a death hold. But it never let go of the bait, like a raccoon holding on to a piece of shiny metal.

That night, when everyone when into to wash away their accumulating jungle rot off their body in the acidic waters, the only thought on my mind was not wanting to be like that piece of bait. I did no more than splash the water on me from the deck. That was enough for me. But the adrenaline from the catch encouraged me to go another night hike, this time guided by Fausto. In the first two minutes we came across the biggest bug I have ever seen. And Fausto had never seen it before. It was a huge leaf bug, brown in color, and about the size of two hands spread out next to each other. I was convinced we found a new species, and we did nothing more than look at it for a couple of minutes and then carry on. I didn't think I would find any more than big bugs but Fausto was in to seeing much more than that. He was more interested in finding fish. Fish? In the dark? But sure enough we found one. It was swimming back in forth between the roots of trees that crept into the water. Its eyes were devilishly red. I got the chills looking at it, and standing in its water. Another reason not to swim in it. On the way back, having seen large grasshoppers everywhere and spiders of all sorts, we stumbled upon another unique sight. Well, not really stumbled on, but with Fausto's owl eyes, he spotted a snake coiled up sleeping on a leaf. It was the smallest and most lethal snake in all of the Amazon rainforest. There I was, already slightly nervous about the closet darkness of the forest, now standing in front of the most poisonous snake in the world's largest tropical rainforest supplying an enormous percentage of the Earth's fresh water, the crucial element for nearly every living and breathing animal on the planet, one of the most sobering thoughts that ever came upon me.

The next morning we saw what humanity is beginning to do to the jungle. We walked along the Rio Napo among the inhabitants of Ketchwa living there. I had a preconceived notion that they lived in harmony, only I was wrong. The western developed world had already reached these people. You could see the evidence with the hard hat hung on the wall of one of the raised houses we passed. Plots of land had been crudely chopped down for "sustainable agriculture." We finally came upon a school for the students of the area. Their classes are unlike anything you can imagine. More than forty students in the one concrete constructed building for miles and miles, without a plan of teaching, and pets of every kind, from monkeys to lizards. I am fascinated by the thought that anyone would have the idea that western ways could fit into this kind of world. But I saw how they did. We saw an oil drilling project under way, previously owned by the United States company Occidental, until the Ecuadorian government found out that the company had broke nearly every law on the contract in which it signed. And who’s the new prospective company to drill for oil here? A Chinese company.

It was a hard day to swallow, especially at the last, and I felt like a part of me would never leave or rather the jungle would never leave me. I definitely felt that way on the return trip back to civilization. Nausea and dizziness overtook me from hunger and dehydration. I pulled into the non-existent terminal of Cuenca shaky and ready to recover from a grueling test that I hope to someday encounter again.

The Amazon Jungle couldn't have seemed more vast than the way we traveled to and through it. Travel, though, was really only I could ask for and more. I felt tested at every step of the way, battling the most unforgiving environment in the world while trying to kick away the lingering effects of illness that never seemed to rest.

Our first day was a bus ride through the "easiest" passage in the Amazon Jungle that Ecuador has to offer, but it was nothing more than switch backs and tunnels. It took us nearly ten hours to travel north in the inter-Andean valleys and veer east to plummet into the low altitudes of the Rio Napo watershed. We experienced on the drive far more than I was expecting. The Pan-American highway, in parts, is no more than a gravel road, recently carved into the steep cliffs of the Andes. The flat terrain of the valleys were for the rivers and its inhabitants, not for the long distance traveler. So, high up in the mountains we could see nearly everything but the closest point on Earth to the sun. Chimborazu was blanketed in clouds. Unexpectedly we stopped in a small town that seemed to have no specific purpose. Its church was supposedly the first establishment in Ecuador and most of South America; a little unbelievable, like most of the historical sites found in this country. But the church was remarkable in its minimalism, something rare for the Spanish. Later, we reached the provincial capital of Riobamba, where hopefully at a later date I will return to take "el nariz del diablo," a switch-back train going west towards Guayaquil. From here, we started to head east towards the perpetually erupting volcano of Tungurahua. As if to let us know that it was still there the clouds surrounding the mountain parted to show a high ash cloud ascending into the heavens. The volcano looked higher than any mountain I had ever seen before, and its black silhouette showed the jagged edges of its crater. Further on, vegetation identifiable as tropical forest became more and more lush but still, we were high in the mountains. We stopped for what I thought was only for a casual view of the grand valley of a tropical river which flowed over one thousand meters below our feet, but to my unhappy surprise I was in for more than just a casual view. To get a better view of a stunning waterfall on the other side of the canyon, Ecuador's fine tourist department had built a zip line gondola spanning the canyon. Gratefully I was not first to find myself speeding down a steel cable on a shaky gondola, but the wait may have been worse. Not for the faint of hearts. At last, what seemed like a whole in the wall location, we found our hostel which was no less than a tropical paradise in the capital of its province, Puyo. There we observed how those with money can "experience" the grand Amazon jungle.

That wasn't our final destination, though. On the following day, we stretched our legs for another long bus ride through jungle. We traveled in a little procession of public buses. It seemed so out of place for coach buses on dirt roads at full speed winding through hills where tiny tributaries to the world's largest river began. This was the best route of transit in Ecuador's Oriente. If we decided to go from the border of Columbia to the southern border with Peru, it would take five days in a bus on this road. Fortunately, we were upon the Rio Napo before noon, and a rather bumpy ride led us to our trip guides with a motorized canoe patiently waiting our arrival. Our hostel was comfortably named Hostal Anaconda. Immediately as we stepped off the canoe, we saw what the jungle had to offer. On my first steps along the upper Napo, I spotted a parade of leaf-cutter ants, looking like a thin file of grass on the move. That afternoon, we took a trip upstream, taking twice the time it took going down, in order to get our first true introduction to the Amazon rain forest. It was like I was with the camera crew of the Discovery Channel, seemingly every twenty paces had something unique about this ecosystem. The first was a tree fruiting large green, mango-sized fruits layered in black life. Ants. Hundreds of them on each fruit. It was an example of symbiotic relationship between plants and animals that are so frequently found there. The next was a gnarled tree that is actually a type of vine. It suffocates it's host, like a boa constrictor, killing it. The tree inside rots away, leaving the perfect cove for bats. Inside this particular tree, there slept four of them. There were seemingly infinite instances of unique life. After the hike, we drifted back down to our hostel in poorly constructed rafts of tethered tree trunks. This is claimed as Ecuador's finest river rafting. I saw not one white capped riffle. That night, there was no way I was going to lay still and go to sleep. I gathered up a troop for a night hike into the jungle, unguided as to give us as much time as we wished. I have never had such an exhilarating and terrifying experience in my life. The insects, spiders, and frogs were abundant. Every step had something to see. But the darkness was think, and in the background played a jungle soundtrack coming from some far off party. I felt like Indiana Jones, leading our group of four into perpetual darkness, guided by the pathetic light of my tiny flashlight.

We still weren't at our final destination. Not even close. The next morning, as the sun started to rise, we drowsily boarded our dugout canoe for the longest boat ride I hope to ever take. Eleven long hours until we stopped. I wished I had brought more to keep me occupied. Two hundred pages of The Panama Hat Trail wasn't nearly enough. Midway down we passed the city of Coca. Ironic name, as Ecuador strives to keep itself a clean country. The town was just like I read in my book, however. It was the modern "wild west." Each block housed at least two bars, prostitution houses, and shifty-eyed walkers. This place originated in the oil boom. No other purpose could give rise to clearing land under the harshest sun I have ever felt. The presence of the first-world to the north was very apparent. The best example I'll give came upon finding fairgrounds. We were lured in by the siting of a farris-wheel and sought to get a better look. I choked back tears of childhood joy when I saw behind the gates a Mickey and Minnie caterpillar train. I couldn't be anymore disgusted by this place. I was glad when we finally left. At this point, we still had another four or five hours ahead of us, weaving around sandbars and barges of oil trucks heading towards their company-paved roads. We arrived at last as the sun set. We had a lodge tucked away behind vegetation alongside a placid lake of Rio Piraña (Piranha River). I settled in, knowing for the first time ever, I had absolutely no idea where I was, only the knowledge that I was further away from civilization than I will probably ever be.

I think the third time of succombing to some kind of illness in one lone month is just three times to many. I really wasn't prepared for having stomach problems on this trip, but low and behold, I apparently have the second weakest stomach after David, who has spent more than two weeks in the hospital to this point with amoebas, infections, and more than likely parasites to boot. So what was it that got me sick? I couldn't even tell you. I didn't have food from street vendors or anything! Wednesday I spent my lunch in Parque Calderon, a little curveball for my stomach which seeks its daily supply of food in the noon hours. I made David, Katie, and I some fantastically thin peanut butter sandwiches, because we all know that peanut butter in the country where they harvest peanuts is outrageously expensive. So after two paper-thin sandwiches and two fruits, I was still a little hungry. I took out my hunger on the winnings from the day in my Spanish class. A huge amount of chocolate. I had far far too much. I think that's what did me in. I had such great plans for the night, too. What a shame, what a shame. I was planning on watching the Cuenca soccer team continue its loss-less season followed by a night of salsa dancing. My night was cut short with an episode of what everyone knows to be signs of not being on the tip-top shape. The rest of the night was spent dizzly trying to sleep. I spent over fifteen hours in bed and the morning I convinced myself I had to be well enough to go to school. I haven't had fifteen hours of sleep since my concussion, which was never. But sure enough, with a bowl of cereal and a lousy bus ride (they all are pretty lousy) I got to feeling naseous again. I took a trip to the Ecuadorian clinic for a little $25 check up and had proscribed to me another $25 in medicine. I did however avoid a blood sample being taken, thank God. Narcisa, our trip coordinator caught my slip up when I mistakenly agreed that I was peeing abnormally. So I spent another night in bed. This time with little hope of falling asleep. I was in no mood to sleep. The following morning I felt chipper. Free of my exhaustion and queeziness. It's a good thing too. I am going to the Amazon jungle for a week starting tomorrow at the bright and early time of seven. I'm expecting unforgettable experiences to report about next week.

Saturday was the Lewis & Clark College "día del campo." It was an abnormally sunny day, and also a late start. I was supposed to round up the family to arrive by eleven but at eleven we were driving around the city for what, I had no idea. We stopped at a costume shop a milllion miles away that decided to be open half a year away from Halloween on a Saturday, when any other place that ought to be open was closed. I was going to become the Incredible Hulk. Our team name was "Los recontra fantásticos," meaning the super awesome heroes, more or less. No one else was going to be dressed up like me, but I figured what the hell. Might as well help first impressions with the other families by beefing up in green muscles. So we finally did arrive, after missing the exit. It seemed like we weren't going to ever get there at that point. But the party hadn't started. How could it without the Incredible Hulk? It was unbelievably awkward for the following thirty minutes until I took off the straight jacket. In the growing heat we had a parade to celebrate the three teams, only for photo opportunity sake. Then the games began. There was a three-legged race, beer chugging (always good on the first day of starting the malaria pills), musical chairs, limbo, water balloon toss, and much much more. Games I've never even heard of. I didn't really win at anything. Not very close to the victor of the beer drinking competition, a father who had shown his history under the glass. I nearly won the musical chairs, but a greedy teammate swipped my seat so I was the second to last out. And surprisingly nearly won limbo, falling short (literally) to one of the teacher's daughters who was about a foot shorter than me. I let her win. Finally the games came to a close. It was time for lunch and dancing. I won't get into much of that, because I needed the rest after soaking in the sun's rays, but the dance floor was one large game in itself. With a broom, a solitary person, and the rest coupled in dance, the solitary person took hold of the broom to dance with until clank, he or she dropped it on the floor. Then it was a crazy rush to find another couple so as not to be the solitary person. I kind of embraced that role though, as you might expect. Taking it a little over the top, probably. When I got home after a long, long day, I went kaput on my bed. Out till the next morning. A morning without the first book of Harry Potter to keep me up because I finished after becoming hopelessly attached. I am planning to finish the Golden Compass series in the coming weeks and I can't say I'm not excited about it.