Friday, Mar. 7, 2003 - 4:42 p.m.
Welcome to the Jungle—Part 3
Since the sun always rises at 6AM in Ecuador, it gets light early. For this reason, we always seemed to get up early ourselves. Our Monday breakfast was identical to the day before. We also knew this was our last morning at this particular village, that afternoon we planned to hike to another nearby pueblo where we would spend our last night. After breakfast Tsunkai gathered us together to share a little more about the Shuar culture. He showed us some plants growing nearby that had important uses for his people. Some were for medicinal purposes, some were hallucinogens that are taken on special occasions, like to foresee the future for important events. One plant had small round dark “bulbs”, one of which Tsunkai broke open to show us the bright red paste inside. This is used for painting faces during particular festivals. Then Gary and I volunteered to have our faces painted and with a thin flexible twig Tsunkai carefully painted simple, traditional designs on our cheeks, lines and X’s with a few dots. The designs differ slightly between the men and women.
We had one last soccer game, villagers vs. gringos, during which a few of the kids sat next to me, one particular girl sat on my lap. I couldn’t help but think of how her life now and in the future was so different from mine. There was also an adorable 5 month old baby (whose mother was younger than me) that I held for a little bit. I noticed the infant had some kind of skin infection on his ears. Also I suspect all the children had parasites, due to their bloated tummies and the fact that one villager asked if we had any medication we could donate. I gave them almost all the medicine I had with me.
Then it was time to say goodbye. We all shook the Shaman’s hand and presented him with a small gift of paper, pens and crayons for the children. They really seemed to appreciate our offering. Then it was time to go and we waved goodbye as we trekked past the main structures and followed along a narrow path through the tall grass. Soon (big surprise) the path became very muddy. At one point we all got a good laugh when Chris stepped into the mud and his right foot sank about 3 feet down and he was stuck. He struggled to be free and his stocking foot popped out with his rubber boot embedded in the mud. Some of our Shuar counterparts used their bare hands to dig through the mud to retrieve Chris’ boot. The midday sun was striking down as we continued to hike along the trail through a wide grassy field, contrasting the dark mud, bright blue sky with white cotton clouds and blue mountains looming in the distance. It was beautiful, to say the least. Soon we encountered a river (I think it was the same one we took the canoe on, just further upstream), the trail stopped abruptly at the water’s edge with a 10 foot embankment on each side. There we saw a small “cable car” that could hold 2 or 3 people at a time. Standing in the “basket” was the Shaman, holding on with one hand and using the other to grasp the cable and pull it across. It only took about 15 minutes to get our whole troup across. Again we shook hands and thanked the man for his generosity and hard work.
The trail took us through a variety of environments. Soon the grassy fields became a forest of tall trees and small flowers, mud puddles and thick underbrush. The variety of countryside reminded me of differences in the landscape that Frodo encountered on his quest in "Lord of the Rings". During our hike we saw a few birds and insects, the most interesting were several “highways” of leaf-cutter ants that crossed our path.
We arrived at the second village several hours later. It was large and more spread out (a community of perhaps 30 people), as there was a small church, school and other communal buildings. No one came running up to greet us, but Tsunkai led us to an individual family dwelling that had three small wooden structures tucked away from the main “square”. There was a couple with a very young girl that lived there in one of the buildings. Next to it was a small one-room shelter where we ended up staying. All these structures were about 1.5 feet above the ground, like on stilts. It reminded me a lot of Honduras.
The facilities in this location were much more basic. No electricity, water or outhouse (although at night I noticed in the other house the familiar glow of a television set. I have no idea how it was powered). In our one-room shelter were two crude wooden beds. After much discussion and disagreement, it was decided that names would be pulled out of a hat to decide who would sleep in the beds (the rest on the floor). I said that I really didn't care if I slept on a bed or not, but that was before I discovered the cockroaches.
We were tired and hot from our hike through the humid jungle. Soon Tsunkai took us on a walk to a little "store" where we bought soda and crackers and then to a river nearby (about a 15 minute walk) where we went swimming in the cool, swift water. While we were swimming Penny cut her foot on some sharp object in the river. It was bleeding a little, so Tsunkai put some kind of plant material on it, obviously some kind of traditional remedy that the Shuar use. It didn’t completely heal until weeks later (I’ve noticed it takes a lot longer for wounds to heal here in Ecuador, especially when you’re in the jungle).
At dusk we were invited into an adjacent one-room structure that was the kitchen. Several short fat logs were on one side, a little fire below the metal pots cooking our food, and a small wooden table on the other side. In the middle of my meal I was startled by a large dark-maroon cockroach crawling up the wall next to me. The others laughed when I jumped away and finally after three more appeared, I decided I'd had enough to eat and left the table.
The sun set quickly on our last night in the jungle. At about 8:30pm, Tsunkai took us on a night hike to look for insects and possibly animals. I was really hoping to see some frogs, and knew it was highly unlikely we would see a monkey or anything like that. As we were hiking along a little trail, our flashlights little points of light in the vast darkness (with no light pollution from nearby cities around, it was so dark you could wave your hand in front of your face and not see it), I was amazed at the loud noise the insects were making. It was an orchestra of chirping, clicking and whirling that surrounded us as we hiked. Tsunkai had to remind the group to be quiet, as we were happily chattering, so that we wouldn’t scare any animals away. As we followed Tsunkai through the jungle (he didn’t need a flashlight), he showed us a couple of beetles, a walking stick and a nest of large pale ants that have a nasty bite. Then it started to rain and I was disappointed our night hike was cut short and we didn’t see any animals or frogs. (I forgot to mention that at the beginning of our jungle adventure, several people saw a Blue Morpho Butterfly—they have them at the Butterfly house at the Pacific Science Center. They are my favorite, absolutely stunning with a brilliant blue on the interior wings. I was sorry that I missed it myself).
Then we settled down to bed, as countless cockroaches scurried on the floor and walls. Diana and I shared one bed and Frank had the other (we were the lucky three that had our names pulled out of the hat). The rest slept on the hard wooden floor. And even though the beds were nothing more than matted planks, not much more comfortable than the floor, I felt a little less removed from the insects around us. I tried not to think about them as I drifted off to sleep.
I awoke early and impressed my counterparts by getting my camera out and photographing the sleeping troup. (I have a habit of taking a lot of photographs. When I was in Alaska for a month last year, I took 36 rolls of film). My friends tease me about being a part of the Paparazzi, but I think it all pays off when I get my photos back and everyone wants copies.
Before breakfast the father of the Shuar family climbed up a really tall tree about 30 feet, the thick branches bowed, and obtained guava leaves. When they fell to the ground the mother opened them for us and inside were a row of fuzzy white bulbs. She handed them to us and I discovered the bulbs were a little slimy, and were actually a dark bulbous nut that was covered with a layer of this white fuzzy fruit. After sucking off the white layer, the nuts were discarded on the ground. They looked almost exactly like cockroaches. The guava was incredibly sweet, and I didn’t care for the slimy texture of the fruit. However, it was cool to see what guavas actually look like.
Soon it was time to leave. We packed up our stuff with a sense of reluctance, fatigue and quiet contemplation (besides the occasional “Whose dirty socks are these?”). I was sad that our amazing experience in the selba had come to an end, however I was looking forward to a hot shower and a large meal of greasy Ecuadorian food (the meals we had never filled me up, so I was usually hungry). We thanked the family that had hosted us, hoisted our gear on our backs and headed off, walking past the village to a wide cleared out dirt road where the mini bus was waiting for us to take us back to “civilization”.
The cost of our adventure? For the privilege of being invited into a Shuar village, being introduced to their homes, lives and culture, having all meals and knowledgeable guides provided, hikes, canoe rides, swimming and playing soccer, transportation there and back we each paid only $15 a day!
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But Wait, There’s More!
We took a night bus out of Macas, back to Cuenca, scheduled to arrive at 4AM Wednesday. Penny and Frank both had 7AM classes that day to teach (I was glad I didn’t). We knew we were cutting it short, but we didn’t take into account the possibility of delays! I had trouble sleeping on the bus, so I spent a lot of time listening to cheesy Latin music and gazing out at the darkness, the blinking of fireflies made me smile while I contemplated our fantastic selba experience.
Almost halfway through our bus ride, we had just passed a town called Mendez, 5.5 hours into the trip our rumbling bus came to a complete stop. After idling for about 10 minutes some curious passengers exited the bus to see what the delay was. Eventually I joined them, expecting to see a car accident. Instead I saw several trucks carrying cattle, two of them were in the ditch on the side of the road, blocking the one lane “highway”. Soon our bus was driving in reverse down the dirt road until we came to a place wide enough to jockey around. Then we returned to Mendez. I wondered how long we would be delayed. Soon we learned we would take an alternate road out of Mendez back to Cuenca. We were told it was faster and the road conditions better (they weren’t). After leaving Mendez one of the bus employees stood up front and started explaining that our changed course was a longer distance so everyone needs to cough up an extra $2 for gas. I could tell from everyone’s reaction that no one was happy about this, we had already paid $10 for our tickets. After we had to pay up we road silently along a road almost identical to the one we had been on before.
Again, about two hours on our altered route, the bus stopped. What I saw out the window made me gasp. As the bus slowly turned itself around, I stared at the huge pile of rocks blocking the road, some of which were as large as the bus! When I realized we were returning to Mendez for a third time I worried about what this would mean for Penny and Frank. By my calculations, we’d arrive in Cuenca at 7AM, if we were lucky. However, almost everyone was asleep at this time (it was about 1AM), so if I hadn’t been awake, no one in our group would’ve known about this second detour. I was exhausted myself, so I fell asleep before I found out where we would go from Mendez. I don’t know of another route out of this town. Hence, I was very surprised when I awoke hours later to see that we were almost back home. We pulled into the Cuenca “terminal terrestre” at 4:30AM. To this day it defies logic how we had two detours, managed to get into town soon after our expected arrival and no one got their $2 back. Welcome to life in Latin America…
