Esmeraldas!

Off to the beach!

Our party bus on the left, and a pic of the compound from the outside

We might not get a week off for Thanksgiving, but we do get random (well, not so random in Ecuador) holidays off. This past Friday (October 12) we didn’t have classes thanks to the Festivals of Guayaquil. Our amazing resident director, Maria, has a house and apartment in the town of Tonsupa in the province of Esmeraldas that she said we could stay in, which is right on the beach, so a group of us from U of I decided to take a road trip. Stephanie did an awesome job organizing it and getting everyone together, and before we knew it, the group had grown to 25 people!

So we all met at USFQ at 6:00(ish) p.m. and started to load onto a bus that we had rented. Unfortuanetly, the bus/very large van was made for 20 people and there was no way we could fit al of us on it for a 6 hour trip with all our luggage. So we crammed on temporarily and rode to the bus driver’s house where he convienently had a 30-person bus as well!

We then piled onto the new bus, and headed out of town. By this time it was about 7:30, so we were getting a late start, but everyone was in a pretty good mood. Unfortuneatly, we made about a million and 42 stops, so by the time we got to Esmeraldas it was nearly 2:00 a.m.

We all tumbled out of the bus into hot, humid low-altitude air into a compound owned by Maria’s family where volunteers often stay in. There were three houses and then a bamboo-like fort with lots of hammocks. Five of us girls claimed one room and I got the top bunk of a bunk bed! Woo-hoo! I hadn’t gotten to sleep up high since last semester, so it was a sweet deal.

Malaria is still somewhat present in Esmeraldas, so I sprayed about a bottle’s worth of bug spray on me and crashed.

The next day Megan and I woke up early (well, ok, around 9) and headed towards the beach for a run. To get there, we had to pass by a heifer and her calf chowing down in the middle of the road, but we made it by without an incidence. Hey, I guess compared to a herd of bulls, a simple cow isn´t much to worry about.

So though the village of Tonsupa was pretty quiet at that hour, the minute we hit the beach there were people everywhere. There were tons of stands selling all types of food and people renting tents and families laying out and kids running around and it was definitely the place to be. The beach was also huge thanks to the low tide, so we had plenty of room to run. We found a section of compact sand and had a fun run and enjoyed the large supply of oxygen thanks to the low altitude. And I got to wear shorts to run in, the first time of my semester here! Shorts are pretty uncommon in Quito, but in Esmeraldas they`re practically the dress code.

After our run, we got back to the compound, once again dodging the cow and calf, which we didn’t name, but should have. By that time, people were getting up and dressed, so we changed into our swimsuits and hit the beach!

Much cooler than bumps on a log

I always thought that the Pacific Ocean was freezing, but the water was almost like a bathtub. Then for lunch, I went with Sarah, Stephanie, Ailey, Liz, and Liz’s (real) parents who were visiting Ecuador to a sweet restaurant, where I had ceviche, a very common Coastal meal that’s a cold soup, almost like a salsa. It’s usually made with seafood with is plentiful and fresh on the coast. Yum.

Apparently I didn't realize that you need to put your arms IN the water if you want to swim (I'm the crazy person on the left)

After hanging on the beach a bit more, we went back to the compound, and Liz, Sarah, and hung out in on the hammock roofish area. It made me miss the hammock back home, but it was a decent substitute!

We then cleaned up, got some dinner (rice with shrimp for me!) and headed back to the beach where there was lots of salsa dancing which randomly turned into American oldies. Haha, I never thought I`d be dancing to “Rock Around the Clock,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” and Elvis on a beach of Ecuador.

We then headed back to the compound (ok, compound is a funny word, I feel like I’m saying he headed back to a hippie farm or something, but there isn’t really a better word), and crashed again. The water had run out of the house, but that was ok, because we had to brush our teeth with bottled water anyway.

The next morning, Saturday, I woke up and went for another fun run, dodging the water as it splashed up. I wasn’t too successful and came back with sopping shoes and covering in sand, but it was totally worth it.

By this time we had gotten gas (and water!) in the house, so we cooked up lots of pancakes and chowed down. I mostly helped with the chowing down.

Breakfast time!

Then Megan and I met up with Liz and her parents and we found some taxis to take us into the town of Atacames.

Though the vehicles we rode in definitely were used as taxis, they were quite a bit different than your average bright yellow taxi. Instead, they were bench carts that could cozily sit three people side by side towed by a motorcycle. Haha, it was a pretty exciting ride as our not-very-fast-or-big “taxis” dodged large busses and speeding cars. Still, it was an awesome way to see the surrounding towns. Everything was green and there were tons of houses with brush roofs.

A view from our taxi...Liz's parents are in the taxi in front of us

After about 20 minutes, we arrived in Atacames, a larger beach town. Our driver told us that we just had to cross a bridge, take a few turns, and we’d be at the beach. Sure enough, after a short walk, we came to a crowded beach. It reminded me of the beach in Rosarito in a lot of ways because there were tons of people and a large market selling all kinds of trinkets.

We were hoping to go on a whale-watching tour, and the moment we stepped onto the beach, a boat owner approached us, offering to take us to try and see whales and then go to la Isla de Pájaros (Bird Island) to see birds for $10 a person. At first he said we wouldn’t have to pay if we didn’t see birds, but we really wanted to see whales, so then he agreed that we wouldn’t have to pay if we didn’t see whales. It sounded like a good deal, and we knew we had to get going before the wind and waves picked up too much, so we agreed.

Megan, Liz, and me pre-boat ride; you can see our fancy-schmancy boat behind us!

After about 20 minutes, we arrived in Atacames, a larger beach town. Our driver told us that we just had to cross a bridge, take a few turns, and we’d be at the beach. Sure enough, after a short walk, we came to a crowded beach. It reminded me of the beach in Rosarito in a lot of ways because there were tons of people and a large market selling all kinds of trinkets.


We were hoping to go on a whale-watching tour, and the moment we stepped onto the beach, a boat owner approached us, offering to take us to try and see whales and then go to la Isla de Pajaros (Bird Island) to see birds for $10 a person. At first he said we wouldn’t have to pay if we didn’t see birds, but we really wanted to see whales, so then he agreed that we wouldn’t have to pay if we didn’t see whales. It sounded like a good deal, and we knew we had to get going before the wind and waves picked up too much, so we agreed.

I thought there would be other customers as well, but it was just Megan, Liz, Liz’s parents, and me who buckled on large life-jackets and piled into a bright blue motor boat with the guide and his assistant.


The boat was in…interesting…condition. Part of the seat in front of me broke off as we sped through the ocean, and it was a very bumpy and fast ride and AWESOME! As we got further out into the ocean, the clouds cleared and there was a nice breeze. Well, there was a nice hurricane style wind I should say, thanks to the speedy boat.


Our guide’s assistant acted as our GPS, standing on the bow and occassionly pointing directions or yelling things. I have no idea how our guide could understand him since the engine was so freaking loud, but eventually we came upon a group of about 3 other small boats. We looked to where all their passengers were staring, and there was a HUGE whale with her calf!

We stayed for about 20 minutes, just watching the whale and her calf play, and they put on a pretty good show. Our guide joked with us that we just didn’t want to hear BOOM BOOM BOOM underneath our boat. Pretty much the whales could have lifted us out of the water as if we were a toy ship. Fortunately, they decided against doing that, and I’m still here to write this.

Hola! One of our whale friends waving to us

After watching the whales, we headed over to la Isla de las Pajaros, which if you ask me, is a misnomer and should be called Bird Rock.

Bird Island, which in my opinion should be Bird Rock, but whatever

The namer of the island, or rock, did hit the bird part on the head. There were birds all over the place, and it’s pretty amazing that none of us got pooped on. Most of the birds were Blue-footed Boobies (it’s ok, you can laugh at the name. I did.) and indeed, that had BRIGHT blue feet.

Hot and Cold!

My second Andinismo trip to the Papallacta Hot Springs and Puntas

Apparently this past weekend was all about alliteracy as my clase de Andinismo went to the hot springs of Papallacta and then hiked up to the Puntas near the town of Quinche for our second class trip.

The adventure of my second Andinismo trip actually began hours before we left for the Termas de Papallacta (Papallacta hot springs). I packed the morning we left, and since I heard it would be cold, I crammed tons of warm clothes into a large backpack (thanks, Mom for letting me use your awesome backpack!). I barely fit through the door of the bus heading to the university from Quito and it was more crowded than usual. Fortunately, one of the bus dudes let me put my HUMONGOUS backpack up front and let me sit by it.

As soon as I got to USFQ, I headed to the study abroad offices to ditch my camper-sized bag for awhile. I haven’t tested it, but I’m pretty sure I could fit at least two people in it. I guess that would be good to know if I ever want someone to smuggle me on a trip with them.

Anyway, since we would be camping for two nights, after class Megan and I headed into La Mariscal of Quito to the outdoor gear store Los Alpes to rent some sleeping bags, mats, harnesses, belay clips, and ochos for a bunch of us. The guy wanted a credit card as a deposit, but we struck a deal to leave a Censo card (my card that says I’m legal in this country) instead.

So we headed out hauling our goodies and crammed into the Ecovia bus which was quite packed as usual. Still we were able to watch each other’s backs and we made it back to the university without too many problems!

After we dropped off our newly acquired gear (which wasn’t so new, but definitely in good condition and quality), Megan and I hit up the SuperMaxi (a local supermarket) for food for our trip. We stocked up on almonds, peanuts, raisins, granola bars, bread, queso, and tuna in a bag. Mmmmmmm.

Then at 3 pm (ish) our whole class met up with our professors Diego and Ramiro at USFQ to roll out. We had planned on taking cars, but one was broken, so we headed to the bus stop where we caught a bus heading toward Papallacta.

After about 2 hours on the bus, we arrived at Papallacta and hiked up a decent hill towards the hot springs. The hike was a bit difficult with all our clothes, sleeping bags, tents, food, etc., but there was definitely plenty of pretty scenery. There were forests all around, and it seemed as if there was some military training camp or something nearby because all these runners dressed in camo-ish gear (not full out camo, but their shorts would sometimes be green…I don’t know how to better describe it) kept running by. I felt very slow compared to them, but there was some consolation that we were going uphill with lots of stuff while they were running downhill.

Pedro, Stacey, Ramiro, and Marisco by the hot springs...you can barely see the water through the steam, but it's there!

Anyway, after a short hike (well, it felt shorter the next morning when we hiked back DOWN), we arrived at the Papallacta hot springs! I had no idea what to expect, but it basically was a pool with LOTS of steam coming out of it. It turns out that the pool is heated by the local volcano. How cool is that? Er, how hot is that?

So we pitched our tents in a nearby field that didn’t look like the cows could get to. Megan’s host family had a tent so we didn’t have to borrow one. We’re not sure if it was a two or three person tent, but we managed to cram Peter, Megan, and me in it. More on that later.

So after pitching tents in the fading daylight, we changed into our swimsuits and hit up the pool! It was about the temperature of a hot tub, and since the evening and night air of the Andes is quite chilly, it felt amazing. We managed to swim/hang out in the pool for about 4 hours. Note to self: a bread, cheese, and bag tuna fish sandwich is DELICIOUS. Especially when you’re starving.

Believe it or not, we fit three of us in this tent, needless to say, we didn't move around much

We finally decided it was time to head to bed, however, there wasn’t enough room in our tent for all of us and our gear. Fortunately, Matt, another kid in our class, had spread out his rainfly, so we stashed our stuff under it.

Even though the hot springs were obviously hot, the night was VERY cold. It didn’t help that our rain fly was more of a rain hat and only covered a very small portion of the tent. Haha, so every time I bumped the sides, water would rain down. Needless to say, we were ready to get moving in the morning.

The next morning we feasted on granola bars, bread, and whatever food we had brough. Pedro supplied peanut butter and jelly tortillas, Matt supplied Nutella, and the rest of us had a bunch of bread. One thing I love about camping is that all food tastes AMAZING. Well, ok, peanut butter, jelly, and Nutella are all amazing anyway, but camping just amplifies their amazing qualities.

So we packed up all our stuff and hiked back down to the bus stop, which was a significantly easier hike than the way up. I think I’m beginning to believe this whole gravity theory!

So we chilled at the bus stop for awhile, waiting for a bus that would take us to closer to Quito. The road was pretty empty except for random trucks, but finally a bus heading back from Baños came by. Since the trip to Baños is pretty far, there was a compartment under the bus where we could stash all our gear. Then we hopped on the bus, and I took an extremely wonderful nap.

Chillin at the bus stop

After a little over an hour of a nice warm ride, we got off at some random bus stop (well, Diego knew what it was, but to me it was random). We got all our gear (which was no small feat) and headed to another bus stop where we caught a bus to Yaruquí, the town I volunteer at the hospital in.
Once in Yaruquí, we hiked to a railroad bridge that stretched high above a ravine. It was a really cool site, and the old tracks rain through a tunnel on the other side of the bridge. As far as I know, no trains ran on it anymore. Haha, don’t worry, the track were so old I’m pretty sure a train would be forced to a screeching halt before it reached us on the bridge.

Our plan was to repel a bit off the bridge and then climb back up. However, a thunderstorm was rapidly approaching as we stood on the bridge as prime targets. So Matt repelled and climbed quickly, and then we all high-tailed it out of there before the nasty-looking storm broke.

Preparing to repel...the sunny weather is deceiving

Just as we headed off the bridge it started to spit, as in rain lightly. I don’t know if that’s a Beairdism or not. Oh well. So we hopped on another bus, which is not as easy as hopping with all our stuff. We finally ended up at a small house on a beautiful sunflower plantation which Diego’s family owns.

So right before it began to storm, we pitched our tents in his backyard and then headed into the house. We made a fire in the fireplace, which I guess is the logical place to build a fire, much better, than, say, the bathtub. Then Diego and Ramiro told us scary thunderstorm stories. I was very glad I was not standing at the top of a mountain ridge by the time he was done with his stories. I also learned that long hair can be an advantage because if it starts to stand straight up, it means you’re about to be struck by lightning and should probably do something, like hit the deck.

We were starting to go a bit crazy in the house, so when the rain let up a bit we walked into town for food for dinner. We went to an open-air market which was just closing up to buy veggies, and then went to some other stores to get bread, stuff to make tortillas, and meat. We also stocked up on water and food for our hike the next day.

Hanging with some kids outside one of the stores

When we got back to the house, we started making dinner. Okay, a lot of the others started making dinner, but I figured there could be a problem of too many cooks in the kitchen, literally, and so Megan, Reluca, Peter, and I checked out the sunflower plantation. The plantation was pretty big, and it turned out that all the sunflowers were shipped to Russia to be sold. Talk about random. But I guess sunflowers are pretty popular there.

Mat, Jenn, and Marisco making homemade tortillas...yum

When it started getting too dark to see much else, we headed back to the house, where we joined in a game of Describe and Yell. Well, I don’t really know the name of the game, but basically you divide up into partners and have to describe a person that is written on a piece of paper you draw to your partner in a set amount of time. In Spanish. And then your partner guesses who the person is.

After lots of confusion and guessing, dinner was ready and we ate an absolute delicious meal of homemade tortillas, salsa, meat, lentils, and cheese. As good as my tuna fish sandwich was the night before, I have to say this was ten times better.

After dinner we headed outside where it had finally stopped raining and built a bonfire and attempted to play Telephone in Spanish. Yeah. You can probably guess how screwed up our sentences were by the end of the game considering well over half of us were not native Spanish speakers.

We stayed up enjoying the campfire, and when we got tired headed to our tents. This time we used Matt’s rain fly in addition to our own rain hat, yet somehow water still got in! But it was okay, because the night wasn’t too cold and we all slept pretty well.

So the next morning we woke up to the sun baking on our tent and ate a quick(ish) breakfast. Then we loaded all our stuff into some of Diego’s friends’ cars and we caught a bus to the town of Quinche. From there we piled into some rented jeeps (Raluca, Peter, and I got the back/trunk of one) and we drove up the mountain.

It was a gorgeous ride, though there were some nerve-wracking points when we weren’t sure the back hatch was closed all the way and held onto each other for dear life. Still, we made it to our drop-off place in one piece. Well, I guess there were fourteen pieces, since we’re all separate people. But you get my point.

A shot from the back of our Jeep of the two Jeeps that followed us...this was one of the flatter parts of the road

The good thing about the fog was that we couldn’t see how far we had left to go, so I just focused on making it to the next bend in the road. It was a pretty tough hike for me, but the scenery (well, what I could see of it) was gorgeous. Once again, I felt like I was in Scotland or something instead of Ecuador, because it was quite chilly with lots of fog and pastures. I guess I’ll have to check my passport to make sure I really am in Ecuador and not Ireland or Scotland.

Ramiro moving the fence for us to pass through

Pedro, Jenn, Stacey, and Megan hiking up the mountain!

So we walk and walk and hike and hike. Every once in awhile, we would come to a fence, and Ramiro would move the barb wired gate so we could get through. At one point we walked right through a ton of cows, and I got a bit nervous because Ramiro was wearing bright red. Or are cows colorblind? Well, either way, I didn’t think that they would be very happy with us invading their territory. Still, we made it through without any incident!

Hoping these cows are friendly

Though we were hiking along the dirt/mud road, the jeep with all of our gear drove up ahead of us. It went over some ridiculous rocks, and I began to have a true appreciation of the Jeeps in Ecuador. (Don’t worry Jeep at home, you’re still my favorite Jeep! Ok, I’m pretty sure cars don’t have feelings, but I just felt I should give a shout-out.)

After awhile, we came to a point in the road where the even the totally cool Jeep couldn’t go any further. The reason the Jeep had been driving up in the first place was to bring all our climbing gear, but we could tell that it was going to rain so climbing would be unsafe and out of the question.

So the Jeep turned around and we kept…you guessed it…hiking! The mud road soon narrowed down into a thin path through really thick grass. By this time the terrain had leveled out a bit so we weren’t huffing and puffing quite as much. Also, the puddles that had been water were ice at this altitude, though it didn’t feel that cold. Then we came to a point where we took a break. After the break, Diego and Ramiro told us to climb up!

a quick break before leaving the trail

I looked up and saw a large hill, er, I guess we were on a mountain, of grass, but no path. So we started scrambling up the grass, and let me say, the grass of the Andes mountains is STRONG. I just grabbed handfuls of grass and to help haul myself up the next step.

scrambling up the mountain 'o grass

After lots of quality scrambling, we reached, Puntas, the top! They are some really pointy rocks that we were going to climb, but because of the incoming weather, we decided to leave our climbing gear behind. It was a good thing we did too, because the moment (and I mean MOMENT) we reached the top it started hailing like crazy! So we hiked, well, I more skidded, down the trailess grass incline. Haha, I felt more like I was skiing because it was pretty slippery and I kept doing switchbacks, like I do when I try to ski down a slope that makes me nervous. Finally we got to the trail where we hiked quickly along until we came to now very muddy road.

Peter and Pedro at the top! (check out the pointy rock, one of the Puntas)

Then when we got to the cow pasture, we found that the cows were gone…but had been replaced by bulls! Diego told us that the bulls could be pretty angry; I believe “agressivo” was the word he used, so we had to walk along the side of the path opposite of the bulls and be very quiet. We made it through without an incident, and I decided I did not want to be a bullfighter. Just in case I had been considering that career, which I hadn’t.

Okay, so all those black dots on the right are bulls. I know they don't look that close to the road but believe me, walking on the left side of the narrow road was plenty close for me.

After we made it through the now bulls pasture, we continued along and finally reached the drop-off point. Partway through our hike down, the intense hail had turned into intense rain, so needless to say we were SOAKED by the time we made it to the Jeeps. Still, we didn’t really have time to change, so we piled into the Jeeps once more and headed back into the town of Quinche.

Anto and me in the back of the Jeep...my shirt is wet from the rain (should have zipped up that sweatshirt all the way), not from sweat. Really!

Once in Quinche, we invaded a Chifa restaurante (a Chinese restaurant) and changed into dry (yes! I was soooooo glad I packed all the clothes I did) and most of us ordered what Ramiro ordered since we had no idea what was good. Fortuneatly, Ramiro picked well, and we all enjoyed a meal of HOT food.

Now somewhat cleaner, dryer, and warmer, and definitely better fed, we loaded up onto a bus back to Quito!!!!!

I slept very well in my bed that night.

El Oriente aka THE JUNGLE!!!

ROLLING OUT

Up until last Friday, I had spent all my time in Ecuador in the highlands, high up (duh) in the Andean mountains. However, on Friday, September 21 I got a chance to go to the jungle, which is about a 5 hour drive southeast of Quito by bus.

After classes ended on Friday, the whole U of I group, along with some other students from other U.S. universities and one student from USFQ, met in front of USFQ around 2 p.m. We all loaded onto a yellow bus along with Patricio, a student from USFQ who is from the jungle community we went to, and Kleber, a USFQ employee who is from the Oriente as well.

We had been told that it would be about an 8 hour drive so we all stocked up on food and had a pretty good picnic on the bus. At first the bus was really hot as we headed out of Cumbaya, but then as we headed up into the mountains (why we went up is beyond me), it cooled off pretty quick.

Good times on the bus

The roads were extremely narrow and twisty around mountains, but that’s nothing new for Ecuador. The drive was, as always, gorgeous as we looked down into valleys to see rivers and forests.

Eventually we started heading down into the jungle and the vegetation (what a fun word. It kind of makes me want to eat a salad.) changed from scraggly bushes to lush trees.

After about 4 hours of driving, we arrived at a gorgeous hostal where we ate a delicious dinner. After dinner we heard that there were monkeys in the area, so some of us went out to look for them. By this time it was pitch black, so we wandered somewhat aimlessly down a dark path, monkey-hunting. We didn’t find any, but we did find a huge cage with some crazy birds in it!

Eventually the path ran out and we decided it was probably best to head back to the hostal than try and forge a path through the jungle. I almost expected Tarzan to come out of the bushes to meet us, but I guess he was too shy. Well, maybe next time.

So when we got back to the hostal, we all loaded onto our trusty yellow bus (not to be confused with yellow school busses in the States. While these yellow busses are often used as school busses, they are quite a bit smaller and have individual seats. They’re pretty classy and do a wonderful job attacking mountains). It turned out that some of the other students had found the monkeys and befriended them. I was a bit sad not to have a monkey buddy, but I guess it’s just as well I didn’t become attached.

Inside the school house where most of our group slept on the benches

After we were all on our bus (which should probably have a name, but it doesn’t), we continued to drive deeper into the jungle. After about 45 minutes of more driving, we ended up in the la Comunidad Villano, the indigenous Kichwa community that Patricio is from in the Amazon in the Province of Napo.

The community has about 30 families, or about 150 people. The mostly make their living off of agriculture, but they are trying to start in the business of tourism and we were their first “tourist” group!

So we all stepped off of the bus into a grassy field and pitch darkness plus a lot of fog. I was surprised how happy I was to have humidity! That was one thing I didn’t think I’d miss from the U.S.

SWEET DREAMS

Anyway, we got all our stuff and were led into a large one-room schoolhouse/community building. The building had concrete floors and lots of wooden benches. We had been told to bring a sleeping bag if we had one, but I didn’t bring one to Ecuador (I wish I had) and my host family didn’t have one, so I was sleeping bagless! It turned out that out of the 27(ish) of us, about 5 didn’t have sleeping bags.

Megan, me, and our tent in the jungle

However, there were three tents, and the ground outside was pretty squishy (much softer than Tijuana gravel!). Not that many people wanted a tent, so Megan (who was also sleeping bagless) and I got to claim one! It was missing a rain fly, so we kind of rigged one from another tent that didn’t have any poles. We also used that tent as a ground cloth since it had a built-in ground cloth and ours didn’t have any.

By the time we had pitched our tent (with the help of Malorey and Jorge), we were set for bed. I got to use the outhouse, complete with a force-flush toilet, and brush my teeth outside. I forgot how much I love brushing my teeth and being about to spit anywhere! You so don’t have to aim for the sink.

By this time we were all exhausted so we climbed into our tent and brought in most of our clothes and our towels for blankets. Haha, a few minutes after we lied down, it started to rain (I guess we were in the rain forest). The rain fly we were using was too small for our tent, so we curled up so we were under the part that the rain fly covered. However, the tent stayed amazingly dry, and though it got a little cold, it wasn’t a bad night for sleeping.

I tried to label this picture, but it didn't turn out so well...our tents are on the left and the schoolhouse is on the right (in case you weren't sure which were tents and what was the schoolhouse)

¡BUENAS DÍAS!

The next morning we woke up early to the sound of kids shouting and animals making noise and the sun beating on our tent. We got up and ate a delicious breakfast of food that Malorey and Klevar had picked out at SuperMaxi, a major supermarket chain here. On a side note, I found out last Tuesday that there are two different types of shopping carts at SuperMaxi, a smaller one for the parking lot and one like the ones in the U.S. for inside the store. I got chased down by security, reprimanded, and had my cart taken away for using the wrong one inside the store. Whoops.

However, I think Malorey and Klevar used the right shopping cart, and they had bought lots of fruit, yogurt, nuts, green beans, and granola to feast on. So we had a quality breakfast and then hopped on our loyal yellow bus and headed into Tena, a larger jungle town where tourism is pretty common.

WE'RE GOING TO THE ZOO, ZOO, ZOO

In Tena, we crossed a swinging bridge into el Zoologico del Tena (Tena’s zoo) where there were lots of animals, some in cages, some wandering around, and tons of crazy plants. We were given a guided tour and met some quality animals, many of which I had never seen before. Some of the hog-like animals I thought were really cute until the guide said that they would attack you to eat you if you entered their cage. Then I thought they would be better as ham. Lol, okay, not really, but I did decide not to try and pet them.

the ostrich that just wandered the zoo and his fellow bird friends

COOLING OFF

After the zoo, we drove back to the hostal that we had eaten at the night before and had a big lunch (almuerzo). The hostal was even prettier in the daytime with an indoor pond (with a small crocodile wandering around in it) and lots of tree-like furniture. Also, the rest of us met the monkey that the others had befriended the night before. Monkeys seemed to be like dogs and just wandered around somewhat aimlessly.

After el almuerzo, we changed into our swimsuits for some pool time! As soon as I changed into my suit, I walked out of the changing room to see about a million school-aged children staring at me. It turned out that there was a large field trip or something to go swimming as well. So our group and the kids cooled off in the pool. At first I think we kind of scared them, but they warmed up quickly and pretty soon there were chicken fights with people from both groups.

Dallas and Murph jumping off the ledge...despite looks Dallas really did jump and Murph didn't push her

HITTING UP THE FOREST

After a bit of swimming, it started to rain (haha, big surprise!) and we hopped back into our yellow bus, which I was possibly the Magic School Bus. I mean, it took us to all these crazy cool places, and the only thing it was missing was Mrs. Frizzle. Anyway, we headed back to la Comunidad Villano to our schoolhouse. There we changed into hiking clothes and I loaded up my backpack with a raincoat, flashlight, hiking sandals, camera, water, etc. Heck, I was a Girl Scout and I’ve had it drilled into me to ‘be prepared’!

A bunch of the members of the community joined us, and we saw that they had on HUGE rubber boots. I looked down at my relatively clean hiking shoes and wondered if they knew something I didn’t know. Well, actually, I knew they knew something I didn’t know, I just didn’t know what it was. Wow, that was a confusing sentence.

Heading into the jungle

So we start following our guide through someone’s backyard into a muddy trail that went through lost of bushes/grass/trees into the jungle. It was extremely muddy, and I began to figure out what those rubber boots were for. Haha, my hiking shoes didn’t stay clean for long.

As always, it started to rain, but it was warm enough that it didn’t really bother us. Pretty soon we came to a river, and I decided it was best to switch to sandals. So I switched it up, and we kept hiking down into the jungle. It was pretty slippery and muddy and a bunch of us fell. I had a remarkably ungraceful all-out slip that might have won me money on America’s Funniest Home Videos had it been filmed! Oh well, maybe I can reenact it.

crossing a river and waiting outside the cave...the white spots are rain drops, not snow :-)

So after a gorgeous hike through lots of cool trees and bushes and mud, we came to a huge cave. The shaman of the community did a blessing, and then we entered the cave in groups of seven, so we wouldn’t use all the oxygen at the same time.

When my group came, I put on my really cool flashlight headlamp, and we headed into the cave. Up to this point I had been glad I brought my backpack because I could carry my camera in it, but as we went further and further into the cave the openings got smaller and smaller and I had trouble fitting. Plus we kept going through rivers and having to crawl. Eventually I had to take off my backpack and kind of pull/throw it through the cave to the next bigger opening. Kleber was behind me and held my backpack for me as I went through smaller spots. Then he would pass my backpack to me and go through the hole himself. This was one time when I really wish I wasn’t so prepared and had just left my backpack back at the school house.

no, it's not night, we're just inside the cave

Still, other than my whole backpack fiasco (haha, my backpack is now significantly more brown with mud despite a washing in a washing machine. Well, it’s been covered in concrete and stucco and who knows what else, what can a little mud and bat poop do to it?) going through the cave was absolutely amazing. Somehow our group ended up having 10 people instead of 7, and Klevar told us not to talk much because it could shake the rocks. I never figured out if he was kidding our not.

The inside of the cave was so cool, with lots of stalactites (or stalagmites? Whichever ones hang from the ceiling). There were bats all around and I lost count of the number of times they hit me in the head/face. It was extremely muddy (and/or bat poopy) and we had to crawl a lot. At one point I just rolled/slid in an effort to keep my backpack with me. I think thanks to this unique style of caving, I managed to get the dirtiest of our group.

After about 45 minutes of crawling/hobbling/rolling through the cave, we came to a larger cavern where saw light. There was a HUGE waterfall (there are so many waterfalls in this country, I love it!) and we climbed through the waterfall to the outside!

Megan and me, post-cave, pre-waterfall shower