October 12, 2009
Today is Monday and the beginning of the 2nd week and the aftermath of a great weekend in the selva.
Bumping along the way to the jungle and stopping in time to take the 20 year old tram across the Rio Verde. Awesome ride and awesome view! One dollar ride and off to the next stop. We saw the Devil’s Cauldron Waterfall and the fury of it with the Devil watching gleefully from the center vantage point. Then onto Puyo where we made quick pit stops to get Ecuador Futbol team t-shirts on the street ($5.00), wine (!), snacks and pottie. Onto the cabanas and Rio Puyo. It was hot and humid and not a rain drop in sight. Lovely! Different trails than before and a bit more challenging and rough, in time to have our guide, Alcides, find gargantuan leaves for us to cover up for a swim in La Hola Vida Cascad. It was the highlight of the trip, I must say. The water was cool enough to be refreshing and warm enough to be tolerant. Wet clothes and all we headed back to the campsite where no one was around due to the futbol game. Alcides made us a roaring fire and we drank wine by the rushing river, roaring fire and laughed and tried to communicate with our guide. The stars were brilliantly shining with the North Star straight over head was so pronounced it was touchable. The pitch darkness of the night led a certain eeriness and stillness but not threatening. Upon the blackened river we heard some folks in a canoe yelling and talking then…. They got stuck on a rock and we were yelling back at them… then they pulled over and ended up being our camp mates: three large college students from Poland seeing Ecuador for two weeks. Their guide was a bit forward and egotistical and kind of spoiled the dinner for us, as he let the drama of his life unfold for all of us to bear in an unbearable sense…
Sleep came early as the wine hit us hard due to the level of activity for the day.
Dawn came early as the wine hit us hard, but no problem with getting it together for a gourmet breakfast. Then, to the canoe and a ride down Rio Puyo to the hike of a task master! We visited a ‘museo’, however, it was really another tourist cabana and a friend of his made trinkets out of beads and seeds and animal pelts. Very nice head dresses, though, out of parrot feathers and excellent musical instruments that strap to the feet and make shaker noise. Expensive though… $25.00 / pair, too rich for my blood.
Off to dart blowing, swinging through trees and spear throwing. All good fun, but our mistake was to WALK instead of taking a car ride back to camp. It was unbearably hot and humid and we were in rubber boots, wet socks and the sweat and stick was just gross! A quick lunch then off to catch the bus back to Banos, as we didn’t have a car to take us back. So, as usual, the bus was full of locals all doing their thing: kids cramped on their parents’ laps, music loud and fast, step on food vendors selling all kinds of breads, fruit, drink. A bus change in Puyo led us to an already packed bus. Dawn and I did get seats, which was good, but Alcides had to stand and the standing room had one woman push so far into my ‘space’ that she ended up sitting on the arm rest and just stayed there. PACKED I tell ya!
Back to Banos by 6:30 and we were starved, so grabbed a pizza, beer, looked at our pictures and headed back. Long shower and shaved the legs. Felt so good to get into bed!
The class this am was good. The kids are ready to sit with pencil to paper… that seems to focus them. I tried a prepositional exercise but they just took it as a big play time! Running around, and generally, just excited and laughing. Fine, but we stopped that pretty quickly… Also learned they have some of the books Xeroxed from my book. And, here I was Xeroxing stuff for them. HELLO??? That would’ve been nice to know. So, I found Ivone and she ‘forgot’ to tell me that some students have booklets with dividers for verbs, vocab, prep, etc while the others have Xeroxed. This doesn’t make sense to me. So, Wednesday will be the day we are all on the ‘same page’.
Chao.
Today is Monday and the beginning of the 2nd week and the aftermath of a great weekend in the selva.
Bumping along the way to the jungle and stopping in time to take the 20 year old tram across the Rio Verde. Awesome ride and awesome view! One dollar ride and off to the next stop. We saw the Devil’s Cauldron Waterfall and the fury of it with the Devil watching gleefully from the center vantage point. Then onto Puyo where we made quick pit stops to get Ecuador Futbol team t-shirts on the street ($5.00), wine (!), snacks and pottie. Onto the cabanas and Rio Puyo. It was hot and humid and not a rain drop in sight. Lovely! Different trails than before and a bit more challenging and rough, in time to have our guide, Alcides, find gargantuan leaves for us to cover up for a swim in La Hola Vida Cascad. It was the highlight of the trip, I must say. The water was cool enough to be refreshing and warm enough to be tolerant. Wet clothes and all we headed back to the campsite where no one was around due to the futbol game. Alcides made us a roaring fire and we drank wine by the rushing river, roaring fire and laughed and tried to communicate with our guide. The stars were brilliantly shining with the North Star straight over head was so pronounced it was touchable. The pitch darkness of the night led a certain eeriness and stillness but not threatening. Upon the blackened river we heard some folks in a canoe yelling and talking then…. They got stuck on a rock and we were yelling back at them… then they pulled over and ended up being our camp mates: three large college students from Poland seeing Ecuador for two weeks. Their guide was a bit forward and egotistical and kind of spoiled the dinner for us, as he let the drama of his life unfold for all of us to bear in an unbearable sense…
Sleep came early as the wine hit us hard due to the level of activity for the day.
Dawn came early as the wine hit us hard, but no problem with getting it together for a gourmet breakfast. Then, to the canoe and a ride down Rio Puyo to the hike of a task master! We visited a ‘museo’, however, it was really another tourist cabana and a friend of his made trinkets out of beads and seeds and animal pelts. Very nice head dresses, though, out of parrot feathers and excellent musical instruments that strap to the feet and make shaker noise. Expensive though… $25.00 / pair, too rich for my blood.
Off to dart blowing, swinging through trees and spear throwing. All good fun, but our mistake was to WALK instead of taking a car ride back to camp. It was unbearably hot and humid and we were in rubber boots, wet socks and the sweat and stick was just gross! A quick lunch then off to catch the bus back to Banos, as we didn’t have a car to take us back. So, as usual, the bus was full of locals all doing their thing: kids cramped on their parents’ laps, music loud and fast, step on food vendors selling all kinds of breads, fruit, drink. A bus change in Puyo led us to an already packed bus. Dawn and I did get seats, which was good, but Alcides had to stand and the standing room had one woman push so far into my ‘space’ that she ended up sitting on the arm rest and just stayed there. PACKED I tell ya!
Back to Banos by 6:30 and we were starved, so grabbed a pizza, beer, looked at our pictures and headed back. Long shower and shaved the legs. Felt so good to get into bed!
The class this am was good. The kids are ready to sit with pencil to paper… that seems to focus them. I tried a prepositional exercise but they just took it as a big play time! Running around, and generally, just excited and laughing. Fine, but we stopped that pretty quickly… Also learned they have some of the books Xeroxed from my book. And, here I was Xeroxing stuff for them. HELLO??? That would’ve been nice to know. So, I found Ivone and she ‘forgot’ to tell me that some students have booklets with dividers for verbs, vocab, prep, etc while the others have Xeroxed. This doesn’t make sense to me. So, Wednesday will be the day we are all on the ‘same page’.
Chao.
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