Cruzin’ the Napo - River Cruise in the Amazon Basin

After our trip to the jungle in Borneo, we were pretty keen to get back to it here in Ecuador. Especially after learning that the east side of the Andes forms the headwaters of the mighty Amazon river.

And when we found an option to cruise the Amazon on the Manatee river boat, Julie was sold. Andrew also thought it sounded pretty neat so before we knew it we were jetting off into the jungle and then transported by mini-bus to the river’s edge, where our canoe awaited.

The boat itself and the entire concept was great. However while the weather was on our side (amazing lack of rain for a rainforest!), time was not. The boat moves along at a pleasant and leisurely pace it is relaxing but doesn’t get us deep enough into the jungle to see the best spots. So we spent a lot of time in the motorized canoe zipping further upstream to the protected park areas.

The tours kept us busy exploring the plants and wildlife of the area, led by our friendly and knowledgeable guides. Notably was the visit to Lago Limoncocha Natural Reserve where we traveled around the lake to see black caimans (mini crocodiles), observe several species of birds and try our hand at piranha fishing. 

The trip was memorable for the people we met - our dining partners were a couple from Sacramento who shared their stories of living in the South Pacific as rafting guides, the wildlife and scenery that surrounded us and unfortunately the stomach flus we caught!

All and all it was a pretty good tour – we’re glad we did it. The boat was nice, our quarters were comfortable, the food was tasty and the excursions were satisfactory. We probably would have rather spent more time cruising on the boat than off of it. For this reason perhaps the 5d/4n cruise is a better option than the 4d/3n we did.

Andrew’s most interesting part of the cruise (apart from the food of course!): seeing the clay licks that the parrots and parakeets use to aid their digestion. He’d never imagined that he’d be deafened by the chirping of parakeets as thousands of them descended from the trees to the patch of mud. Julie found the birds to be noisy and irritating, much preferring the cruising time aboard the grand boat.

This story’s photo gallery: http://kalicinski.smugmug.com/Around-The-World/Ecuador-South-America/Manatee-Riverboat-Cruise/ 

these stories need to be more engaging

Close friends knew that we were either coming back from this trip engaged, or flying back on separate flights. Fortunately for us (and everyone else!) the former has happened.

On a memorable Canada Day in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Islands, Andrew popped the question to Julie.

we’re engaged!

We were on a harbour front dock patio at the Red Mangrove restaurant sharing the evening with a single Heron, who was fishing for his dinner as we finished ours. Andrew pulled out the box but didn’t want to take the ring out as the dock had slots to the water.  He asked me if I would marry him timidly. With the ring on my finger and the appearance of our waiter we had this picture taken. Happy and excited to celebrate our engagement and Canada Day together, we headed off to a local bar to dance the night away :) -Julie

Galapagos the good

Aside from the disaster that was our lodging, we had a pretty good time here. On our first foray into town we ran into a couple of off-duty tour guides who gave us a few hints on what to do and where to go in town. We'd run into them numerous times over the 3 days.
Puerto Ayora is the biggest town in the Galapagos Islands and has everything you need. All along Avenida Charles Darwin (the main drag along the harbour) are loads of tour operators, restaurants, dive shops and souvenir stores.
At one end of town is the Charles Darwin research center. We wandered through and weren't all that impressed at the sight of a few pitiful examples of tortoises and lizards but we're sure that we missed the major attraction of the place in the tortoise breeding centre. 
At the opposite end of town is the pier where you can easily get a last minute spot on a boat tour of the harbour if you hang around either at 8-9am or 1-2pm. We booked our tour ahead of time, but while waiting for our allotted time slot I got asked a few times to "come on my boat - nice boat!".  The tour of the harbour was alright. We went out to an island off-shore to snorkel around a bit. The water's pretty cold - definitely refreshing!  It was a little scary jumping off the little boat into the ocean's waves near where they crashed onto the jagged lava rocks, but we went in anyway.  Saw some fish, maybe a ray down below somewhere but not the marine iguanas we hoped to see feeding on the algae below.
On our way back to harbour Andrew spotted a bigger boat with a man standing on the top level waving a white t-shirt. I pointed at it but our boatman said it's probably just the signal for divers to come back. I said no...that's usually an orange flag or something. The guy waved his white t-shirt again and this time our boatman saw it and realized that something's up. We zipped over to learn that their boat had run out of gas. Our guy handed over a big jug (good to see we had lots to spare!)  but then they realized that they needed an oil-mix so we ended up towing the bigger boat back to harbour. Needless to say we were getting a bit wary of the dive operators here in Galapagos.
Anyhow, we let the boat go and continued our tour. At the next snorkel spot the captain sent us into this channel that narrowed up as it ended in a small lagoon. The water was fine when we got in, but it got murkier and murkier until it was a solid yellowish green. We couldn't see much until I suddenly saw a flash of a fin in front of me. Startled I put my head above the surface at which point Julie's done the same ahead of me.  "Was that a shark?!" she exclaims.  While we're above water, the captain and the other couple on our tour are yelling at us to come forward to them across the lagoon. We're obviously a bit hesitant since we just ran into a shark! But the captain says don't worry, just go slow and quiet and you can see 4 MORE!  We put our heads down underwater and can't see a thing. Back above water -"where?".  "Over there in the middle, there's three of 'em." Back underwater - nothing. "10 feet that way." Ah forget it I think to myself; they're getting a better view from up top than we are here in the water, so I make my way to the rocks on the shore to get out.
The tour finished off with some good sightings of marine iguanas (both resting on land and swimming), which was pretty cool.

We tempted fate and ignored the stranded dive boat that we saw and booked a dive tour after being recommended to a dive shop by our trusty tour guides that we ran into on the street.

The dives themselves were quite strenuous: rough seas near a rocky outcrop in the ocean, back flip off of the boat on the captain’s command and dive straight down and grab onto a rock near the guide in order to get out of the wave action currents. Julie had a tough time on the first one: the boat surged over top of her after she went in and she bumped up against it. No harm done though!  The point of diving out here at Gordon Rock is to see the schools of hammerhead sharks swimming above you.  Unfortunately we dove during a period of poor visibility and saw nothing. The sharks could’ve been only a few metres away but we would not have known. It was a bit of waste of effort to travel all the way out here in rough seas, perform a hard dive and then see nothing.  On our way back home we passed another dive boat who waved us over.  Guess what – they didn’t have enough air tanks on board!!  Yowza.

We were pretty happy with our boat and the dive masters. Later that day we ran into them at a bar downtown and tried some salsa dancing.

Photo album of Galapagos: http://kalicinski.smugmug.com/Around-The-World/Ecuador-South-America/Galapagos-July-2009/9086503_YeXDh/1/607055545_apPgQ

Galapagos the bad

I'm not sure what to say about our little trip to the Galapagos. We got partially scammed upon arrival so that put us down. Had a bit of trouble finding a place to stay but happened to find an apartment for the same price as a hotel room. Then we saw a bunch of wildlife down at the fish market which was super neat and had a great, cheap

 

 

 

dinner at a small restaurant [FreeSoul Cafe] raising our spirits. We picked up some groceries and headed into the 'burbs to our apartment, following the "X" on the map that the lady had given us.
At this time it was dark, and as everybody knows, things look a lot different in the dark! On our first try we couldn't find the place. We retraced our steps and tried again. still no luck. So we went all the way back to the beginning and followed the map once again. Nothing. We started questioning the map (it was one of those tourist ones that usually don't show all of the streets) thinking that maybe the place was on a road that wasn't on it. We got a taxi and asked the fellow to take us to a road called "something Maria". Puzzled at us tourists, he drove us around in a circle a couple of times before we let him go. It's about 11'o'clock now and one of my grocery bags just sprung a leak: one of the big bottles of beer broke through and smashed on the pavement, prompting lights to come on in the apartments around us, sending us scurrying away into the darkness.  Stress levels are rising and we're getting frustrated - how did we manage to go around the world and never get lost and now here we completely lost track of where we are staying!? All of our bags are in that room. Julie's contacts are bugging her and she's not keen on the idea of getting a different place to stay for one night. We've tried to call the lady's phone to get directions but she's not answering.  Then around midnight a motorcycle pulls up alongside us and the big fellow says "hey you guys!! why you wandering around late at night?".  Aww, for crying out loud - it's the tour operator who we ditched earlier in the day after he wouldn't let us go for less than $90. Coyly we said that we were just looking for our hotel after having a late dinner in town. He asked which one and we said it actually an apartment. Then he offered us a ride but we declined saying that it's just close by - no worries, so he zipped away on his motorbike.  We kept on wandering around, every so often coming across our broken beer bottle and using it as a landmark. A while later we heard a motorcycle approaching and sure enough it was fat man again. We had to fess up that we couldn't find the apartment. He offered to speed up our searching process by giving Andrew a ride on the back of the motorbike and search the streets while Julie made small talk with his son at their house. It was awkward for both of us as nobody likes to ride on a motorbike sitting behind a fat man. Either way we didn't find it. We thanked him for his help and walked back into town. Julie was dedicated to finding the place, but I'd given up. At this time of the night we're not going to wander around forever so we might as well just go get another hotel room for the night and at least get some rest. So we woke up some old fellow at a hostel and slept a few winks.
In the morning Andrew got up early and went to find either the lady who rented us the place or the place itself. On my first attempt I found the place - no problem at all, mostly because in the daylight I could see the building standing out amongst the others.  Triumphantly I returned the hostel with Julie's toothbrush  and a clear sense of where the place was. While I was gone a text msg showed up from the lady saying that her phone died last night and didn't get the message - here's the address. 
So, does the story of this apartment end here?  No. When something goes awry in Ecuador it stays that way. After getting settled in the apartment we try to use the stove, but it doesn't work. No gas it seems. Then Julie wants to have a hot shower. No hot water, because there's no gas. We call the lady again and tell her that there's no gas. She says she'll call the gas company but it might take until tomorrow to deliver. Julie insists that it arrive today.  So we get a call later on saying that the gas has arrived but we have to hook it up - the connections are in the back of the building. What??!!  Why do we have to hook it up - the gas company should do that! She says no, they just deliver. Well, it's her house, she should come hook it up. No, she says it's not her problem. Oh my word. 
We happen to run into a neighbour in the apartment building and ask him about whether the gas company hooks up the gas. He says yes, the gas company hooks it up - he never touches his connections because it's gas and he doesn't want to blow something up.  No kidding, neither do we!  So we call the lady back and say she's gotta come over here and take care of this. We paid for an apartment that has a stove and hot water so make it happen. She came over, tinkered with the connections and declared that it works. But it didn't. She tinkered some more and then declared that she must call the company tomorrow. Well, that's our last day and we won't need it - could we please have a discount on the room?  No. Why not? Because we used the place. Yes, but only 2 nights of the 3. Not her fault we got lost. But you drew the map! Not her problem. OK, but there's no hot water and that was her selling point! Again, not her problem. This lady made us so intently upset that we were on the verge of purposely wrecking the place. And if she didn't come in to clean up so early on the morning we were to leave, I'm sure that we would have left a dead fish in one of the closets or at least given away her DVD player.  So we learned our lesson: once an Ecuadorian has your money, you're screwed.  It's a lesson that we'd learn again, and again.

rollin, rollin, down white water…

Julie’s cousin hosted a poker night the first weekend we were here in Ecuador and Andrew met some of Ryan’s buddies – all expats who are now trying to live in Ecuador.  One of them, Jeff, is a big, stern American fellow who’s big into rafting (he’s got a rafting gear store in the hostel he runs in Quito).  So in between shots of Ecuadorian moonshine Jeff invited us out to go rafting in the mountain rivers by a town called Tena.  He talked it up pretty good, saying how beautiful the scenery is and how the rivers are so remote that there’s nobody else out there.  So we modified our schedule slightly so that we’d meet up with the group in Tena.

We hauled butt from Banos to Puyo and then on to Tena in order to get out on the river. But after a pancake breakfast, rounding up the gear, getting everybody sorted and arranging a ride, we didn’t get out to the river early at all. And then while en route to the river, it started raining, getting us fellas in the back of the truck prematurely wet, and cold.

As we turned off the highway, local villagers rushed up to the loaded truck clamouring for the chance to be a porter and earn a few dollars. “Solo tres! Solo tres!” Jeff yelled out trying to limit the amount of people climbing onto the truck.  We could barely get ourselves together before an old guy took off with the raft on his back and two women carried the rest.  As we gingerly picked our path down the muddy, slippery clay horse trail we wondered how that old guy managed to nimbly navigate it with a couple hundred pounds on his back.

The canyon did not disappoint: it was gorgeous. Thick green foliage surrounded us as the turquoise waters tumbled around and over boulders between the vertical canyon walls.

Two of our crew had never rafted before, and Andrew was the only male other than our guide Jeff so it’s probably not surprising that we had some navigation issues early on as people were learning the commands. We got jackknifed onto a big rock and admittedly Andrew was a little slow getting over in the boat thereby causing the boat to be breached. The water rushed into it, submerging it and sending everyone to one side of the boat to try and stay above the water. Oddly enough Andrew was the only one who got swept out of the boat, holding onto a rope as Jeff helped him back in. The force of the rushing water was so great that the gear was getting ripped out and the boat was getting bent around the rock. Finally Jeff managed to get the boat to cantilever around the rock, and even more fortunately held onto it as it suddenly regained buoyancy and took off down the river. So, we learned our lesson! But barely 10 minutes later we mishandled another tricky spot and got spun into a corner with no way out. This time our spotter had to throw us a rope to pull us out.

Shortly after the Jondachi River joins with the Hollin River we stopped for lunch. Oh wow was that ever a hard-earned lunch break!  With the two rivers combining, the water volume doubled which meant we had to paddle even harder to maintain our course. It was freakin’ tiring.

The last stretch of the river was actually quite relaxed – more gently burbling rapids instead of wild roaring stuff. although there were some spots with some big dips that were pretty fun, especially when a wall of water crashed over the bow of the boat thoroughly soaking Julie & Andrew sitting in front. Julie got quite a few waves in the face – haha, funny even now…

So we started paddling around 1pm and didn’t get off the river until 5:30pm – it was a long day but super fun!

We capped off the evening by meeting up with some other friends who took us to their favourite restaurant in Ecuador – the Marquis Grille in Tena, famous for uber-cheap superb steaks, and an in-house sloth who just roams the rafters above you. Only in the jungle! :^)

Link to accompanying photo gallery

Ecuador kayaking: http://www.paddlermagazine.com/issues/1999_3/equador.htm

Review of rafting: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g789218-d982933-r13333984-Jondachi_River-Tena.html

Baños; a city in hot water

For a moment there we were feeling pretty brave, reserving a car to do a self-drive tour around the highlands and down to the jungle (The Baños-Tena-Quito Loop). But then the exorbitant cost of a rental car, coupled with the lack of a map and the experience of the stress of driving in a foreign country caused us to change our minds. And for the price of one day’s rental we hired a driver to take us all the way from Quito to Baños (about 3hrs away) in relative comfort and peace of mind. And Jorge knows  the area, stopping at the side of the road in Latacunga to buy some cheese wrapped in a banana leaf (queso de hoja).

On the way in to Baños we were offered  brilliant views of the Tungurahua Volcano spewing ash and smoke. I later regretted not stopping to take a photo as the conditions were never as good again.

Baños felt like a tourist trap, with tour operators on the corner of every block. We stayed at a musky old hostel in Baños called La Petite Auberge which is all creaky wooden floors and woollen blankets. It’s alright, nothing special, but the price is good and the host fellow really tries hard. The included breakfast of toasted baguettes, butter, jam and coffee left a little to be desired – so says Julie. I thought the homemade jam was sweet-as! [aaww…she didn’t like that comment]

We had three goals in Baños: Julie wanted to go horseback riding, Andrew wanted to soak in the hot baths, and Julie wanted a massage since Nuala had highly recommended a place here.  Through a little bit of clever scheduling we managed to get all of them done in one day!  The horse ride was unspectacular although it did provide a glimpse of the volcano puffing smoke through the clouds, but it was ruined with an unannounced additional charge for a visit to the guide’s buddy’s landslide-destroyed resort. 

After 2 hours on an uncomfortable saddle I was beat and was afraid that a soak in the hot baths would just put me right to sleep.  But the water is so hot in these baths (48degC!) that it totally reinvigorates you and I felt fantastic afterwards. Best $2 spent all day!  Unfortunately the massage found all of the knots that have been accumulating over the past few months and it was super painful. Probably should’ve stayed put with the $2 soak, or spent another $25 the next day for a follow-up massage to further massage my sore muscles.

Back at the hostel, we decided to make use of the fireplace in our room. The hotelier brought us some wood but while Julie was in the lobby waiting for some matches she ran into another couple staying at the hostel. As luck would have it, they were about to head out on a volcano tour.  Pablo was a photo-journalist based in Quito and had covered many of the eruptions of Tungurahua volcano. His enthusiasm for the volcano was fanatical: he dialled up the seismographs on the Ecuadorian Geophysical Institute (www.igepn.edu.ec) using his cellular modem to see what sort of activity was going on up on the mountain at the moment, and then showed us his old pictures of past eruptions. The live (6min delay) data stream from the institute was pretty neat to see. After a couple of hours of driving around the hillsides to see if the cloud cover was dissipating we made one last stop.  Staring off into the blackness, we suddenly saw two glowing chunks come popping out of the volcano, softly glowing through the clouds.  “Did you see that!!??” Pablo excitedly shouted as all of us felt a shiver of excitement at seeing the molten lava shoot through the air.  Admittedly it probably wasn’t all that much of an explosion. A distant rumble could be heard shortly after but then the beast went back to sleep.  A few minutes later we checked the computer to see the jolt on the graph that we just witnessed.  Having seen something, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel.

In the morning Andrew went out to the bus station to check the schedules to see when we could get to Puyo or Tena, and was assured by a New Yorker fellow that travelling on the buses was safe, given that you don’t leave yourself open. (Nuala and Ryan have done a marvellous job at telling us all of the horror stories that they hear at the embassy, so both of us are not too wary to ride the buses.)  Even though the buses seemed fine, Julie called up a another driver who’s ad we saw at the hotel and arranged for another ride.  Mr. Freddie was another pleasant fellow who showed us all of the waterfalls along the Pastaza River that flows down from the Andes to the jungles in the east.  It’s a great drive; very scenic, offering up dramatic views of the mountain escarpment dropping off into lush green jungle made all the more better with a large rainbow arching across the sky.

Oh, almost forgot. At the largest waterfall of the them all you can crawl through a narrow tunnel to get to a platform that’s behind the roaring water. You get wet but it’s pretty neat!  The little cafe offers lovely views of the valley and here Andrew discovered another new fruit – babaco, which makes a tasty fruitshake.

The pictures of this edition are here: http://kalicinski.smugmug.com/gallery/8835411_whvyQ/1/591486894_pMXUj

Exclusive frog concert in Mindo

Another good day trip out of Quito, well, more of a weekend trip, is to go to Mindo.  It’s lower down the Andean slopes so it’s back into the jungle and the cloud forests.

It’s a big of a long drive through a winding valley but the views are nice and at the right time of day the sunsets through the misty mountain tops are spectacular.

We stayed at Mindo Lago as recommended by Ryan and Nuala. It’s a pretty nice place, built up around a little pond with a few cabins on one side and the main dining hall opposite.

As we wandered around during the day we could hear lots of frogs singing but nothing like what we would hear that evening during our “frog concert” tour. The owner is a bit of a frog fan and with his little tape recorder he coaxed specific frogs into singing by playing back the relevant croak. Then he’d point them out on the lily pads when they responded. It was pretty neat! Fortunately the owner’s daughter was back home so she could translate for us too. He took us on a short walk in the woods around back and showed us these uber-bright fireflies. They look like glowing embers from a fire floating in the air. Another interesting sight was a phosphorescent bacteria decomposing a piece of wood. Shining a light on the wood reveals nothing, but in the dark the interior of the wood is glowing blue with these bacteria.  After that he spotted a massive cockroach up on the tree above us. We quickly moved on…

There’s also a butterfly house at the place that houses a bunch of colourful butterflies and various local flora.

The food here is pretty good too. I recommend their “meat on volcanic stone” which is a nice piece of steak sizzling on a hot slab of rock. We were also introduced to a new variety of potato – the yuca. It’s a bit more fibrous but tastes pretty good fried up as wedges.

Mindo’s claim to fame is the handful of zip-lining outfits set up in the valleys around town.  We went to Mindo Ropes & Canopy (Mindo Lago gave us a discount there) and had fun zipping across the cables. One trick they do here is where a guide goes with you and holds you in a “superman” position thereby allowing you the sensation of flying over the valley. It’s pretty neat.

We sort of got stranded in town when our cell phone ran out of credit and we couldn’t call our driver to come pick us up.  The stores in town didn’t have any more recharge cards until 4pm (beats me why – I guess the bus bringing more arrived then?) and we were also stuck with only 20-dollar bills and couldn’t buy anything since nobody had change.  We found lunch at one of the Lonely Planet-recommended spots in town and waited until our ride arrived.

Pictures of Mindo: http://kalicinski.smugmug.com/gallery/8827786_jsH3W/1/591148365_ZaXGY 
– Look for the “slideshow” button at top=right of the page. Hit F11 for glorious full-screen viewing.