Dieciocho de febrero

A trip to the northern Ecuadorian Amazon basin requires a stopover in the town of Lago Agrio, or "Bitter Lake". This is a seedy mining town that seems to contain more uninhabited buildings than inhabited ones. Upon seeing a new building being constructed one wonders why they just don´t do some rewiring and decorating of one of the empty buildings seen on every street. This is also the place where a man driving a ute, not obviously a taxi, reversed down the street alongside us for several hundred metres, expecting a delayed reaction to his suggestion that we get in. We were walking exactly the wrong way at the time, so perhaps there is some kind of backwards-forwards symmetry here.

Luckily we were rescued by the staff of Samona Lodge in Cuyabeno reserve and we boarded another bus to the town (? jetty more like) of El Puente, where we boarded a motorised canoe to the lodge. This was a thatched hut on stilts affair, with a good kitchen and dining room and running hot water from the Cuyabeno river, perfectly luxurious for the price we had paid, but lacking in privacy so that we were treated to some virtuoso dirty talk in Spanish by the couple in the adjoining hut on Monday evening. Tarantulas were spotted almost immediately, and a boa constrictor was found attempting to suffocate a pole holding up a solar panel. The other notable wildlife were the many North Americans, who filled the air with so much verbiage that formerly loquacious Australians seemed timid and almost rudely shy in comparison. We spent three full days boating along the waterways, hiking in the rainforest, and swimming in the Laguna Grande (a big lake, the Spanish is really coming along) at sunset. The sunsets were invariably beatiful but different each time, a cloudless sky and glassy water one night, built up tropical clouds creating "God rays" (Judy from Montana´s term) and vivid pinks and golds on another.

We saw many spiders, colourful and poisonous frogs and toads, numerous monkeys, gigantic crickets, a pink freshwater dolphin, small caimans (like crocodiles), herons, kingfishers, macaws, swallows, and nearly a toucan. We also caught piranhas, non-seasoned fisherpersons hilariously panicking when seeing this killer fish on their line and more than once swinging the fish into some other group member´s head. No human was hurt.

Our tour guide Miguel was charismatic and spoke good English, and made many high-minded statements about his great desire to conserve the Amazon and its ecosystems. However, we were piloted around in canoes with poorly maintained and smoky engines, and one of the other guides lathered himself all over in soap and shampoo before jumping right into the river to wash himself off. If these guys won´t take proper care who will? Miguel also found time to divulge intimate details of his romantic life, including that he was in love with a girl who was jealous of his status as tour guide to overseas backpackers, some of whom were pretty (not in our group, besides the recently engaged members) and attracted to charismatic Ecuadorianos while abroad. He added that he was conflicted between the attractions of monogamy and the aforementioned female backpackers, his past exploits with whom having earned him the nickname "the Alligator of the Cuyabeno". We left him with this conflict unresolved.

After passing through Lago Agrio without incident we returned to Quito via the same road by which we had come. However, last time it was night, and this time we could see outside as the bus ascended from 300 to 2800m above sea level. We climbed up green mountains, the road zigzagging back on itself and improbably carrying us over ridges and lovely rocky rivers. Even the locals gasped and pointed. We didn´t dare open a book as within three words we were sure to have to look up for another beautiful sight. Sure-footed cows grazed on the slopes, and there was a lot of road work and signs suggesting a grand patriotic cause was behind such work.

We stopped in some mountain stopover town and ate something served in a plastic bag and consisting of boiled corn kernels, fried corn kernels, pork crackling, pieces of pork chop, and a little salad. This was eaten with a spoon while dogs waited at our feet for leftovers. Mel said "Now that we´ve had that we don´t need to have it again", and she was right. The second half of the trip was in darkness, and gave all the passengers the pleasure of viweing two of the worst movies surely ever committed to tape. The first involved three macho Americans parachuting into Bolivia to break up a coca trafficking empire, and largely consisted of the three Yanks shooting automatic weapons from the hip constantly without changing magazines, slaughtering wave after wave of coca militia who unaccountably couldn´t hit a single one of the good guys despite using the same weapons and technique as their enemies did. The coca militiamen were, however, excellent at doing flips in the air when grenades exploded nearby. The coca empire was inevitably crushed with an incredible amount of bloodshed. The second movie was apparently Colombian, and the plot incomprehensibly followed some guerillas led by a psychopath, a good looking guy two-timing his girlfriend, and a drug dealer whose pregnant wife was killed by the psychopath guerilla in the opening scenes. This movie included more than one scene of rape being perpetrated by the guerillas, and if I spoke enough Spanish I may have thought to ask one of the many very small children on the bus what they thought of this. Luckily, I don´t.

We are now in Latacunga, south of Quito, waiting to travel to Lake Quilotoa tomorrow. We braved Quito public transport this morning without being pickpocketed, take that guide book and paranoid hostel guy! We have had a major setback: our Inca Trail hike has been cancelled due to the mudslides there. We have recovered fairly quickly by considering alternative hikes elsewhere in Peru and Bolivia. South America has an answer for everything so far.