Into La Amazonia - Part 1

Ok well here goes…. Chapter 1 of 3

After a last minute change of plans and a frantic rush from the terminal to my bus, I’m finally heading to Tena. The bus was surprisingly empty for a start so I enjoyed the chance to have a bit of my own space for a while. A young family was sitting near me, the mother tried to have a conversation with me but the only information I was really able to give her, was that I was from New Zealand, I play guitar, and that I was heading to Tena to teach English for a while. She was patient with me, but as usual the tricky part for me was in understanding what she had to say.

Heading out of Quito was exciting for me, I was fascinated by the size of it, but I was more interested in experiencing some culture, and seeing some of the real countryside. It took about an hour and a half of winding through suburban Quito, picking up people from what seemed like every ten meters, before we were finally in the hills and on our way to Tena.

Driving down the Andes, down to the lowlands was a great trip. For most of it there were very few towns that we passed through. Occasionally I saw some very basic looking houses built near the road, and the odd small settlement with a gas station and a diner. At one gas stop a lady came on the bus selling various snacks. I was starving so I decided to buy a wee packet of chips. When I asked how much they cost she mumbled something to me, I wouldn’t have understood even if it was English. I figured if I just gave her fifty cents she’d just give me the change, but she just took it and walked off. I realized I’d been had, but didn’t really care because I was so hungry.

After five hours we were finally in Tena. It was a completely different vibe to Quito. In Quito everyone seemed to be in a frantic rush the whole time, but Tena was way more relaxed and the locals seemed to be a bit more content with chilling out. I guess there aren't very many places you can head to in Tena so that’s probably partly why. The thing that hit me the hardest though was the humidity. I found Quito challenging at times because of the altitude. But here the humidity seemed to suck the energy from me much more so than the altitude.

After catching a taxi to my hostal, I was finally able to put all my gear down and relax for a bit. However I found it very difficult to relax because I knew that the inevitable time was arising for me to make a phone call in which I could only speak in Spanish. I was getting late in the day so after borrowing a cell phone I took a big breath a made the call.
Jacobo answered the phone, the conversation went something like this:

Jacobo: Hello?
Me: Hi Jacobo it’s Rob here, I’m in Tena now
Jacobo: Oh hi Rob, how are you?
Me: Good, and you?
Jacobo: Good. (then he said something that I couldn’t really understand at all)

*about a ten second pause*

Me: Uhhhhh…. Ummmm, I’m in Tena now
Jacobo: (Something else I couldn’t understand)

*about a five second pause*

Me: Uhhhh.. Ummm can we meet here?
Jacobo: Yes
Me: Ok, what time?
Jacobo: 5pm (something else I couldn’t really pick up)
Me:……. Ok…. See you soon?
Jacobo: See you soon.

I had no idea how difficult it would be to have a conversation on a phone, it made me realize how much I rely on body language when I’m trying to talk Spanish. Even though it was very hard, I felt assured, knowing that we had at least been able to arrange a time to meet up.

A while later he turned up with his wife at the hostal. I was sitting out the front waiting for him, and even though I didn’t know what he looked like, I knew it was him as soon as I saw him. I went and introduced myself and we sat down to organize the details for my visit to the jungle. The first thing he did was pulled out his dairy and said, “so how long would you like to stay at the community?” My original plans were to stay there for three weeks, but I decided to cut it back a wee bit to seventeen days. I pointed into his dairy when I wanted to stay till and he made a wee note.

The next phase of the conversation involved all the little details. It was very important that I understood this information because I was making the trip tomorrow by myself for much of the journey. He drew me a simple map in my note book, (which I later realized was grossly out of scale.) I still hadn’t paid for the visit, and when he explained the payment instructions it was lucky that there was a bystander at the hostal who was able to do a wee bit of translating for me. I got some of the details but I realized that tomorrow a lot of this was going to come down to my intuition.

After the meeting we went for a walk down to the township where he got my bus ticket for me, and showed me where I could buy some rubber boots. As he handed me the ticket, I realized that I would have to catch a bus a 5.30 in the morning. He said to me that I need to come here ten minutes earlier, and that his brother will be here waiting for me to give me some food to take to the community. I went to the local convenience store and brought some boots, some food for the bus trip, and some paper & felt pens for the school, then made my way back to the hostal thinking “shit, what have I got myself into here.”

After a very hot and humid nights sleep, I awoke to my alarm at 4.45am. I was pretty nervous, because it was now that I would find out how well I really did understand Jacobos instructions. I grabbed my gear and started on my walk to the bus station. It felt a wee bit dodgy walking through an unknown town with a whole lot of gear, but at this hour I had no choice. Every couple of houses I seemed to wake up their dog which would run out and scare the shit out of me. I clutched on the on of my spare boots, ready to defend myself if I needed to, but it wasn’t necessary in the end, after a ten minute walk, I had arrived at the bus station.

I had no idea who this guy was that I was supposed to meet me, but I figured that there can’t be to many white guys that come here at 5.20 in the morning, so I counted on him finding me. There were several buses with their engines going, getting ready to start their days work, but there were hardly any people there. As I got to the main part of the terminal, sure enough, I was approached by a man. He was very shy and mumbled quite a lot, but I just showed him my ticket, and he led me to the right bus. He handed me a note to give to a man named “Valerio,” helped me with my gear, then he was on his way, barely saying goodbye.

There was only me and two other people on this bus, and at 5.30am on the dot, we were off. I didn’t really know for sure how long it would be until I arrived to my destination, Puerto Rico, but from the map that Jacobo drew, I assumed that maybe it would take two hours or so. There seemed to be no end to the communities that we passed, the bus would stop and pick up people wherever they stood. Instead of having bus stops to limit the amount of stops, it would at times stop every fifty meters or so to pick people up.

After we’d passed through a few communities, I decided that I would ask a local to get a better idea on how long I’d be on this bus for. At one stop a girl sat next to me and I said, “How long is it from here to Puerto Rico?” She gave me a blank look and said “I don’t know of Puerto Rico.” I thought to myself, “Oh well, I probably just pronounced the name wrong.” The next person I asked was a man who was working on the bus collecting money. He went to get money from me and I showed him my ticket and asked, “How long to here?” He held up one hand and said “five,” then he held up four fingers and said “four.” I was slightly confused; I didn’t know whether he meant forty five minutes, four hours & five minutes, or for hours & fifty minutes. The assurance I did get from it though was that this place obviously does exist, and at some stage I will get there.

After a few more hours, we still seemed to be coming across a lot of small communities. They all had the same style of houses, many of them were either two storied, or one story raised high of the ground. They were very simple, slapped together with slots of timber, and with just a tin roof separating them from that rain. By the time it got to about eight o’clock, there were a lot of school children getting on the bus and at times it would get so full that there would be people standing.

After about three hours of winding roads, I started to feel the effects of not getting enough sleep from the previous night. I dozed in and out of sleep, but tried to stay awake because I was scared of missing my stop off and I had no idea how soon or far away it would come. At one stop, a man sat next to me. I decided to get another update on how much longer I have.

He was a school teacher, and was very interested in what I was doing, he asked me many questions but I could only give him some basic information. I asked him how long to my destination and he gave me all these hand gestures and explained something to me. I nodded my head politely and said “ohhh yes…yep….ok,” even through I had no idea what he was really telling me. One thing I did understand though, was that my stop was the final stop.

After five hours, I was again starting to get a wee bit nervous. I thought back to the time explanation I was given earlier and tried the work out how it would explain a time of over five hours. By now the bus had emptied out again, and there were only a few of us on there. We finally got to a point at a big river. “This is it,” I thought. But as a man jumped off, we were turning around and heading back in the original direction as quickly as we arrived there. I thought that I’d missed the stop, but there were still a couple of others on the bus so I thought, surely there is going to be another stop.

After five and a half hours, and a lot of stressing out, we finally turned a corner in the other direction and headed to this little settlement by the Napo River. As the bus stopped, the man from the bus gestured to me that this was the stop. I stood off the bus, and was happy that I’d made it to this random little place in the middle of nowhere without getting lost.

As I got my gear off the bus, I was approached by a man and a small group of children. I knew straight away that they were from the community and I was glad that I was now well on the way. He grabbed my bag and let me down to the river where there was a big motor canoe. As I was walking there the children came and shook my hand and already I felt that I was going to feel welcomed into this community.

As we took off down the Napo River, I couldn’t believe that I was actually at the Amazon now. I looked around and there was nothing but forest for as far as the eye could see. It had already been a crazy adventure for me getting this far, and I knew that it was only going to get crazier from here, but by now I was starting to get used to being plunged into the unknown, and I couldn’t wait to see what this would experience would bring me.

About ten minutes into the boat ride, the man said something to the children, and they ran over to my gear, covering it with plastic sheets. I could feel a few spots of rain, but didn’t really think anything of it.
Then within about two minutes, it was pissing down with torrential rain, I was completely wet, but I wasn't very concerned by it, I just figured that this was part of the experience of living in The Amazon.

After about twenty minutes, we arrived at a clearing on the side of the river, where there was a track leading up into the forest. After getting out, I tried to find the poncho, which luckily I hadn't packed to deeply. I managed to get my guitar covered, and with a bright pink piece of plastic draped around my pack, I was ready for the final part of the journey.

The man offered to take my pack for me, but I decided I'd have a go at taking it myself. Because of the rain, the track was mostly just mud and water but I was so fascinated by the experience of walking through the forest, that I was easily able to put the aching shoulders in the back of my mind. If anything, the rain seemed to amplify the experience, making things seem a lot fresher.

As I gazed around, I felt like I'd walked onto the set of Avatar. Huge trees surrounded the track, and massive palms draped down like gigantic umbrellas. Occasionally we'd come across a clearing which they'd turned into a banana plantation. Bridges were often made with one big single log and a big piece of bamboo for a handrail. The kids would make it look easy, briskly tip toeing over without even using the handrail, when it got to my turn, I cautiously made each step, shuffling my hands along the rail as I went along. After about forty minutes, I was really starting to feel tired, and still hadn't eaten anything all day, I was really starting to hang out for the arrival of the community.

After about an hour, we finally got to one last little river crossing, and we were at the community. I threw my pack down and looked down at all my gear, which was completely soaked form all the rain, but I was so hungry, that seemed to be the least of my concerns. After a ten minute rest, I was informed that my lunch was ready. The man grabbed my pack and followed him down a track to where my dinning room was for the next few weeks.

Here I was introduced to Valerio. He brought out a big bowel of soup, and a plate of pasta and rice. I was so hungry and was very tempted to chow the whole thing down, but everyone was just sitting there watching me so I tried to eat as politely as possible. After finishing, the reality hit me that I was now in complete Spanish immersion.

I never noticed during the canoe ride, or the walk, because the whole time it was virtually silent. But now was the time where it was time for me to have a go at expressing myself. I said that the bus ride was much longer than I though it was, and thank you very much for the very nice lunch, but after that, it was all I could really come up with. My eyes were so heavy that all I could really think about now was going to sleep. I said that I need to change my clothes and that I was very tired. He nodded his head and grabbed my pack, signaling for me to follow. We walked a further one hundred meters down the track and we came to my cabin.

I was very impressed because it far exceeded my expectations of what it was going to be like. He said to meet him later in the afternoon to meet some of the people in the community, so I decided to take that opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep. I went into my sleeping area, droped my gear, and threw myself onto the mattress. I lay there completly exahusted and couldn't believe that I was actually finally here, after all the crazyness and not knowning, I'd finally arrived in this random place in the middle of no where. I then stop resisting my heavy eyes, finally falling to sleep, finally being able to relax.