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Greetings from "The Middle of the World."

Writer's picture: marckittnermarckittner

Quito is a city of 1.5 million, perched in the Andes at about 11,000 feet. We arrived and got a taxi from the "official" taxi kiosk. Our taxi driver was crazy, weaving his way through traffic at high speed and without shocks. We finally screeched to a halt in front of our hotel, and we were only too glad to get out.


After meeting our 8 other tour participants (the oldest was 93), we set off for the Equator. The Equator runs through 13 countries, but it was here, before the Incas arrived, that indigenous tribes realized that the sun's shadow was different below the Equator, at the Equator and above the Equator.


These tribes built temples in the Andes that allowed them to tell time, both on a daily basis and according to the 13 different moons of the year. Incredibly, when GPS was invented, these measurements of the Equator's location were off only about 700 feet.



The next day we flew to Coca. Coca was the end point of the original (unsuccessful) Spanish expedition in late 1500s, sent to find cinnamon, which would be worth its weight in gold when shipped back to Spain. Its real name is Francisco de Orellana, the name of the first Spanish expedition's leader.  It's called Coca because it's at the confluence of the Coca and Napo Rivers. We visited a local market to learn about local foods and medicines, as well as to purchase gifts for our visit to a local family a few days later.



We set off east down the Napo River. The Napo is one of 5 main tributaries of the Amazon River in Ecuador, and we were struck with just how different it was from our Peru experience. The river was wide, but quite shallow with lots of snags protruding, making the captain follow a rather zig-zag course.


I was also immediately struck by how many fewer birds there were, even accounting for our mid-day voyage. There was much more development here, particularly oil drilling, which seemed to be everywhere, while in Peru we visited many rivers that flowed out of the nature preserve, so there was much less development.


After about 45 minutes we came to the Manduro River (Creek?), a small tributary to the Napo. The water was too shallow for our motorized canoe to navigate, loaded as it was with its well-fed passengers, so we disembarked, walked a short way up the Manduro to a small landing where we were able to get back on board after they had pushed, pulled and coaxed the large canoe over the sandbar. Soon we were at the Yarina Ecolodge, welcomed with ice-cold hand towels and lunch, after climbing the 47 steps from the landing.



I skipped the afternoon activity, and I found some interesting flowers.



Ashley went on the excursion, and she saw some birds. They returned well after dark, having witnessed not only a colorful sunset but also a rare galactic alignment of Saturn, Mars, Uranus, Venus & Jupiter. The most magical part was seeing the heavens reflected in the pond along with countless fireflies. Incredibly, we have been gone 4 weeks at this point.



After breakfast the next day, January 23, we donned rubber boots for a 3 hour jungle walk. Fortunately, at least for us humans, it hadn't been raining so it was not as muddy as it might have been. It was a difficult tramp nevertheless with a fair amount of balancing on single-board walkways and mudpits with branches to step on to get to the dry ground on the other side. Both our trip and local guide were there for us every step of the way, and we made it without major mishap. We heard but did not see any birds or monkeys, though we did come across fresh ocelot tracks of a mother and her cubs. We also saw several frogs, including a poison-dart frog.



We rested in the afternoon and went out for a night walk after dinner. We saw a pink tipped tarantula and a poison dart frog as well as a bunch of other spiders.



After breakfast the next day, we headed out to our Day in the Life adventure in a local village.  On the way, our local guide spotted a pygmy monkey, the smallest known to man, so we detoured for awhile trying to get a better look.



At the village, most of the class of 13 kids had come to school on their day off to practice their English and get the school uniforms we had bought for them. After that we played futbol with them for a bit before they went home and we visited a local family for lunch.


Our hostess's special gift for us were grubs, a local delicacy. Only one of our 10 tried an uncooked one, first cracking its skull with his teeth as our guide had demonstrated. (I couldn't even look!) The rest were then skewered and roasted, along with fish in plantain leaf, several different treatments of plantains and roasted vegetables. We were not among the several others who tried the grilled version, which they described as tasting like pork.



After lunch we had a short talk by the village shaman, who performed a simple cleansing ritual on one of our group. Then, bidding farewell, we returned to our boat and made our way back to our lodge.



We had a farewell dinner that night, loaded the motor canoe for the trip back to Coca and flew to Quito, a 30 minute flight.


Next up the Galapagos! 


Stay well.

Marc

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