A number of factors influenced us to plan a trip to South America this winter: my husband had just finished two jobs in Mexico and was free to take a break, I had a couple of weeks of school vacation, Gabriel was still eligible for an infant (almost-free) airline ticket, and we had enough frequent flyer miles to take all of us as far as Ecuador on American Airlines. In addition, I would be giving birth to our second child in just three more months so it was a bit of a case of do it now, or do it quite a bit farther down the road.
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DEC 10th: TRAVELLING TO QUITO
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I pack for hours (car seat, high chair, porta-crib, baby carrier, disposable diapers, Christmas and birthday gifts, four cameras, snorkelling gear- did I forget anything?) and make it to the airport just 10 minutes prior to departure time. My friend Maureen, 5 months pregnant, helps me run with the baggage and makes sure that I do not miss the flight. I still have to buy Gabriel's Miami-Quito ticket, but they tell me that there is no time- I will be lucky if I can get to the gate before they close the doors to the plane.
Tomas has been working in Mexico for the past two weeks and will be meeting us in Miami for the flight to Ecuador; the last few days have been frantically difficult and it feels wonderful to sink into a seat and rest for a bit. (My luck holds out and with the help of AAdvantage Gold I get a seat next to me blocked for Gabriel, who sleeps through most of the flight.)
In Miami we have a two-hour layover, enough time to change some money, get a bite to eat, and puchase Gabriel's ticket. The flight to Quito is long but uneventful and we arrive around 11pm. After retrieving our (too) many pieces of baggage the three of us walk across the street to the Hotel Aeropuerto and collapse in an over-priced, noisy room for the night.
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DEC 11th: LA SELVA JUNGLE LODGE
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We are scheduled to leave at 9:30am for a 5-day excursion in the Amazon jungle. A representative from the 'La Selva Jungle Lodge' meets us in the national departures wing of the airport at 8:30am, relieves us of our baggage, and takes care of all flight arrangements. It is the first time we have travelled with a first-class tour operation and it feels great. (Everything about La Selva will turn out to really be first-class, with the possible exception of cold showers and twin beds in our bungalow.)
After a moderate delay, we board a large, military airplane (somebody calls it a C100-something, but it just looks like a big fat green cargo plane to me) which has been adapted with a few rows of seats to carry passengers. The guides apologize profusely for the high noise level, which really doesn't seem bad to us in the front of the plane. We fly for about 45 minutes to a small airport in the town of Coca, a frontier-type place on the edges of the jungle, where we are met by more guides for a short truck drive to the river.
Once everyone is assembled on the dock, we board a canopied, motorized canoe for the 2-1/2 hour journey downstream. The boat seats three across, and our family has more room than most because our third passenger is a shrimp. En route the guides serve a delicious picnic snack of puff pastry stuffed with curried tuna salad, orange juice and wonderful fresh granadas- a fruit I had never seen before. Tomas shows me how to open it and suck out the insides. Best of all, Gabriel is treated like a real person, with his very own meal, so we all get our appetites satisfied.
About an hour into the trip it starts to rain. Everyone else has thought ahead and carried jackets; ours are at the bottom of our suitcases in the back of the boat. One of the guides offers me his rain poncho, with which we try (rather unsuccessfully) to cover the kid. After what seems like about a hlaf-hour the rain stops and it gets hot again. All along the river we see small settlements and occasional areas of intense activity with trucks and heavy machinery all brought in by boat. It is clearly jungle, but clearly not pristine.
The bird-watchers in the group vigilantly scan the trees, and call out the names of rare or interesting birds as they appear. I am glad to have brought a pair of binoculars, and try to follow their gestures. They are especially on the lookout for harp eagles, but we don't see any. Not being a bird-watcher myself I soon forget the names of the many birds that we do see.
Finally the boat stops and we disembark for a half-mile hike through the jungle. Tomas and I had known about the hike, and had practiced ahead of time (each carrying 3-4 bags) to make sure that we could handle everything along with the baby. To our delight, we find that the tour operators have arranged for a dozen extra workers to carry everyone's luggage, and we enjoy a wonderful stroll along the raised boardwalk, taking pictures and video and delighting in the new and different surroundings.
At the end of the path we are met by a fleet of smaller, dugout canoes that seat 6-8 people single-file. The guides do all of the work and we glide out through a narrow stream and across a large lake to the bungalows of La Selva.
The complex consists of two large buildings: a bar/lounge and a dining room, along with about 16 smaller guest bungalows and other assorted buildings for staff, all connected by raised boardwalk. Everything is built with local materials (except for the showers) and when I ask they say that the boardwalk is repaired/replaced about every 2-3 months. We are given a rather larger bungalow at the farthest end of the complex, both for extra space and, I suspect, to distance the sounds of a possibly crying child at night- proving that they thought about making things the most comfortable possible for everybody.
After being given time to freshen up, we are served a multi-course meal (hot soup, fresh juice, a meat dish with vegetables, and dessert) answering, I assume at the time, my question of whether the Ecuadorians eat their main meal at midday or at night. The 16 or so guests are then divided into groups of about 2-7 people depending on interests and energy level. The bird-watchers form the largest group, and they end up spending the most time away from the lodge. A pair of photographers from Spain make up a second group, led by the senior guide- an Ecuadorian native. We had originally been assigned to this group, but were switched (unfortunately as it turned out) at the last minute when the coordinator in Quito discovered that English was my first and only really fluent language. (Tomas had made our reservations directly with the people in Ecuador; they knew that he was a Mexican and apparently assumed that I was as well.) A German couple is matched with an ecologist and his travelling companion for the third group, and we are paired in a fourth group with a wonderful couple from Canada.
Each of the groups takes off on a different excursion for the afternoon; our group is led on a moderate hike through the surrounding jungle. It is rather slow going, as the mud is ankle-deep in places and Gabriel not only refuses to ride in the backpack but insists on keeping up a noisy monologue commenting on everything we see and reciting his favorite Halloween stories and bedtime poems. To top it off, we want to stop every five mintues to take pictures. The Canadians are very patient and understanding, but our naturalist guide is much less so. We see lots of interesting plants and butterflies, a small rodent and a few birds before heading back.
We have an hour before supper to unpack. Our bungalow is very roomy, with three mosquito-net covered cots, two night tables and a chair, a large closet area, and a large bathroom with a lovely deep tub and shower. We decide to bathe, and find that the water only comes out cold. Gabriel screams out his objections, and we try to make it a fast one.
Dinner, I find, is another multi-course meal complete with hot soup, meat, vegetables and dessert. I guess the Ecuadorians eat two main meals per day. We retire shortly after dusk. Gabriel has fallen asleep during dinner and we deposit him in his porta-crib, covering it with the mosquito netting from the third cot in our cabin. Tomas and I try briefly to share a cot, but I soon decide that the 30' bed is too small and kick him out. Around 2:30am Gabriel wakes up and insists on joining his father. Tomas spends the rest of the night making sure that his son doesn't roll over the edge.
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DEC 12th: LA SELVA JUNGLE LODGE
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Wake-up call is at 6:00am, but I rise at 5:30 for another cold shower (old habits die hard). After a 6:30 breakfast we find ourselves paired with the ecologist, a very nice man with a special interest in flowering plants, for another long hike. He likes a slow pace (it's easier to search the jungle floor for plants if you're not hurrying off on a forced march) and he doesn't mind Gabriel's chatter. His companion has joined the bird watchers, who left at 5:30am to search for some rare species in a far-off place. The Germans and the Canadians go off with the macho guide for a longer canoe excursion, while the photographers travel to a nearby settlement for pictures and to taste 'chicha'. Tomas would have liked to go with the Spaniards, but he doesn't find out about their trip until supper the next day. We return around 10:30am after a 7:30am departure, and have a long time to relax before lunch.
Meals are incredibly delicious and I clean my plate. Afterwards I notice that Tomas is eating only the insides of one of the tomato-like things and I ask if we are supposed to leave the skins (they were rather tough to get down, but I had seen Tomas cut up one for Gabriel without peeling it and assumed everything was edible.) The guide tells us that the tomato-things are decorations and not part of the meal. Fortunately, Gabriel doesn't finish his lunch and the red thing is left untouched on his plate.
In the afternoon we go for a combined hike/canoe trip, and at last see some monkeys (black-mantle tamarins and squirrel monkeys). They are too far off for pictures, but we are delighted anyway.
At supper that evening, Gabriel is bitten by something on the ear. I see him wince and cry out, but he soon falls asleep and we forget about it. I retire with our sleeping child, foregoing a second shower, while Tomas stays up late socializing at the bar. In the middle of the night, Gabriel wakes up screaming. He is burning with fever and drenched with sweat. It is too dark in our cabin to fiddle with the thermometer (I had neglected to pack a flashlight), but I give him a dose of baby tylenol and a cup of juice we had saved from the last meal.
A few hours later, I am vomiting violently into the toilet. I guess the red things didn't agree with me. It is not too bad at first, but soon I am running to the bathroom about every 45 minutes. Everything is gone from my stomach but the dry heaves continue. My mouth gets parched, but I can't even keep down the carbonated water that comes with our cabin. I look forward to dawn when we can buy plain water at the bar. |
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