Ecuadorian Amazon

As our winter journey winds down we are still exploring different areas of Ecuador until we move up to Otavalo to visit with Keenan's host family from her teaching internship in 2009.

Banos, baths in English, is a touristy vacation spot located on the edge of the transition zone from mountains to jungles. Banos has mineral hot pools, world class waterfalls, mountain hiking, expat micro breweries and chefs from Chicago.

Being an adventure type place, Keenan's dare devil attitude kicked in wanting to try all these adventures. Zip lines and cable cars over deep canyons, rafting, tubing, biking, canyoning etc. I kept remembering this was the place where Loreen got hurt canyoning three years ago and the guide did not have a first aid kit, just his t-shirt and a bungee cord to wrap her arm, and every thing was in high water so I drug my feet as much as I could and managed to get out of most things.

Banos Cable Car

 We did take a trip in a four wheel drive jeep with a wannabe rally car driver to the Devils Cauldron, the wildest waterfall in Ecuador and then up to the top of the highest point around Banos to look across the valley at the active volcano.

Devils Cauldren

 We got above the cloud level but the volcano was not visible so back to town the long way, through farms and villages. I was really comfortable with our driver, I like driving on the wrong side of the road speeding around corners, while he is chatting to Keenan in the back seat!

Taking hay home for the cows!

He did stop every farmer or farm lady we passed and had them pose for pictures, such as carrying the milk home, cutting grass for the cows, etc.

Taking home the milk!

 Then off to Tena, in the upper Amazon basin of Ecuador. Known as the kayaking capital of Ecuador, Tena also provides great white water rafting, float tubing, jungle treks and an Amazon Jungle experience.

After four months in South America, and six countries, we thought we had seen pretty much everything but Tena pulled out all the stops for us. We checked into our hostel room, went out on the balcony and were greeted by a giant grass hopper, five or six neighborhood chickens and a tarantula. I chased the grass hopper away, clucked at the chickens while Loreen stood on the third story ledge and flicked the tarantula off the ceiling onto the ground. When we later checked on it, it was working it's way back up the wall, where to we don't know.

Then across the river the trees started shaking and the branches swaying, I thought another rain storm was coming, but no, a troop of a couple of dozen monkeys appeared. They chased one another up and down the trees for awhile before disappearing into the jungle again.

Once we got settled in, we headed off to the "finest dining" restaurant in Tena for steak, salad and chicken breast in a nice apple purée, when all of a sudden Keenan and Loreen are screeching and jumped halfway across the room, while the waiter is trying to calm them down in his limited English. Me being me, I was casually looking around for the wasp or some insect that might have scared them, when above my head I detected some movement and looked up and there was this big lump of grey fur slowing moving across the valance. Seems we had disturbed one of the pet sloths the owner keeps in his "fine dining" restaurant. No problem, the sloth moved to a new hiding hole and we went on with our dining, for some reason we where all a bit more thirsty than usual. I was happy as finally Keenan was more scared of something than I was!

We return to the room and check it out for critters, nothing, so we all relax and are reading away when Keenan exclaims "Dad, there is a frog in here" and sure enough there the little guy was taking large jumps around the room catching flys. So we shooed it out and eagerly await the surprises tomorrow might bring.

Feeding the monkeys, Tena

Culinary delights, Tena

 On our last day in Tena we went on a river boat trip down the Napo River, the same Napo River we were on in February in Peru, only now we are on the head waters versus the outlet into the Amazon. The river is still high, but probably six feet lower than it was in March.

High Water was above the blue platform!

 We went to an indigenous museum, where we learned about the traditional methods of trapping, snaring animals and fish for food. Similar to methods used in other parts of the world, but very interesting to see traps made out of wood and vines, more like jungle booby traps really.

Face Painting on the Rio Napo

Looking for a treat!

Then we went to an animal recovery center, that takes in animals bought as pets and then when too big, are given to the recovery center to try and rehabilitate. Birds, monkeys, cats, turtles etc. About one third are too damaged or too domesticated to ever release.

Indigenous Bridge Rio Napo Area

Off to live in a high Andes indigenous village for the next week and then home to Calgary.

Expat Cities

Ecuador is becoming known for the number of expats that are moving here, and we spent some time in two of their favorite communities. We wanted to visit both these cities with high expat populations to see what it was all about, not that we plan on moving from Canada, as the more we travel the better Canada becomes as a country!

First stop was Salinas, a beach resort town with condos and apartments and although no all inclusives, it does have a nice beach, tourist hotels and restaurants. Mostly rich Ecuadorians come here with their families, but there was a smattering of us snowbird types as well.

Beach in Salinas

 We lounged on the beach and went to the local expat watering hole for St Paddy's Day green beer, green margaritas and that basic Irish standby of boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, carrots, and roast beef. Just like growing up on the farm!

We had a good evening, visiting with a couple of fellows from Vancouver who are in Salinas looking for property. It turned out that I knew the one fellow's daughter through work and had also dealt with him in some past business issues in 1990. Small world!

On to Cuenca, touted as one of the best places in the world to retire. I can see why people chose Cuenca and if I was looking to move to South America it would be one of my top choices of the areas we have been to. Cuenca is a very colonial and European style city. Clean and prosperous, even the surrounding farms and villages seem to be mostly prosperous with painted buildings and clean streets. The gringo population seems to be concentrated in the central, historic part of the city with a few restaurants and bars owned by expats and catering to gringo tastes.

Cuenca

 Through sponsorship from the Ministry of Culture there were a number of free cultural events in Cuenca while we were there. We managed to attend a concert by the Cuenca Symphony, director was from Spain, that played a symphony of movie songs from Jaws, West Side Story, Indiana Jones, The Pink Panther, etc. It was my first and only symphony and I rather enjoyed it. Then later that week we attended a Blue Grass concert by a three piece group of Americans now from Mexico City. While the girls quite liked this one I was a bit disappointed, mainly because I wanted to hear some Charlie Daniels and they played mostly Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs music.

Cuenca has the most elegant cathedral we have visited in South America. One lady we met compared it to the cathedral in the Vatican in Rome. It is huge with stained glass windows of various religious figures, high blue domed towers and enough gold plating on the interior to fill a good size treasure house. Even an agnostic like me was impressed!

Cathedral

 We spent a day at Ingapirca, ancient ruins of both Canari and Inca. The Canari were a pre-Inca civilization that also had established religious and astrological sites in parts of Ecuador. A matriarchal society that took the moon as their main Goddess, they had established a calendar of thirteen months that tracked the 28 changes of the moon through the month. Conquered by the Inca and absorbed into Inca culture the site was changed to the Inca religion of sun worship. In this instance they had established a sun wall that had four altars set at precise locations. As the earth rotated around the sun, sunlight coming through specific holes in the roof of the building would entirely illuminate each one of the altars on days corresponding to the winter and summer solstices, spring and fall equinoxes.

Canari Calendar

Sun Temple, Ingapirca

 Today the Canari dominate the farm land and villages in the highlands around Cuenca, while the Inca are mostly extinct.

The high valleys around Cuenca are full of farms and the plowed fields have soils that look black and rich. They grow a number of different crops and vegetables and there are a lot of dairy cows. Farming here is not an easy way to make a living. The ground, while fertile, is steep and no machinery is used. Plowing is often done with a team of oxen and a wooden plow or the extended family coming over with shovels and hoes.

Oxen with wooden plow

 We stayed at the Casa Ordenez in Cuenca, an old family home that has been converted into a B&B. The B&B is family run and absolutely fantastic. We had a semi-private living room with our pick of 2000 pirated DVDs so spent some time catching up on movies.