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The night sky lit by the full moon before me; I gazed out my bus window at the outline of the Andes mountains. Soon that picture-like view turned to jungle as far as the eye could see. This is the part of travel that I truly love; getting back into raw nature. Witnessing the beauty of God’s creation; untouched and thriving on its own. We made our way ten hours down a road that changed from mountain to jungle, pavement to dirt, winter temperatures to summer. Rest stops were made few and far between; wherein the men lined one side of the bus and the women the other. Unable to sleep, I simply stared out my window, listened to my favorite tunes, and thought about the unknown which lied ahead.

Into the Unknown

Jeremy Curl
2006-08-28 12:28:09

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cash I bartered him down on. Phillipe was from Switzerland and was in Ecuador for 8 months doing college research (environmental engineering). His English wasn’t great, but at least it was better than that of Marcos; who spoke none. The three of us loaded onto the local transport and headed up the Rió Napo. The local transport was a giant motor powered canoe that held 80-90 people (like sardines) and cargo. Packed in shoulder to shoulder, we traveled down stream for 10 hours. If you think a long car trip is bad, try being in a boat with 80 people, river water and rain hitting you, only one rest stop, and everyone around you rambling Spanish and Quichua (the native language along the Rió Napo). Now, I did get to witness some pretty peculiar eating habits. One of these was the consumption of giant grub worms cooked on a skewer. I couldn’t bring myself to try one. Not after watching the lady in town pull them from a bucket, stab the wiggly, little suckers, and toss them on the grill (Yuk!). The other odd eating habit that I saw was done by the 5 year old girl sitting across from me on the boat. When eating her chicken drumstick, she devoured all of the skin, meat, cartilage; then proceeded to break the bone and scrap out and eat all of the marrow. I quickly offered the little one my chocolate cookie that I had recently purchased. I figured she needed it way more than I did if she was hungry enough to eat booone maaarrow. Well, it made for a long and interesting boat ride; but it sure was nice to set foot on land. In Rocafuerte, we got my passport squared away, ate dinner with a local family, and then got some shut eye in the back of the local police department (instead of the military compound). The next morning quickly came and this was when the fun began. We awoke at 5:30am, but didn’t actually get in the park until after 10:00am. We had to switch boats three times because of bad motors, and finally landed an old, leaky one that had a very weak engine. Then ...