A River Wild

(Continuation from the bus story) Once we were all accounted for on the bus we began descending into the Oriente region of Ecuador. The Oriente makes up a large part of Ecuador and is sparsely populated with indigenous groups and people working in oil extraction. There is an oil pipeline that begins in the Oriente passing through towns like Coca and Shell (ironic right) and ends on the Pacific Coast in the Esmeraldas region of Ecuador. Anyway, during the decent you can see the scenery change from highland Quito to the lush, hot, humid jungles of the Oriente. Our destination was a party, not just any party, but the annual Peace Corps Volunteer Halloween Party. When you bring together volunteers that spend significant time in the Ecuadorian campo, parties like this one go down in history. We had about 60 attendees dressed up as wine boxes, nuns, WWF wrestlers and even Jesus ready to get after 100 cases of Plisener, Ecuador finest brew!! We partied hard all night and even had a dance party lead by Jesus toward the end of the night. My friends Ryan and Elliot, both of whom were dressed like Jesus stood on the second floor of the hotel were the party was held and incited the dance craziness, complete with organized dance moves and house music. The way the light was hitting them both evoked a holier than thou sensation and was an awesome cap to an awesome party.

Always the early bird, I was up the next morning early organizing my rafting team for a chance and 1st place and 300 bucks in the El Chaco Rafting Tournament. The local rafting guides and PCV’s in the area organize the tournament; it is a very well run event and always garners a large turnout. It generates not only revenue for the town but also great exposure for the tourism sites in the area. My team was down at the river by 9 and we were set to raft at 11. In the time between our race we played some beach football, took in the sun, checked out some of food stands and bought some artisan crafts PCV’s had brought from their communities. When 11 came around we were pumped and ready start out with a good time. The event broke down like this; there were two time trials on Saturday and the fastest teams would be placed based on their times for the finals on Sunday. In retrospect, my team was stacked. We went through our first trial paddling down the river course in a time of 2 minutes and 11 seconds. Jubilation ensued as we crossed the finish line; too bad that was the only joy that would come to our dream team that weekend. When our second trail rolled around the previous nights shenanigans had caught up to many of us. Needless to say paddling all out for 2 minutes straight was not something we were looking forward to. The race started out well and we actually had the lead for a while until everything began to unravel. On the second rapid, one of my team members (John) flew out of the boat and was raked over the rocks for a good part of the course. It looked a lot worse than it actually was and he came out of it with only a few bruise and some sore ribs.

Losing John hurt our overall time and we thought qualifying for Sunday was not in the cards. When Sunday rolled around the competition organizers threw us a curve ball and let all the teams into the finals. Redemption was on our minds as we lined up with the 5 other boats in our heat for the finals. We took a commanding lead amidst bigger rapids and intermitting rainfall. With one quarter of the course left we were passed up by another Peace Corps boat and we tried furiously to catch them as the finish line loomed in the distance. While we were paddling like mad to catch them, we failed to recognize the large rock we were about to crash into. The subsequent crash set me, the guide and one of the girls flying out of the boat killing our chances to regain the lead. Our boat was stuck on that rock for a while and another boat managed to crash into it sending many of their paddlers into the river. I’m sure it was a pretty hilarious spectacle from the riverbank and I’m glad nobody got hurt. Even without winning the competition, that honor went to an Ecuadorian team, this was one of the best weekends I’ve had in Ecuador. The sprit of competition and friendship between Ecuadorians and Americans alike was refreshing and the event had a real community feel to it and we felt very much apart of that community. As Sunday wrapped up many of the volunteers hoped on buses heading to their sites all over Ecuador. Some friends and I decided to stay in El Chaco one more night and hit up the local disco, we then woke up Monday morning at 5 and took a bus to Quito. I spent a few days in Quito and then left for the coast and to visit the reserve where I will be working. Presently, I’m writing for Tabuga, the closest community to the reserve. Tabuga is a small 400- person community flanked by the reserve on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. One of my friends lives here and she has been kind enough to host me for the last few days. So that’s what the last week has looked like for the most part, a lot of play and travel as I wait for my work visa so I can begin working at the reserve. Stay tuned for pictures of the reserve and the howler monkey that live in the trees above my house.