“Let’s go to Ecuador,” she said. “We’ll have fun,” she said.
Well, I did say those things. In my defense, I’ve never been at an altitude of 9500 feet or plodded through the Amazon jungle for three hours in the mud. How was I to know?
When I first dreamed up this trip, Tim and I invited four grandchildren to go with us—Bryan (11), Tyler (10), Anna Lauren (8) and Keegan (14). As soon as Shelley, my sister-in-law, heard about the trip, she threw a few pairs of clean panties into a bag, found her passport, and was ready to go. Actually, this is about how most of my trips evolve.
Unfortunately, this trip required all kinds of shots—yellow fever, typhoid, hepatitis, tetanus, etc. Then Zika reared its ugly head, and we had to spray our clothes and slather our bodies with special insect repellent. Finally, I was confident that I was well prepared to lead this adventure.
We arrived in the Andes Mountains and were thrilled, amazed, stunned, aghast, astonished, and dumbfounded for the next two weeks. Little did I know how unprepared I was.
I’d researched altitude sickness, but the Internet didn’t warn me that my brother, Ted, might have a panic attack at 2 am and try to find a flight back home. And all the other symptoms listed—well, let’s just say Ted experienced them all. This is when he started giving me the stink eye.
After I realized my blurred vision was a symptom of landing high in the Andes and not the wine, I tried to apply make up somewhere in the vicinity of my face. No one screamed when I appeared for breakfast, so either I was experiencing the kindness of strangers or was successful.
On that first morning in Quito, our group met our driver and guide who led us on a stroll through Old Quito, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I doubt UNESCO understood that vendors would be peddling marijuana to tourists and locals in the plaza outside the Presidential Palace. Finally, Bryan bought a shrunken head, and things settled down.
After lunch at a local restaurant next to a labyrinth of underground tunnels, we visited the Yaku Museum. It is a one of a kind museum dedicated to water. No kidding. We laid on the floor and listened to piped-in water sounds. Everyone headed to the bathroom as soon we could. Then the kids made bubbles. Wow.
The Inti Nan Museum was an improvement over the Yaku. Located at the equator, the kids balanced an egg on a nail and planted a foot in both hemispheres. The guide also carefully explained exactly how to make a shrunken head and the consequences of an encounter with a penis fish. The kids loved it.
In Otavalo, the animal market was quite a new experience. An assortment of cows, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, cats, dogs, and guinea pigs were on sale. As Anna Lauren proceeded to name all the varmints, the locals threw supper in a sack. Toothless old women held tight to tow sacks full of wiggling hens and rabbits hanging upside down and fighting for air. In the middle of the chaos, a sketchy group of men sold roosters for cock fighting.
Anna Lauren was determined to buy a dog for $4. No amount of explaining why this wasn’t a fantastic idea or a once-in-a-lifetime bargain persuaded her. She plodded out, looking rather like Grumpy Cat.
The craft market was tamer, so to speak. The indigenous Quicha wanted us to believe that they made all the items, but the same stuff turned up over and over. Tyler had his picture made with a wrinkled old lady selling dream-catchers. Everyone bought some souvenirs, and Bryan tried desperately not to hyperventilate. The kid loves souvenir shopping, and this place was on steroids.
At the weaving shop, an old woman demonstrated brushing alpaca wool into thread, using natural dyes, and weaving the thread into wall hangings, clothes, and blankets. When asked, Keegan volunteered her hand but had second thoughts as the weaver laid a cactus beetle in her palm and stabbed it with her fingernail. The blood of the now-deceased beetle was mixed with lime juice to make purple dye. When the woman sat on the floor in front of an old loom which required arms, legs, and back to weave, I admired her stamina. And also thought she was nuts.
The trip to the Amazon Rainforest went something like this. The van was a stick shift, so lurching, slowing, speeding, and lurching again. The road up, down, and around the Andes was clogged with boulders, mud, waterfalls, missing pavement, and holes. Where the road ended and certain death began was anybody’s guess. Four hours in and four hours out.
Eventually, the van stopped and the driver got out. Men appeared out of the jungle and grabbed our luggage. I asked the driver if he was going to leave us here. He tried to reassure me that we would not be used as bait.
The jungle lodge was much nicer than I feared. The main social area was spacious and welcoming. The kids had their own room next to the pool. I hoped they wouldn’t be carried off by a marauding band of killer monkeys. Even if they were, I was confident the monkeys would bring them back.
The next morning a jungle walk was on our itinerary. We gathered in the equipment room to swap our shoes for rubber boots and then walked to the main road where we entered the jungle. Dear God! That place is called a rainforest for a reason. The mud was 3-4 inches deep. We were slipping and sliding and falling all over the place. Every time I glanced back to make sure Ted was still alive, he was giving me the stink eye. We climbed over tree roots, vines, and dead limbs. After about thirty minutes, I asked the guide if we were there yet. Then we got the bad news. The hike was three hours.
All was not lost. We did see 3-4 new types of mushrooms, a couple of unusual trees, a few butterflies, and a monkey’s comb. Ted wasn’t impressed.
When we got back to our rooms eager for a hot shower, we learned that there was no hot water. The lodge had switched from a gas-powered hot water heater to solar. SOLAR? In the rainforest??
Back to the stink eye.
About that same time, Shelley discovered that there were no hair dryers. Her naturally curly hair became a hot mess in all that humidity, and you couldn’t pick her out of a lineup of wooly alpacas. Of course, no one mentioned it to her. The kids didn’t care; they headed for the pool.
In the afternoon, we canoed along the Napo River to visit a local Quichua family. When we arrived, a woman was panning for gold in the river, a back-breaking activity yielding about 50₵. We walked to their village where they served chichi, a native drink made from yucca, and, fortunately, none of the kids made a face. One lady made a clay pot. After all that excitement, no one saw the next event coming. Blowguns. The kids shot darts at a target until Anna Lauren won the competition. Next, they just had to have souvenir blowguns.
Tim emphatically informed (something about hell freezing over) the lodge leader that we wouldn’t be walking 45 minutes through the mud to see a waterfall, and Amazoonica magically appeared on our itinerary. This is an animal refuge housing wild animals until they are either ready to return to the wild or determined to be unable to survive and given permanent resident status. We saw monkeys, birds, crocodiles, and tapirs. Esmerelda, the anaconda, slithered over the rocks in her private watery habitat and shed her skin for us. Fortunately, Esmerelda will be a life-long resident of the refuge.
Our guide, Falsto, quickly concluded that he needed to regroup or his tip would be in jeopardy. So, he got out a machete and took the kids to the jungle. Each took a turn whacking a cacao seed pod and, of course, it was Anna Lauren who successfully separated the pod from the tree. Falsto roasted the seeds on the open fire in the great room, peeled off the shells, and the kids took turns grinding the seeds into chocolate. Falsto added milk, sugar, and cinnamon. The chef provided sliced bananas and strawberries for dipping. Heaven!
Just to make sure all was well, Falsto gathered palm leaves. For the girls, he fashioned headbands, Tyler got a hat, and Bryan received a man-parts cover-up. They looked positively tribal. After three nights of sleeping under a mosquito net and dreaming of a hot shower, it was time to say goodbye to the jungle and on to the Galapagos.
