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After a very comfortable night's sleep at Casa Aliso, we woke up at 6 a.m. We took showers, got dressed, and went downstairs to breakfast shortly after 7 o'clock. We had made-to-order scrambled eggs and bacon, along with the excellent buffet of fresh pineapple, watermelon, prosciutto, cheese, fresh granola, peach yogurt, and delicious real coffee.
Felipe and his colleague Arturo showed up just after 8:30 in a replacement truck. Our truck was in for repairs. It turned out that the culprit was a broken wire. We loaded our bags into the new truck and settled in. As we left town, we stopped in Guápulo, an historic and picturesque district of Quito. We stopped and got out of the truck to take a picture of a pretty white church with a stone facade. There was a statue of Francisco de Orellano, a 16th century conquistador credited with discovering the Amazon and being the first European to navigate its length. Across the street from the church, the road was at a steep slope. The buildings looked cock-eyed, and I took a few pictures. Then we left Quito behind and climbed higher into the mountains with Arturo at the wheel. The ride was really gorgeous as we wound up mountains past waterfalls. We looked down on cloud-filled valleys as we crossed the continental divide. The road was steep, windy, and dangerous. We came across some ranchers on horseback driving cattle through a valley. Then we found ourselves in a cloud forest. Felipe and Arturo asked if we wanted to stop at a hot spring in the mountains. It was cloudy and cool in the mountains and we decided that it probably wasn't wise to start the next phase of our trip with a wet bathing suit. We passed the parking lot and saw a bus there and decided it was probably for the best that we weren't stopping if it would be crowded. Arturo pulled into the driveway of the Guango Lodge. Their sign depicted a hummingbird, but we had no idea just what a hummingbird encounter awaited us. We followed a stone path through the gardens. Plastic hummingbird feeders hung from the trees and plants, and there were shallow plastic troughs that acted as bird baths. A sign depicted all of the different species of hummingbirds that we were likely to see. We were led to a stone building and seated at a table on its patio. We put our things down and Felipe and I broke out our cameras. Craig and I have seen hummingbirds before, but only ever a maximum of two at a time. Here there were at least 100. And you didn't have to look far to see them. They were congregating at the feeders less than 5 feet from our table. There were many different species, some with extraordinarily long beaks. Their tongues poked out the tips of their beaks. They clustered around the hummingbird feeders, some of the short-beaked ones sitting on perches, and the long-beaked ones hovering a short distance away since they could still reach the nectar. Some hummingbirds were black and white, others were jewel-toned and iridescent with bright purple throat feathers. One particular hummingbird was hogging an entire feeder, chasing away any other birds who approached. He spent more energy and time patrolling his perimeter than he did eating. But as the nectar supply dwindled in the more popular feeders, the other hummingbirds launched a multi-pronged attack and managed to infiltrate his feeder. It was fascinating. We could stand inches away from the feeder with our cameras poised, and they wouldn't shy away. At one point, I was told that one was sitting on my head! It was very lightweight so I couldn't even feel it, but I felt a woosh of air go past my ear as it flew away. The staff at Guango Lodge served us some coca tea and a plate of cookies. Arturo reached out and touched one of the hummingbirds on the feeder. I said, "Arturo's the Hummingbird Whisperer." "He's the Lots-of-Things Whisperer," Felipe proclaimed rather mysteriously. Arturo plucked a flower off one of the nearby plants and held it in his mouth, trying to tempt a hummingbird to eat from it. We could have watched the hummingbirds all day, but it was time to go. We still had a good deal of driving to do. We entered the stone building which served as the lodge's dining hall and used the restrooms. We saw that they had cute T-shirts which said "Guango Lodge, where hummingbirds get top billing." Clever! We drove some more, and started to see an oil pipeline along the side of the road. It looked almost like a guard rail. Although crashing into it was definitely not adviseable. We were sure it must happen sometimes on these roads, especially when large heavy equipment rolls through. We stopped in the town of Baeza at the unassuming Restaurant Bar Gina. There were a lot of oil and lumber trucks around, belying the industry of the area. Felipe said that we stopped there because the next good restaurant was "a billion kilometers away." Craig got the beef churrasco with fries, egg, and a salad. I got the lomo a la pimienta with rice, fries, and salad. Craig had a grande Pilsener and I had a "Fruit" orange soda. The restaurant had posters of local flora and fauna as well as maps hung on the walls. We felt like we were on the cusp of a grand adventure. Now we were on the final stretch of our drive. We knew that we would be spending time with "the Waira Churi people", but we hadn´t really been able to find any information on who they were. We had thought that they might be their own indigenous tribe. We drove the rest of the way to Archidona. Once there, we stopped to talk to a group of people on the side of the road. A local boy named Herman got into the truck with us. We continued on through the town, stopping at a small store to buy some gallons of water to get us through the next few days. There was a lot of produce for sale here, and it all looked gigantic. I guess they grow everything big out here. We got back into the truck and continued on. We crossed a bridge made by the U.S. military back in the day (to access Coca and the oil fields.) The bridge had steel support beams with wooden planks making up the driving surface. A local boy was jumping off the bridge into the river below and we stopped to take some pictures of him. He enjoyed showing off for us. We then drove for 45 minutes into the jungle on a gravel road until we reached a trail head at a small stream crossing. Arturo parked the truck here. Craig and I separated what we would need to have with us for the next few days and left the rest of our things in a plastic bag in the truck with Arturo. We said goodbye to Arturo and he drove away with our extraneous equipment. And with him went our quick access to modern civilization. Herman carried my bag, and he and Felipe carried the plastic water jugs. We walked up a nice trail in the woods. The trail was made of mossy logs and was rather slippery. It was very hot and humid. We had no idea how long we woyuld be hiking, and what tyoe of village awaited us. This is such an exciting time, when you are not sure what you are in for, and the anticipation is palpable. After a sweaty 30 minute hike, at around 4 p.m. we arrived at a clearing in the jungle where there was a flat expanse of land dotted with several bamboo and wood plank huts. The buildings encircled a courtyard which was divided in half by a volleyball net. We were introduced to Carlos and his wife Maria. We learned that the Waira Churis are really a single large family of Kichwa people. This immediately piqued our curiosity, because although Antonio and family were also ethnic Kichwas, their lifestyle in the mountains had to be quite different than the jungle lifestyle of the Waira Churis. Carlos is the patriarch, father or ten and grandfather to many more. His own grandfather had been a famous yachak shaman named Vicente Salazar. His grandfather taught him many of the ways of the jungle. When his grandfather died, they expected him to be reincarnated as a jaguar because of his shaman status. Fearing that their traditional culture will be lost to the modern world, Carlos has established this "camp" in the jungle where his family host guests and practices and demonstrates their age-old customs. Although most of Carlos' and Maria's ten children and their children live locally in the Archidona area, they come to stay here overnight with tourists for several days at a time. Carlos and Maria were dressed in their traditional dress, navy blue tunics. Their faces were painted with black chevron designs, and they wore multiple beaded necklaces. The younger generation were dressed in modern clothes. The teenaged girls were wearing skin-tight shorts and babydoll T-shirts. We were shown to the large guest bunkhouse, a rustic wood plank building with a tin roof. We would sleep in one of the many wooden beds with sleeping pads and mosquito nets. We had the whole place to ourselves, as we were the only guests. The Waira Churis and Felipe would sleep in the thatched-roof traditional cottages. Our bunkhouse had an elevated wooden floor, to keep the creepy crawlies at bay. This was going to be more comfortable than we had expected. After we dropped off our bags, they led us down a path behind the clearing and demonstrated how they harvest heart of palm. They chopped down a palm tree with a machete and extracted the palm heart, which would feature in tonight's dinner. Carlos was very excited to show us his world, and like a kid he couldn´t decide what to show us first. The family showed us their parakeets and their parrot named Lorena. They had dogs here as well, including a little fuzzball puppy whose name was Tony. The family seemed to love their pets. A little boy named Michael sat contentedly cradling a cat in his lap. We met baby Tamia, age 15 months. Her name means "rain" in Kichwa. She was fully walking and pushed the baby walker around the site. Sometimes her dad would sit Tony the puppy in the walker, and Tamia would take the dog for a non-traditional walk. Carlos showed us a big nasty caterpiller that jumped when I took a flash photo of it. It was brown and white with fluroescent orange mandibles. Felipe picked the scary-looking thing up and held it up for Tamia to inspect. The teenaged girls giggled as teenaged girls everywhere do. Carlos showed us a large spherical rock that was shaped like a cannonball or a bowling ball. Herman had found it at a waterfall that we would visit tomorrow. They showed us an enormous snail (almost as big as Craig's foot). When asked if they would eat it, they said only as a last resort. It was like show and tell and we struggled to absorb it all and reveled in all of our newfound knowledge. The kids were playing soccer, and then switched to marbles. Felipe played with them and it seemed like they were playing some kind of hybrid of marbles and bocce. Two little girls came over and shook our hands and gave us pieces of sugarcane to suck on. It was so sweet and juicy. Their little bamboo outhouse had an actual toilet bowl which you would manually flush by pouring a bucket of water down it. We were quite impressed with this set-up. All in all the facilities was far more comfortable than we had originally expected. There was even a little grotto area with naturally running water that we could use for a (cool) shower. There were chickens, roosters, and baby chicks in the camp. There was a platform up in a tree and folks climbed up there to get a cell phone signal. The chickens also roosted up there. It was starting to get dark so we went into our room to organize things. We would be operating under flashlights once the sun went down. We set up our sleeping bags under the mosquito nets, on the woodframe beds with sleeping pads. After we had settled in, they called us to dinner. They led us to a small hut which was divided in two. In half of it, the women had a little fire and were preparing the meal. The other side was candle lit and contained a table and benches made from wooden planks. Craig and I sat on one side of the table and Felipe and Carlos sat on the other. Banana leaves were used as placemats/plates. We drank orange juice and huayusa out of coconuts. We had hearty palm heart soup, made from the palm heart which we had watched them harvest. We also had blackened beef, yucca and palm heart salad with a side of tomato. The rest of the family hung out in the kitchen half of the house and ate there. Carlos told us that when he was 3 years old, his family crossed a river in a boat. There was a problem with the boat and his mother ultimately drowned. He was bounced around between caretakers until he was 10 when Italian missionaries sent him to school. When he was done with school he married Maria. They wanted to start a cultural tourism program to keep their traditional Kichwa music and dance alive. Unlike bands in the Andes who use more modern instruments such as guitars and violins, Carlos is a stickler to keep with much older instruments (pre-Columbian fifes and flutes, and drums, some made of turtle shells). He named this group Waira Churi. Waira means wind in Kichwa, and he felt that in his early years he was raised by the wind. "Waira Churi" means Wind Dancers. The group now consists of around 30 people, Carlos and Maria's 10 kids and all of their spouses and children. The family performs their ethnic songs and dances in competition. Carlos played us a song on a reed flute; it was a song he had written about his mother's death. They were anxious to teach us about their culture and lifestyle. Carlos was talking about having a ceremony and he had prepared a special drink if we were up for it. They said they would also decorate our faces the way that theirs were done, with black geometric designs. Carlos showed us a blow-gun and its arrows. This was the real deal; we were in the jungle. Their culture operates on a sun-up to sun-down schedule. So soon after dinner, everyone disbanded at 8:30. We went to our cabin and I wrote in the journal. We went to bed at 9:15. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the outhouse. When I went in there with my headlamp I was startled to find a chicken in the corner. They apparently like to roost in there at night for warmth. View Larger Map |
           
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