macas, ecuador

Into el Oriente, into the Amazon Basin.

The first five hours of the bus trip alternated between dozing to escape the feelings gifted by the winding road & chatting with the kindest, sweetest, & most generous passenger Fabiola.

We stopped briefly in a town which I liked simply because of its name: Limón

Macas is where it starts to get humid and jungle-y.

I ate at this Chinese restaurant which is supposed to be the best Chinese in town. It feels weird talking in Spanish at a Chinese restaurant. Chopsticks were nowhere in sight, to add to the mystery. Later I ended up at another Chinese-owned shop in Macas and had another opportunity to connect with my roots...in Spanish.

It's Sunday, and that means lots of places are closed, including the few tourism companies. There isn't much tourism infrastructure here, actually. At hotels when I asked for a "map" or centre for "tourist information" I mostly received blank stares met with surprise.

Lunch time at the market:

Passionfruit, wild, from the jungle!

I had to wait until Monday morning to speak with tour operators and guides. It was more challenging to book a tour since I'm by myself and groups of 3-5 are usually preferred. Nevertheless, I managed to find a guide to take me on a 3-day jungle tour. I ended up going with him and his family on a short drive to a shaman's house outside the city in the jungle. We walked around the Shuar shaman's property and my guide and his son went for a swim in a river at the property's edge. When they came out of the river the boy was naked and from the corner of my eye it looked like my guide was also! I try to be open-minded but the idea made me a bit uncomfortable and I kept my gaze forward and away as we hiked back to the house. Eventually I realized that he had flesh-coloured underwear on.

At night when I returned to my hotel the owner asked about my tour plans and warned me against going with the guide I'd chosen, claiming there were numerous complaints from previous guests. I decided to at least meet the other guide which the owner recommended and I had actually emailed the day before (his email is in my outdated guidebook). I did find it strange that the guide, Tsunki, had figured out what hotel I was staying at and dropped off a pamphlet. It turns out that he walked around town, asking at hotels if there was a tourist named Eliza staying there. It always makes me laugh, my email sends from Eliza Beth, and a lot of people think that those names constitute both my given and surname. My bad.

I ended up choosing to go on a 3-day jungle tour with Tsunki, a Shuar guide with access to all areas of the Amazon in Ecuador. My goal was to get deeper into the jungle, and I also wanted to learn more about Shuar culture after reading about it at the museum in Cuenca.

Tsunki and I met for breakfast and he told me his life story. When he was 11, missionaries took him from the jungle and he was forced to study Spanish until he was 18. He said the missionaries would hit his head and hands whenever he made a mistake. Today, his writing is very neat. Tsunki was the name given to him by his grandfather, but when he was living with the missionaries they told him he had to change his name since his current one was that of the devil or a 'jibaro' (savage). Instead, they elected he be called Pedro or Marcello, the name of a saint. Today, he uses both names.

After breakfast we bought groceries for the next few days. In his big, but surprisingly light backpack, Tsunki carried all our food, 2 sleeping bags, 2 life jackets and more. From there we took a taxi to a shaman's house in the jungle about an hour away. The driver was from Otavalo and he works 16 hours a day. His schooling only went as far as grade 2 and he spent the bulk of our ride complaining about the Ecuadorian government.

This is the hut where the shaman's clients sometimes spend the night, and the same place we slept the first night. The way it's built is so you can look outside, but the opposite isn't easily possible. The spaces between the wooden planks are just enough so that the little chicks and ducklings from the yard could wander in. Again, I found the poultry in the jungle incredibly friendly.

There are dirt floors and there isn't much to the beds other than strips of thin wood. And yes, insects crawled in and around the hut, and there was an insect symphony to fall asleep to. This place looks fancy compared to the next place I slept.

The bathrooms are a minutes walk away and let's not talk about the condition they were in.

Due to excessive amounts of rain, we had to spend the day and night at the shaman's house since taking a canoe proved to be too risky with the waters so high. The animals were there to entertain me and Tsunki taught me some Shuar vocabulary and about the culture. He also shared some of the interesting experiences he's had with animals and past clients while on tour. One guy wanted to try a hallucinogenic plant which lasts for 5 days, and at one point he took off all his clothes and went running into the jungle.

Lunch time!

The shaman's house:

We built a fire to keep warm. My clothes still smell like campfire.

The rain finally stopped so we went for a jungle walk to see some of the medicinal plants and other secrets of the jungle.

This tree's sap looks like blood and it has medicinal properties.

It's so muddy here you have to wear rubber boots at all time. Several times my foot sunk deep into the mud and I had to get help to release myself from the mud.

jungle fruit snack

We later walked up a road behind the property to try to get a clear view of Vocan Sangay which is visible from Macas on a clear day, though I was never able to see it. And, despite waiting on the muddy cliffside of a mountain, the clouds just wouldn't give us a clear view of Sangay.

I did spot an orchid in the wild and that was exciting for me.

Some of the shaman's 13 kids playing soccer in the mud - most without shoes.

The next morning we were supposed to catch a cab to the next village, but Tsunki's cellphone had died and there were no other outlets available for communication, so we walked along a road for over an hour in the rain. The last 10 minutes we joined a passing cab, but perhaps our walk in the rain was destined to be since this bridge we had to cross had broken in part.

We waited for 2 hours and 10 minutes for a bus to get to the next village. Here, buses pick up random passengers along roads all the time, and drop passengers off at any point along the way. 

An hour later we arrived at Mud Road, or at least that's what I call it. I found it exhausting cautiously making my way for the next hour and a half down this muddy 'road' to our next site. Each step could be the one where you sink to your death. OK, maybe not your death, but to temporary immobility.

These kids have it right without shoes.

We had to cross a waist-deep river and hike and weave through muddy, insect-filled corn fields.

Then we made it to the waterfall. The property belongs to a shaman and Tsunki's friend, and the government is working on building a road to the waterfall to make access to the waterfall easier.

This is where we slept on the second night. With a hammock, a sleeping bag, a fire, and not much else. Oh, and some of the shaman's chickens were around, too. Side note: the hammocks were made by local prisoners.

A very curious bunch. I was surprised to see how far they were from the shaman's house. However, he comes to the waterfall very regularly and he has a hut nearby should he choose to spend the night.

After setting up camp we went swimming in the pool up to the waterfall, then hiked in bathing suit and rubber boots to a higher point and sat under the pounding water. It was so hard to see and breathe but it was refreshing at the same time. This waterfall is considered sacred and it is said to give you energy, so it plays a role in various ceremonies conducted by shamans.

At night we drank a traditional medicine which took over 4 hours to cook.

Night jungle hike!

We tried one more time for a clear view of Volcan Sangay and this was the best that we got. No smoking volcano this time, though Tsunki said it normally starts to smoke at the same time each evening. There's also a view of extinct volcano Altar.

This is the top of the waterfall.

Plenty of night critters were out for us to see and hear.

This is copal which is tree resin that can be used as a natural candle. Tsunki also gave me a chunk at the end of our tour.

rubber

The hike back to the road the next day was easier since the road was less wet. In the morning we packed up camp, took a bath in the first river we crossed, then headed back to the main road.

Tsunki gave me the Shuar name 'Sauk' which is the name for a type of beaded bracelet. It turned out to be a unique and unforgettable tour. I got much more out of my time in the jungle with Tsunki than I could have hoped for.

Luckily we didn't have to wait too long for a vehicle to pass the main road, and we hopped into a shared taxi back to Macas.

Back in Macas we had catfish soup at the market. A few local drunks came to chat me up, being the novelty foreigner and all. One guy had a Nike tattoo on his forehead, but it was severely worn.

My feet are sore as they're not accustomed to hiking while wearing rubber boots. Even though I was wearing thick socks folded multiple time, both my ankles have skin scraped off where the boot rubbed. The gross part is that little flies kept landing on my sores. I personally am not a fan of being eaten alive.

Probably shouldn't be burning the copal in my hotel room.

At night Tsunki and I went out for a goodbye meal and we talked about our plans for the future. Quién sabe.