| this past weekend, i went with a group to puyo, ecuador, the first city to the jungle. we set off on hike to a waterfall called hola vida without a guide. a person at the tourist office in puyo said it only takes 15 minutes total by foot from the street where the bus will drop us off.
so we get off the bus and start walking...15 minutes and only jungle. 45 minutes later we run into some men cooking fish over a large fire, and since it's starting to sprinkle, we take shelter there for about 10 minutes until it clears up. we ask where the waterfall is and he says 30 minutos mas. what? 30 minutos more? ok... so we start walking for another 30 minutes when we see a pick-up truck. we wave it down to ask how much longer the waterfall is and he says 30 minutos mas. hmm ok. so we ask, can we hop in the back and get a ride? he says he's only driving a little further, so we can until then. we get in the pick-up, and there's a large bag full of live roosters. two of them are sticking their heads out with vicious faces. so we ride trying to keep from awaking the beast, which is the bag of roosters. we get to the truck driver's destination and keep walking. along the way, we run into a number of rabid-looking dogs. we have learned here that when we see stray dogs, pick up rocks and they'll run away. it worked for some of the dogs. but there were three along the way who would not back off. screw pretending to throw rocks! we picked up rocks and threw it at them. one guy picked up a large stick and started waving it at them, yelling. it took all my self-control to not start running, which would've made matters worse. after that fiasco, we keep walking and we see some cows in the distance. as we get closer, one guy shouts cuidado! there are two cows, and one toro. a BULL! what the hell. so we're staring the bull down. actually, the bull is staring us down. and he does the back hoof hitting the dirt thing that indicates it's getting ready to charge. it's a skinny bull, but still, why is it prepping to charge at us? so we turn around and start walking quickly away. he goes back to eating, but every time we inch forward, he stares us down again. after several back and forths, we wait it out and he finally climbs up into the hill. by this time, we've been walking a total of 2 hours. we run into a little kid who says it's only 30 minutes more. another man with a canoe says it's 10 minutes more. another HOUR later, we arrive at a sign that points to hola vida. thank goodness! we walk 20 minutes in that direction and run into a couple who says it's 30 minutes more across the river. 30 minutos mas. what the hell. now we're hiking very quickly because we need to be back in time to catch the 3pm bus. we're hiking higher and higher, and about 40 minutes later, we come to the waterfall. but not the bottom of the fall, the very top. where did we take a wrong turn? so we climb all the way back down and see a path that we missed. we walk down it for another 20 minutes and there it is. it was beautiful, but it took us 4 hours, vicious dogs, roosters, a random pick-up truck, and a bull to get there, not 30 minutes. i don't understand why people kept saying 30 minutos mas, or even 10 minutos mas if it was 4 hours away. i've asked my family and they say it might have been for motivation or because people are non-confrontational and didn't want to let us down. in any case, it was wild. i'm teaching english here this summer. my students are absolutely wonderful. today, a couple in my class invited me to lunch at their house and then took me on a car ride to see an indigenous community where they know this man who they brought a bag of lemons to give. we watched the final world cup game and we ate lamb. i didn't know lamb in spanish, so the dad baah baahed for me to help me understand what we were eating haha. he says i'm really interesting. i asked why and he says it's because i'm korean and living in ecuador, but i actually live in the u.s., play violin, want to see an indigenous clinic, and believe in the holy spirit. haha. i think HE's interesting. he's catholic and doesn't understand english too well but bought all these christian english hillsong cd's the last time he went to quito. |
