I´m sad to say that before coming to this wonderful country, I had no idea that Ecuador was named (naturally) for the equator, or that the equator even passed through it. Coming into the capital Quito however, one would never guess that you are right smack on latitude 0. There was nothing of the wet suffocating jungle heat that I expected from equatorial cities. Rather, Quito´s high elevation in combination with its equatorial position results in a pleasantly mild weather that usually means sunny and slightly cool days at this time of the year. My luck with good weather on this trip so far did not run out in Ecuador, and I was blessed with bright sunny days as I explored gorgeous Quito.
 |
| In the Mitad del Mundo, or “middle of the world”, there was much conjecture on flushing toilets on either side |
Quito is the highest national capital in the world in terms of elevation. It was also one of the first places in the world to be declared a world cultural heritage site by UNESCO for its impeccably preserved European-style old historical district. The city is filled with magnificent churches and beautiful residential buildings. Among the highlights are the gothic style basilica and the Panecillo hill, atop which sits an aluminum statue of the virgin overlooking almost all of north Quito. The outlines of the huge aluminum plates that makes up the statute gives it a strange scaly and almost sinister look, but nonetheless the hill offered gorgeous views of the city below.
A special shoutout to the community hostel in Quito. It was honestly the best hostel I´ve ever stayed at. It´s a small, impossibly charming, and honestly friendly place where the staff does everything they can to make sure you feel at home and have a great time. Somewhere between the movie nights, incredibly delicious communal dinners, and drinking with new friends, I really did feel like I was home.
After four days in Quito, I headed off into the Amazons for a four day tour with Siona lodge at the Cuyabeno Nature Reserve. The trip started off with an 8 hour overnight bus ride to the northeast of Ecuador which is home to the Oriente (the Ecuadorian Amazon). I had heard some scary stories about overnight bus rides in South America. Lonely Planet warned me that bus companies often film all the passengers in the beginning so that there would be a record of who was on board in case of nighttime kidnappings during. My bus ride in contrast was very uneventful and even borderline comfortable. I slept through most of the ride, except for being woken up twice for police checkpoints where the passengers were marched out the bus and checked for ID while the bus was searched for smuggled drugs. My biggest complaint was that the bus arrived 90 minutes early at about 5am, losing us 1.5 hours of sleep and resulting in us having to wait at the bus station for about 2 hours before the hotel where our tour met at opened.
 |
| Welcome to the jungle |
We took a connecting shuttle bus into the reserve, and after lunch we took a motor boat along the winding Cuyabeno for a 2 hour ride to our lodge. The motor boat would be our primary mode of transport for these four days, as paved roads were a distant impossibility in the protected Amazon basin.
The jungle was truly teeming with life. From the very beginning we were greeted by incessant cicada buzzing and the entangled calls of monkeys and birds. Actually seeing the fauna turned out to be more difficult. Because of the density of the plant growth and the unfortunate but understandable characteristic that most animals had of not wanting to be seen (through camoflauge, stealth, or speed), we had to rely heavily on our amazing naturalist Luis to point out the local fauna.
 |
| Clockwise from the upper left: our neighborly Caiman, catepillar, toad, anaconda, boa, and a wolf spider in the center |
The wildlife there was a fascianting mix of creepy crawlies that we saw on a moonlight walking tour (and also occasionally in our cabins), and more prominent fauna like anacondas, boa constrictors, eagles, river dolphins (yes there are dolphins in the Amazon!), and Caimans (think small crocodiles). Luis dazzled us with his uncanny ability to spot animals from impossible distances, and even more amazingly going on to identify the specific species or subspecies of the animal before we could even figure out where he was pointing at.
Luis hailed from the nearby region of Napo. He comes from a native family. Although his native tongue is Quichua and he didn´t learn Spanish until he was conscripted by the Ecuadorian military at 18, he has since managed to master English as well as become conversant in French, German, and who knows what else. On our walks through the jungle, Luis proved himself as a true man of the jungle, showing us leaves with a distinctly red chemical that native people use as dyes, pointing out countless plants that natives use for various medicinal purposes, as well as demonstrating how natives used a certain large biting ant to stitch up wounds by letting one of them bite him!
 |
| Luis our fearless leader |
On our second to last day we visited a native Siona community, where Gardenia (a 24 year old Siona woman who had just had her fourth child) kindly made us yuca bread from cassava roots from scratch. The bread was savory but plain tasting, but it was delicious when we put some spicy chile paste on it (made from local cocao nuts). After this we took a visit to the village Shaman, a soft-spoken kindly man who explained to us how he trained with his grandfather and father to become the Shaman, as well as his experiences with the infamous hallucinagenic drinks used for Shamanic rituals (we did not partake).
One of the most interesting experiences for me in the Amazon, was ironically getting to know my fellow tourists. Our group of 10 consisted of 3 young professionals from Lyons, a older couple from Paris, 2 girls from Germany, a mother and daughter from Lithuania, and myself, the only solo traveler and also the only native English speaker. The Germans were quite fluent in English, but the French were a bit more rusty, so I tried my best to dig up my middle school French (mostly to no avail). It was a bit strange at first but getting bit by bugs and exploring the jungle together made us all warm up to each other quite fast, and by the end we felt like a strange little international family.
 |
| Sunset on the Amazon basin |
 |
| Guess the nationality |
Apologies for falling behind on this blog. Towards the end of my stay in Buenos Aires now, having a great time but the blog post probably won´t come for another week or so. For the rest of the Ecuador pictures click here!
