Jottings From Journeys

The Selva

Today, I’m going to write about our stay in a lodge in the Ecuadorian jungle during a Christmas vacation in the early eighties.

It wasn’t that the lodge was so fantastic but it was a shock to find it inside or rather to the side of the seemingly endless rainforest, after we traversed the Andes in a small Cessna that shook and sputtered and spit death threats at us every few seconds.

We had left Quito early in the morning to arrive at Coca or actually the town of Francisco de Orellana, a kind of a frontier town, to be met by a guide at an airport with dirt airstrips. (In the last decade or so, due to the oil boom, Coca has exploded in tourist business. An acquaintance with family in Ecuador says that Coca now has a decent airport and several luxury hotels. Also more rainforest lodges for tourists have been built.)

While we were inside the Cessna, we saw no habitation from the top except for a lone-standing chalet, which surprised me immensely. It might have belonged to somebody of the upper echelon in the society or to someone with a questionable background. There might have been thatched huts or other dwellings as we were told, but probably the green of the forest hid them from our sight.

From the airstrip we were shuttled to a canoe with motor where we were given lunch wrapped in leaves. The canoe took off immediately and we traveled down the Napo River for about two to three hours. Then we came to a small stream where we were transferred to smaller dugout canoes propelled by paddling.

All through our motoring and paddling down the river we saw only one thatched hut on the side of the river. Maybe there were more but we didn’t see them.

This branch of the river led us into a lagoon where about a seventy five yard boardwalk from the water led to the front of the cabanas. There were, under the screeching noise of the macaws and toucans, less than twenty single thatched-roof cabanas with rough wooden floors, flushing toilets, a lukewarm water shower (it was heated with some kind of a crudely trapped solar-energy), electricity, screened windows, beds with mosquito nets, and some fantastic porches with hammocks. The “office” cabana was the largest with lounging furniture, a bar, and a selection of local crafts for sale.

“Would you like some beer?” our hosts asked everybody.

“Thank you, I don’t drink,” I said. Lucky for me.

“How is it possible to bring beer here?” someone from the group asked.

“It is locally made,” was the answer.

An Indian waitress with braided hair brought a pot with a milky liquid in it and a few gourd bowls. With her bare hands she stirred the pot and grabbed some stringy things (I later learned that they were chewed out root masses) and threw them out on to the chicken coop, which was another small porch on the side with chicken wire stretched over it. I saw the chicken coop much later. At the time, I only heard the excited clucking of the chickens and wondered what that was.

The waitress dipped the gourds into the pot and gave one to each guest minus me, Thank God! Sometimes lack of vice is a good thing.

As people took small sips and wondered how to get used to the taste of the beer served to welcome us, it was explained that this beverage was made from manioc root which was chewed and spit out into a pot by the women who prepared it. Then, to ferment it, it was left out several days. So that was how this Nijiamanch Beer was made. After this local beer lesson, while a couple of guys took to the beer rather fast, some people dashed for the bathrooms to lose the beer and their lunch as well.

I also learned that this style of beer making is common from central Americas to the far south and this type of a beverage is not only made from the manioc root, but also from corn and yucca. The one made from corn is called chicha and it is given to the children as well. Except the version for children is only fermented for two days, whereas the chicha for the adults is fermented for at least five to seven days.

Soon the sun started setting and we all crowded into the Office Lodge’s porch. It was one of the most fantastic Christmas Eve sunsets I had watched in my life. Among the darkening silhouettes of stately trees with different shapes, as the diminishing light erased the water hyacinths and strange water grasses from view, every color imaginable reflected on the sky and the lagoon. When the water turned totally black, I saw some flickering neon lights on the lake’s surface. They were in pairs and with an orange tint in color. “They are Black Caimans,” someone said. “You’ll hear them splash in the night. Sometimes they swim or rest under the cabanas, but don’t worry, they are usually harmless.”

And all I was worrying about were the insects and the snakes. Stupid of me. Oh, well...

The evening meal consisted of a deliciously prepared fish, rice, some very original custard-like desert. What I liked the most was Ecuadorian coffee afterwards, after which we all retired to our own cabanas.

I found the hammock inside the bedroom to be more comfortable than the bed but the bed had the mosquito netting. I can’t complain too much because there weren’t that many mosquitoes during daytime but at night I heard them tapping at the windows. Even though the windows had screens, a few managed to squeeze in from wherever. I don’t blame them for coming in because while we were there, the weather got truly chilly in the evenings, although it was very hot in the mornings and rainy in the afternoons.

In higher places on the Andes, they said there weren’t any mosquitoes, but also they didn’t have lodges either. I don’t like to be around mosquitoes too much but I also don’t like to sleep on the bare dirt floor of a hut without a bathroom. Here, we thought we had to be careful with the mosquitoes, although there weren’t many malaria incidents reported. Something not reported doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. The Quinine supply we had with us was of little consolation, for once you’re bitten by a malaria carrying mosquito, you’re bitten for life.

True, I did hear caimans under our cabana in the night but they didn’t faze me or maybe I made myself believe that. What more occupied my mind, however, was whether to go to the Cuyobeno Reserve with the group next day, which meant hiking through the jungle for some hours or to go to the market with Guadalupe, one of the hostesses who had invited me to accompany her in the morning. This was an “either or” choice. Plus, for the day after, another shorter rainforest hike was planned. So after I decided on going to the market and the shorter hike later, I slept as if I was in my own bed at home.

Guadalupe and two local men who were her helpers took me to an Indian outdoor market which spread over a large area, in sections. The produce section was inundated with tropical fruits and vegetables and the variety of potatoes -purple, yellow, red, black, of all sizes and shapes- stunned me. There were also food stands selling roasted boarheads and fried dough dipped in all kinds of spices.

Next, they took me into the textile section, more to please me than for Guadalupe. I’m NOT a big shopper, especially for clothes. Actually I dread shopping but to make them happy I acted as if I was enjoying myself. Then eventually I did, because this market was not like a department store and they had some really far out sweaters, shawls, and small rugs. I bought a couple of items for gifts and a hat for myself. I was ready to pay what the vendors asked but Guadalupe didn’t allow me to talk; instead, she did all the talking with the vendors. There I learned what made these markets tick. It was the hassling. If you didn’t hassle, you weren’t “one of them.” Some even took not-hassling as an insult to their trade.

Most women shoppers carried their purchases on their backs. Some had children added to their backloads as well. One local woman, I remember, had a huge basket filled with food on one shoulder. On the basket, on top of the food, sat her small child probably two or three years of age and the same woman also carried a huge sack of potatoes on the other shoulder.

The clothing of the local ladies was very original and colorful. Most of these women wore hats resembling the one Gene Kelly wore while dancing but with very short brims and dark colors. All women wore long thick socks, wide long dirndl skirts, shawls, amulets on their necks, and sometimes earrings. Ever since that day, I grew a liking to shawls, imagining how handy and sensible they could be for they covered up what you wore. They could be used as blankets and they could be used to sit on. In order for the shawls not to slip away, some did something with them I’m still not too sure of, but I think they tucked an end or both ends of their shawls into their skirts.

There were sections of the market under tents that sold odds and ends from radios to pots and pans, even some broken machine parts. There was even a section especially for souvenirs for tourists.

In the animal section of the market were pigs, cows, llamas, lambs, goats, and chickens. Guadalupe selected several chickens and a boar. Then she said something to one of her helpers who saw to it that the chickens were put in a crate and the boar slaughtered right there in the market just before we set back on our way to the lodge.

People were very friendly in the market and probably all through this country, although I saw a small section of it. The highlanders and indigenes seemed to be reserved and they didn’t like their picture taken, but if you looked their way, they usually responded with a smile.

It was a good thing we had started out early because on our way back to the lodge from Coco, it started to rain and since the canoes we were in had open tops, we got soaking wet. This was part of the adventure. Anybody who sets foot near a rainforest had to be ready to get soaked at a moment’s notice.

In the canoe, on the way back, Guadalupe said, “I know your days are scheduled but I wish you were staying another day; I’d take you to Don Ignacio.”

“Who’s he?”

“The curandero (shaman). He’s something else. He knows everything.”

Somebody who knew everything... Hmmm. Well, it must have been in the stars because someone else back in the lodge wanted to see him also. So, within the first rain forest excursion, we squeezed a trip to the curandero’s hut.

Don Ignacio met us on the road to his hut, carrying a pail filled with leaves. He was a man of about sixty or maybe older, of medium height, sun-darkened skin, slanted brown eyes and he wore his long grey hair in a thick single braid behind his back. He had on a plaid, long sleeved shirt and cut-up shorts. On his feet he wore plastic flip-flops. I couldn't believe my eyes. We all had high top boots on because of the snakes and such.

The group leader told us to stay in line and not move until a certain ceremony was performed. Don Ignacio, mumbling some words and chanting “Ho!” in between, sprinkled some leaves on each one of us; then, he embraced us one by one, welcoming us into the selva (rain forest).

I later learned that this was called Ceremonia de Limpia, or cleansing ceremony for stepping inside the selva, so the selva would accept us as guests and no harm would come to us. At the time -or even now- I didn’t believe any of this, but with all those snakes, mosquitoes, biting plants, and what have you, nobody in the group got hurt during the time we were traipsing through the jungle like bungling Tarzans.

We walked up the wood planks set side by side leading to Don Ignacio’s one-room shack, which resembled a log-cabin. The shack was placed on stilts and several -steps of a stairway led to its door.

We entered the shack. Two wooden cots had been aligned against the wall, in which the wooden door was set with hinges. Alongside another wall was a longer cot. In the middle of the room stood a table covered with heaps of jungle greenery. At the wall opposite the door was a metal stove with three burners that resembled a very narrow Franklin stove. Near the stove, was a stand for food preparation and also for Don Ignacio’s blackened pots. On the fourth wall were shelves and handmade cupboards.

Don Ignacio offered us different types of tea and told fortunes with some small things he called tabas which he threw unto a handkerchief like dice. I drank something made up of yucca roots and twisted liana that tasted sour but not unpleasant. Don Ignacio told me it would deepen my inner vision and I would never panic no matter what. Oh, well... no shaman is perfect.

To me, visiting Don Ignacio was the highlight of this trip although one person called him a crazy old man afterwards because of the strangeness of the things he said about the spirits of flora and fauna.

The next few days passed with us trampling around in the jungle as if headless and jumping out of our skins with every rustle and fleeting shadow. I could go in great detail here but it would be like science fiction mixed with a scientific treatise, and I am good at neither. The thing that impressed me the most was the blue morph butterfly and the denseness of the jungle. Imagine a Tarzan movie. The jungle was like that, only much denser. If they were to shoot a movie in the Ecuadorian rain forest, they wouldn’t be able to get enough light or space from the thickness of the brush, branches, and leaves.

Having said as much, now, maybe I’ll leave Ecuador alone to go on to the next place and time.