The Trip To Tena

From Quito, our final destination of AmaZOOnico is about 242 km, give or take a few kilometers. In the information we received on "How to get there", we were given three options. 1) Hire a private taxi that will get you door to door (and the second door is a canoe) for $80 USD. 2) Hire a shared taxi for $20 USD/person. 3) Jump on a bus to Tena (~6-10 USD), then another bus to Puerto Barantilla ($2.40) and then jump on or in the canoe. Guess which we chose? (Did you really have to think that hard?)

Bring on the bus to Tena!

After a 50 minute taxi ride with 'Jonny Taxi' from our AirBnB, we arrived at the Quitumbe Terrestrial Bus Terminal. Quito is a sprawling city in the Andes Mountains, split by mountains and monster ravines that require driving around, rather than through, so it was quite a taxi ride to start our day. We secured our tickets on the Expreso Baños bus, crossing our fingers that it would actually be an express bus. When asked in Gayle's best broken Spanish, the ticket guy assured us the bus made no stops and had no bathroom, so off to the baños for a quick $0.20 pee. I guess the bus is named for the place Baños, not for having baños on board.

We boarded the bus at 9:20 am, and were rolling out of the terminal at 9:31. Nicely done. Virtually on time. We quickly noticed the bus had an altimeter, which measures our elevation. Cool. We started at 2956 m. Confirmation - the bus had no bathroom.

It took us over an hour to weave out of what we considered Quito, and incidentally, we backtracked much of our morning taxi route. We made about 5 stops to pick up new passengers along this route. Go figure. Finally we were passing through new territory, noticing the lush green of the roadsides. Then we made our first official stop. Wait? A stop?

Yup, we stopped so that vendors could hop on an sell their wares. Luckily for us, one woman was selling empanadas, not charging cables like someone else, so we pulled out our dollar. In the exchange, we were handed not one empanada, but FOUR! Score. These empanadas tasted like a pastry cookie and were filled with a strawberry like jam. After about 20 minutes, the driver and co-pilot resumed their positions, and off we continued.

The next part of the journey was a continuous climb to get up and over the mountains. We took a picture of the altimeter at 3679 m, then 3800 m, then 3908 m, believing we had reached the summit (see picture evidence). Truth be told we actually got to 4165 m, but our eyes were too focused on the cool alpine landscape we remember to take a picture.

Our descent out of the mountains was filled with airbrake sounds (imagine a short, high pitched sneeze every 5 seconds), and yes, more stops to drop off and pick up travelers. We fit in a second stop at gas station to get gas, use the bathroom, and have more vendors jump on to sell food. This took about 15 minutes. So much for no stops and express bus! After about another hour, we made a third stop, this one for what we assume was lunch. Women jumped on the bus, selling the Ecuadorian versions of "bowls" - chicken, rice and veggies, corn and cheese, and other things we couldn't understand. Our personal favourite was the women selling hamberguesas from a professional decaled cooler box, complete with all the fixings! Just so you know, this stop took about 25 minutes, and had free bathrooms available.

About 4 hours into the trek, we felt we must be about an hour from Tena, when we saw a sign that said we were 80 km away. At home, we could easily make an 80 km trip in about an hour, but realistically given the road work, slow fuel trucks, and windy roads, we were staring another 2 hours in the face. So we sat back, and enjoyed the cloud forest, and then the pelting rain from the comfort of our dry bus.

At the 6 hour mark, the Expreso Baños rolled into Tena. The skies were clearing, the temperature was about 30 Celcius, and we were now at 519 m. We looked at each other, nodded, and agreed we picked the best option to get to Tena!

The photo below is a little misleading because it's from 2016 and there certainly was no "Climatizado".

Will This Be The Last Sunglasses Update?

Experienced readers of this blog who will know that I had 8 different pairs of sunglasses in 2023, might be interested to learn that my sunglasses have survived the snowshoeing adventure! Being honest, after a couple of near misses (tent life could be a little chaotic) they mostly "slept" outside on my toboggan.

Incidentally, these are not the same glasses that came home from Bangkok. 

Will they survive Ecuador? Stay tuned!

Those of you who are new, may be interested in ongoing saga of my sunglasses 

1. March 14, 2023 - Paul's Sunglasses So Far, Anyway

2. April 22, 2023 - Sunglasses update

3. May 1, 2023 - Sunglasses update - Kathmandu

4. May 6, 2023 - As if this wasn't embarrassing enough already

5. May 7, 2023 - I bought these new beauties at Decathlon on a 38 degree day in Bangkok and they made it to Madagascar, Vienna, Spain and all the way home!

Made You Smile...

On Sunday afternoon we decided to head out for a little jaunt in our neighbourhood to drop off, and potentially pick up a few books from local book boxes. (We’ll need some reading materials for our upcoming plane rides.) We toodled around a few blocks, enjoying the birds and warmish weather. We were on our way home when we spotted 3 girls (about 11-12 years old) knocking on a neighbour's door. Gayle secretly hoped they were Girl Guides peddling those delicious chocolate and vanilla cookies. Paul, in full grandpa mode, thought for sure someone needed help.

As we passed the house, the girls started walking towards us. We were not expecting what happened next.

“Excuse me,” one shouted.  We were greeted with big smiles and an enthusiastic, "Hi, I'm Sarah, and this is Emily and Grace and we're starting a company. You don't have to join it, but you can if you want to. It is all about spreading kindness."

Wait, what? Three girls are walking around our neighbourhood on a Sunday afternoon, knocking on doors, spreading kindness?

You can only image the size of the smiles that donned our faces, and the conversation that ensued.

Before we could secure our spots in the kindness company, we were both complimented on our bright jackets. Wow! These three were super genuine, and had good taste! We were then asked if we were having a bad day, to which we replied, "We were have a great day, but it has just gotten even better by meeting you three." We small talked a bit more, giving encouragement for them to continue their mission and then left owners of the Company of Kindness, quite speechless because of huge smiles.

As we walked back home, we were a bit dumbstruck. Did that really just happen? Usually, when out walking, we have to go out of our way to get people to even make eye contact when we pass them on the sidewalk, let alone stop, smile, speak and compliment us.

This brief but powerful interaction reminded us that even with the state of the world, people can choose to focus on the negative, or, like these three young people, choose to make the world a better place. 

We have joined the Company of Kindness. Will you?

Our Ecuador Adventure Begins Soon

At our house you can tell when an adventure is coming because the guest room bed gets piled with all of the stuff we might like to take. Packing clothing for our next trip will be relatively easy because the temperatures will be stable between 17 and 30, it will likely rain every day and we'll be doing lots of physical labour so we won't need to worry about taking any formal wear! Other gear that we'll have along include our water filter, solar charger and battery, head lamps, GoPro, US cash (Ecuador uses only US cash) and probably some Maple Syrup to share (can't get more Canadian than that!)

So where are we going this time? 

For months we've been getting more and more excited about our trip to Ecuador to spend a month volunteering at Amazoonico - An animal rescue sanctuary in the Amazon Jungle! 

Amazoonico has two sections - A public zoo with animals that cannot be released to the wild because they've been pets or have injuries and won't survive. And, the rehabilitation centre that has animals that are recovering after injury with the hope of  being released. These animals have minimal human interaction.

We'll be joining about 15 other volunteers (mostly 20-somethings on gap year) in a communal "summer camp" like setting. This will surely lead to some fun stories! Something like this, without the sea turtles.

Some of the work we'll be doing includes:

• Lugging food from the canoes to the kitchen - 2 or 3 times per week
• Processing food and feeding animals
• Cleaning pens / cages - yes, we have rubber boots and gloves!
• Leading Tours with Zoo visitors - To get ready we've been learning the stories of the animals in the zoo. Esmeralda is an anaconda who...I guess I better study a little more.  Below you see Don Tyson - the Ocelot and Broom a Yellow Throated Toucan.

We are also hopeful that on our days off we'll be able to join the research team on their jungle treks to study animals in the wild. It sounds like there might be some Night Hikes as well!

This is going to be an amazing experience with good memories and maybe a few new Facebook friends for Gayle! We'll be sure to send some good stories - we are honestly hoping for another 3 Dollar Bed experience.

Cold? or Slow?

You'll recall that we were a little anxious before the trip: Was Gayle going to be cold? Was Paul going to be slow?

After now having the experience, I think we might have been asking the wrong questions. 

As I quickly got to know our trek-mates and adjusted to camp life, I learned that it's all about THE TEAM. Our group was made up of very amazing people who all contributed to the effort. With this team, neither of us had anything to worry about because no one was going to be left alone to be cold and no one was going to be left behind. When it was dinner time, someone cooked, when the fire needed stoking, it got stoked, when gear needed to be moved from one sled to another to balance weight, it got moved, when one person needed to pull two toboggans it happened. 

You're probably still wondering, "Was Gayle Cold?"

Here's the scenario - we're hiking along frozen lakes. Pulling loaded toboggans. Wearing snow shoes. It's slushy sometimes. The portages between lakes are hilly.

We're working really hard. 

With us, we each have a down coat, an anorak, a jacket, a sweater, pants, long underwear, wool socks, lined boots, mittens, a toque and a buff PLUS a duffle full of other clothes.

Most days it was between -2 and -6. 

We had to adjust our attire often based on the conditions and what we were doing. Getting cold was unlikely. 

For a good chunk for the trek, Gayle had just her sweater on (well, and pants too). At one point, Paul was down to single shirt. Gayle also managed to wear her new fleece lined pants for 9 days straight. Perhaps not a record worth mentioning. Ultimately our preparation (and shopping) served us well.

Was Paul Slow?

You can likely easily predict where this one is going.

Anecdote 1 - Shortly after our arrival, Dave gave us directions to the Base Camp. He said it would take between 90 mins and 2 hours to reach the destination. 

For me, it was an instant - "Challenge Accepted". I can't help it. Off like a rocket. I set the pace for the leaders (Gayle, Sandra and Vladimir.) To my credit, I did ask our small group if they wanted to wait for the others after they were out of sight behind us. The consensus was "no", "they can follow our foot prints" so we trekked on arriving at the destination in exactly 90 minutes. Unfortunately, the rest of the group didn't follow the footprints adding considerable time to their hike.

Anecdote 2 - Day 5. We arrived at the camp site. It was the first one that was on land (the rest were in on the lakes).  As we assembled the tents it was clear that the entrance to tent 2 was precariously close to a stream. It was mostly covered with snow but the danger was obvious when Vladimir crashed through the show into the water. Right then, I decided to build a bridge. In fact, with the help of the folks getting boughs from the forest, I ended up building 2 snow bridges giving safe access over the water. Jim suggested that perhaps the local beavers might have some competition.

The real question to ask is simply, "How did we get so lucky?"