Having trouble getting the debate to stream live on this computer in...where am I right now?...seriously, I can not remember. Mendez to Limon. I am in Limon, tiny mellow jungle town with an internet cafe packed with teenagers on a...what day is it?..Tuesday night.
I am in a non touristy part of the jungle right now, which means few hotels, zero pizza and plenty of attention for the gringa. Sometimes when I start talking to people (slowly, carefully and clearly), they just stare at me in seeming disbelief that I can talk and that I am talking to them. The men like to ask each other if I am their wife..ha ha. They find it hilarious when I enter that conversation.
Today I must have seen 800 huge trucks and tractors. The whole southern Oriente seems to be crawling with them as they push huge boulders and piles of mud into more piles that promise a future of better roads and bridges. There is nothing delicate about their work. Today my bus broke down in the mud just a few minutes before we had to stop for an hour to watch said trucks grunt and crawl across the hillside. Adding hours to all transit plans for the next few days.
At this point, I am quite accustomed to seeing pigs in bus stations, chickens in town squares, people boarding buses with machetes and toddlers wearing rubber boots. My own rubber boots have been nicely broken in, worth every penny of the 7 dollars I spent in Coca.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
on the move again
I am in love with the little town I must leave today. I´ve been camped out in Tena for most of the week, taking little day trips down the Rio Napo to visit out of the way lodges and an animal rescue center.
Yesterday I did a rafting trip on a chilly river that stems from the distant and imposing Cotapaxi itself. After passing a few small warm tributaries, we were dumped into the Rio Napo, which flows all the way to Peru to meet the Amazon River. It felt good to float outside the boat in my life jacket, knowing I was bobbing in a connecting point between two parts of the country I know well.
But I must drag myself away from Tena today. Onto Puyo and the southern Oriente, a less visited region that I´m sure will offer plenty of surprises.
Yesterday I did a rafting trip on a chilly river that stems from the distant and imposing Cotapaxi itself. After passing a few small warm tributaries, we were dumped into the Rio Napo, which flows all the way to Peru to meet the Amazon River. It felt good to float outside the boat in my life jacket, knowing I was bobbing in a connecting point between two parts of the country I know well.
But I must drag myself away from Tena today. Onto Puyo and the southern Oriente, a less visited region that I´m sure will offer plenty of surprises.
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