Welcome to the Jungle

For those of you who are addicted to hearing the latest from Ecuador every Sunday (I´m sure there are a ton of you), I have to apologize. My normal Sunday trip to the market and Internet Café was thrown out in favor of an impromptu trip to the jungle. I went into Quito on Friday to pick up mail and get supplies (Thanks Steph and Matt for the Post Dispatch issues). They finally had Peanut Butter at the store, so I was content. When I met up with one of my friends, she told me that she was planning on heading out to the jungle to hangout with another of our friends. I didn´t have anything going on, so Saturday we left.

It was only a three hour trip, but very beautiful. My friend lives in a town called El Chaco, which really isn´t in the rain forest, but still very cool. The first night there, they had a big festival with a tower covered in fireworks that they shot off. We were pretty close, and the roof of the pavilion we were under kept getting hit with rockets. After that, they had a bunch of dancing acts. We drank some beers with the local friends of my friend. They were all very nice, and it ended up being a late night.

Before we went out, they were explaining what food and acts were going to be there. They also said that there would be a lot of "Peladas" there. I then jokingly asked if there were going to be a girls there. My buddy looked at me like I was an idiot and explained that "Peladas" were hot girls. I had to explain that in my site I didn´t get a chance to use that word, so I never learned it. They all got a laugh out of that, but I wasn´t amused.

Because we were up so late, we didn´t get an early start the next day. We had planned on going to see San Rafael Falls and some caves by my friend´s site. I was planning on coming right home after the caves, so I brought all my bags along (which were packed for a weekend in the city). The bus ride took longer than normal to the Falls, but it was worth it. After a 20 minute hike, the trail opened on a view of the biggest waterfall in Ecuador and the biggest waterfall I´ve ever seen. It is over 520 feet tall and the flow is enormous. Even the hike there and back was interesting and full of plants I´d not seen before. (For pics go to http://www.uct.edu.ec/napo/san_rafael.htm )

After the falls we waited for another bus to take us to the caves. I should have asked, but I just assumed that it would be like all the caves I´ve been to in the past, walk up on the trail, go in with some lights, and avoid the bats. I was about as far off as you can be. First off, the trail was just a muddy clearing through the forest (and this really was the rain forest: hot, cloudy, and constantly drizzling). Thankfully, my friend brought some shoes and shorts for me to wear. We hiked about 25 minutes; up, down, under fallen trees, slipping and sliding, and generally getting covered in mud. Now remember, I´m hauling all my luggage, so this was no treat. Finally, we got to a river and had to cross over. The water was freezing cold run-off from the mountain snow. I crossed with my bags held high, thinking the whole way that one misstep in the fast current would ruin my phone, camera, and iPod. Luckily we made it across and hiked up the river to a gorge. It was unlike anything I´d ever seen before. 100 foot vertical walls with small waterfalls all over the place and dense tree and vine growth. It was like something out of a movie. Finally we reached the "cave". It was actually a giant hole in the side of a cliff where the river passes through. we took off all our gear, set it under my umbrella, and walked through sometimes armpit deep water through the maybe 200 foot cave. As we walked, the words "Flash Flood" kept running through my head.

At the other end was more beautiful scenery. Then we hiked all the way back and waited again for a bus. By the time we got on a bus, it was to late for me to head back to L.L., so I ended up spending the night at my friend´s house. It wasn't a big deal except I had carried all my luggage on a difficult rain forest hike for no reason. Oh well, at least I can say that I´m one a very few people to hike that trail with dental floss, a book by Marcel Poust, and a grocery list.

This weekend will be fun too. It is the annual Fiesta de San Juan in my town. I really don´t know what is going to happen, but three other American will be there, so it will be good. On the 28th of August my friend from Rolla a Chicago, Conor Magee, is going to visit. That will be a blast and I´m really looking foreward to seeing a friend from home and hitting some parts of the country that I haven´t seen before. Because of this stuff, the blog posts may be infrequent for a bit, but I´ll try to keep it up to date.

SHORT NOTES:
While in Quito I finally found a soccer jersey I´d been looking for. It is for a Paraguayan team called Libertad. Not only does it say "Club Libertad" on front, but they are sponsored by...Budweiser. No I have a jersey with my site and a little bit of St. Louis on the front.

I assume you all heard about the big earthquake in Peru. I saw the first reports on the news one night, and got a call from my PC Emergency Coordinator and hour or so later. He said that we were in Tsunami warning and couldn´t go to the beach. Then he said that we might have to go into standby mode and not leave our sites. I thought the reaction time was good on PC´s part, but your not going to out run a Tsunami going 500 miles an hour. Also, my site is over 2 miles high, so I don´t think that going to the next town over was going to put me in great danger of getting hit by a wave.