Misahualli

Another teacher, me, and some students.

Yesterday was perhaps the most incredible day I have experienced since my arrival in Ecuador.  I embarked on an excursion with my school, at one AM, to Misahualli, a beautiful town in the ´Region Selva´, or Amazon Region of Ecuador.  After a six hour bus ride through the chilling darkness, we arrive in the small square where we ate breakfast.  My English co-teacher was not there, so I had to speak Spanish all day with the other teachers.  I think this was to my advantage, as now they know I can speak and understand their language, contrary to their previous beliefs.

Following ´desayuno´ (breakfast), we headed toward a river, where we hopped into long, narrow and vibrantly coloured boats.  Our guide steered us around the river, passing endless jungle marked shores, the Ecuadorian flag flapping in the strong wind.

These cheeky monkeys were hanging out around the shore.  I asked one of the other teachers to take a picture of me with them, and while she did, another monkey stole her water bottle!  In the picure, they are fighting of the lemonade spraying out of the bottle.

After a brief aqauntaince with the wide section of the river, we landed at the shoreline of an Indigenous Heritage site.  We entered a long building with a roof constructed from branches and dried leaves, where we all sat around the perimiter.  It reminded me of the Native longhouses situated at Crawford Lake back in Canada. I was surprised how similar the cultures of the Indiginous Ecuadorians and Canadians were.

A few of the kids at the entrance of the site.

A young girl shows us an animal native to Ecuador.

A woman adorned with indiginous clothing and jewelry explained to us, in rapid Spanish, some of the customs and habits of the traditional indiginous people of Ecuador.  Between demonstrations and my decent base of Spanish, I was able to comprehend most of the information she relayed to us.

Following her presentation, we were introduced to some traditional song, dance, and costume of the Indiginous people.  The music was simple, with rhythms kept by drums, the contact between turtle shells and sticks, and the clinking of the dancers´adornment.  One woman also chanted a tune, creating an atmosphere from the colourful past of Ecuador.  During their last song, they invited audience members to join them, including me.

After an enlightening historical experience, we were transported back to the present as we hopped back onto the bus, heading toward the zoo.  The zoo was quite ´pequeño´, or small, taking us a mere two hours to complete the shaded circuit.  When I explained to the teachers that the Toronto Zoo would take about 3 days to view all of its contents, they were absolutely baffled.

This little guy kept following us around during our tour.

Some wild ´loros´, or parrots hanging out at the zoo.

The entrance to the exhibits at the zoo.

Our guide for the zoo seemed to have a little helper, as a wild monkey participated in the entire tour.  It allowed all the children to touch and pet it, even trying to steal a few of their belongings.  The ´monos´, or monkeys, in Ecuador have quite nimble fingers, often finding success with separating people from their things.

We ate lunch after the zoo, next to the rush of rapids.  A teacher asked me if I wanted to try ´serpientes´, or snake, and naturally, I agreed.  When the plate arrived at my table, I was greeted by three little creepy, evil-looking grubs of some sort.  After  much delay and anticipation, I finally crunched the grub, finding it to taste good.  When I say good, I don´t mean tolerable, but actually good.  However, the thought of what I chewed was not so good, and I struggled to keep it down.  My students circled around me, surprised that I would eat such food.

Yes, I ate that...

Another teacher trying the mystery grub.

The rapids beside our restaurant.

A student found this dead beetle.  I thought it was really cool, then I imagined if it were alive...

Our final stop of the day was supposed to be the ´piscina´, or pool.  However, I was greatly misinformed and ended up going into a series of natural tunnels and saves, which was much better than any pool.  When I was told that Ecuadorians were spontaneous, I took it for that.  However, I have now realized that they aren´t.  They just force you to be spontaneous while they know the plans way in advance.  Naturally, I brought my camera to the caves.  When we entered the mouth of the cave, I was surprised to be greeted by water quite deep.  I spoke up and expressed my worries with bringing my camera, but the guide insisted it would be fine.  Luckily, when we crossed through neck deep water and up a miniature ´cascada´, or waterfall, the guide behind us brought my camera over for me, safe and dry.

Exiting the cave, we climbed up rocks toward the sunshine.

Our view after exiting the caves.

The rest of the tour, I worried about my camera, but was still able to secure a couple of shots of the cave.  The day was absolutely unforgettable, and I hope to have many more incredible experiences in the coming weeks.