Just Another Day in the Jungle

Here I am, about to leave La Hesperia and I feel like I’ve only just settled in. My blisters have just barely turned into calluses, I’ve finally gotten the hang of the machete (and I haven't chopped off a limb yet - yess!), and I’ve figured out how to make breakfast interesting (liven the oatmeal with a dollop of jam, for example, or convince the cooks to let you make butter so you have something for the bread). The huge-leafed plants and tall trees covered in spiky pineapple-like epiphytes feel comfortingly like home, and I know all the landmarks of the mile-long trek up the mountain from the road to the reserve. At the same time, I’m ready to go, ready to do something different, to really get to know Ecuadorians on their own terms. My next stop is Intag, a small town in the north of Ecuador where I’ll be staying with a host family and working with the community on their reforestation project.

But for now, I’m still at La Hesperia, and I’ll enjoy it for all it’s worth. And that’s certainly a lot.

Living on the equator gives me insight into the origins of many things I’ve taken for granted all my life. Like peanuts. I’ve always heard, “peanuts aren’t nuts, they’re legumes” but never really known what that meant. I had a vague picture of them growing on plants like beans or something…nothing of the sort. They’re roots! And the plants look like overgrown clover – I even pulled a few out thinking they were weeds before I learned my mistake.And bananas! Did you know they grow upside-down on the tree? They curve upwards in a big bunch…I guess so they’ll fall easier when they’re ripe. But when they’re ripe the whole tree dies and so to harvest bananas, all you have to do is chop the whole tree down with one swipe of your machete. My favorite plant is what is colloquially called ‘poor man’s hat’, but it could be called ‘poor man’s cape’ because its leaves are literally 3-4 ft long and at least 2 ft wide. It grows all over, and gets quite large. The best thing about it, though, is that it is very soft, and it’s incredibly satisfying to fell a gigantic tree with one backhanded machete stroke. Makes you love the machete.

Last weekend’s hike gave the waterfall hike a run for its money in terms of epic adventure. This one was called the Tiger Trail, after the family of pumas that live up on the mountain and use the trail for their own private highway (the Ecuadorians apparently don’t know the difference between pumas and tigers and lions – they use the words interchangeably). We even saw a puma hairball on the hike, though no tracks or (thank god) the pumas themselves. We hiked up and up and up and up the mountain, past the pastures, past the secondary forest, and into the primary cloud forest, all the while learning about the flora of the area. Like the tree called the Dragon’s Blood, which literally bleeds when you cut it, with a thick, red sap that oozes out of the cut just like blood from a finger-prick, but when you rub it on a cut or a blister it foams pale pink and heals the sore. There’s also a tree called the Suicide Tree, which drops little pellets on you if you try to cut it down, and they itch and sting for weeks with no cure.

The hike was beautiful but steep, and when we got into the primary forest it became overgrown as well, and we had to push vines out of our way to climb up the narrow path. Walter, the leader of our hike, told us that this was a trail made by the indigenous tribes to connect the coast with the mountains and the Amazon, and you could tell from the erosion of the trail – in parts the sides of the trail were above our heads. The way down was one long landslide, accompanied by shrieks as one after another of us felt the loose dirt give way under our rubber boots and we slithered down the path until we hit a root. Neither words nor pictures can do justice to the incline of that trail – it was nearly vertical at times and the soil was very sandy, so it fell apart at the slightest touch. All in all, the trip was fun and interesting but exhausting, especially since we had to walk down to the road as soon as we got back to catch a bus into Quito for the weekend.