El Oriente (Part I): Hot Springs, Ecotourism and A School Visit

This post is for October 5-9. I will not be putting up a post from the week before that since I've been a little short on time.

So, on Friday we arrived back in Quito from El Oriente (The Amazon) and had one night to catch up on email, do laundry and catch up on sleep before we move in with our Quito host families on Saturday. Sometimes I have to say it is better to stay disconnected from current events… The University of Richmond has this nifty system where they send emails to students studying abroad with pertinent information for that student’s country of study. In the last 4 days Quito and Guayaquil have been moved onto the ‘Critical’ list for safety and security (after a man carrying $44,000 was shot and killed as he went to a bank. Luckily I’m not packing that kind of cash) and the Ecuadorian government has announced that Quito, Guayaquil and Manta are ‘States of Exception’ and the military will assist the police in establishing checkpoints to control the crime. But, life here goes on as normal. I saw the translation of these words into actions last night and it simply means that soldiers are paired with the police as the patrol the streets. If it wasn’t for the difference in uniform you would never know.

But, anyways, what did we do for our four days in El Oriente?

Monday we boarded the bus after a quick breakfast and began the drive through the mountains and down to the plains of El Oriente. However, about 90 minutes into the trip we stopped at the Papallacta hot springs about 40 miles east of Quito. These hot springs are some of the most popular in Ecuador since they basically have a sulfur content of 0. At the hot springs there were different temperature pools ranging from extremely hot to bitterly cold. We started in the warm pool and then failed in our attempt to enter the extremely hot pool… Undeterred, we went into one of the bitterly cold pools and followed this with a run through the extremely hot pool. Basically, we learned that when you go in the cold pool and numb your nerves it buys you a couple of minutes in the hot pool until your body starts to register the intense heat. Is this good for the body? We really don’t know… But it actually felt really good. An hour or so later, with me feeling slightly light headed from all of the heat, we got back on the bus and continued our journey southeast.

Eventually we descended out of the cold, high altitude mountains and into the plains of El Oriente (where you are only a couple hundred meters above sea level even though you are over a thousand kilometers from the coast) and stopped in the town of Tena to pick up supplies. All I can say is that I was super psyched. I have taken several courses on the Amazon and it has become a small obsession for me. And… I was finally there!!!! What was my first impression? First, you have to remember that Tena is a town on the very fringe of El Oriente. It is a town people stop in on their way into El Oriente. However, with that in mind, I still thought it was very, very, very cool. After buying an extra t-shirt and pair of pants I walked along the Napo River with some friends, a river I had only ever seen on a map before in my life. Very quickly a lot of the mysticism I had associated with this part of the world evaporated. I was reminded this was where real people were leading real lives. And, at the same time, I had to keep telling myself … I’M ACTUALLY IN THE AMAZON!

After the stop in Tena we continued down the road (in comfort, let me add, since it was recently paved by an oil company since there was a major oil find further down the road) to the first lodge we were staying at, the Aliñahui Lodge. This lodge was nothing, absolutely nothing, like I expected! There were 8 or so cabañas, two main buildings for administration and to house the owner and his family and a cafeteria/meeting. These buildings were relatively spread out and the land between them had been cleared and some variety of rugged grass was growing. The five guys got put in cabaña 5, a building with two rooms, electricity, hammocks and a bathroom with a shower (with warm water) and a flushing toilet. We were all extremely surprised at first. After all, this lodge was in El Oriente. But, I then reminded myself that this was ecotourism at its best, or at its worst (depending on how you look at it). With these amenities they can appeal to foreign tourists (mostly from Europe) and bring in a large amount of money (in relative terms) to a rural and poor region

Tuesday morning our group of 23 was split in two (logistically it is hard to have 23 students traipsing around El Oriente) and my group headed to a local school about 10 minutes further down the road. The students at the school actually come from the town directly around the school (sometimes it’s common for students to have to travel long distances to school). In the morning we painted with the students and then ate lunch with the teachers. Throughout the day a couple of thoughts really hit home. First, how can a state require that students take a minimum of 10 years of education when the ‘colegio’ (high school) that they need to go to to accomplish this is in another town and to get there on the bus the students need to pay money that a lot of their families simply do not have? Second, is it fair to use income or education a measure of quality of life in an environment where a lot of the families are subsistence farmers (a lifestyle that does not generate an income) and a lot of the families might not see the importance in an education since it takes away one of their field hands in the immediate term and is unnecessary if the kid simply takes over the family farm. I’m not saying that these families are not poor, but I don’t think a lot of them are as poorly of as we are lead to think.

Before we left we played a game of football (soccer) in which the Americans were against the Ecuadorians. Two things you have to understand… First, the sun continuously surprises me with its intensity. We were playing out on a soccer pitch and it felt like a freaking oven (long pants and a black t-shirt [I know, the color choice was stupid] definitely did not help). It was so bad I truly thought I was going to faint at one point after I sprinted back to our goal. Second, we were playing against the entire school, their two teachers who were there and some random other people. We were heavily outnumbered. They didn’t have a goalie, but more just a wall of small kids that were eerily effective at stopping soccer balls with their bodies. So, we, not so surprisingly, lost and in the process discovered that the head teacher (an older woman) has a strong foot for shots on goal and that three people on offense just can’t succeed when they are up against what seems like an infinite number of defenders.

The adventures from El Oriente will be finished in part two…