Our Indian Jones Journey! Trip to Tiputini Biodiversity Station

Friday, April 8, 2011:

Indiana Jones has nothing on our journey today. We started out the day with a 6:30am taxi ride to the airport and a 50 minute flight to a small town named Coco. We literally walked off the plane, went through a building with a 5 foot hallway leading to a tributary of the Amazon River. It was then that they told us we would be taking a 1.5 hour canoe ride down the river, go through an oil company who would drive us 1.5 hours across their partially deforested land. Next step was to take another 2.5 hour canoe ride to our final destination. Yep, 11 hour adventure in all. It was interesting driving through the oil property because at the parts they were cutting down forest, they left a thin layer of trees by the roadside to try to hide the destruction that lay beyond. Probably just in case someone broke their rule of “no cameras/photos allowed.” 

At Tiputini, we are IN IN IN the rainforest. I have yet to see a monkey at this point, but I’m sure there’s plenty to come tomorrow. Since we got here at 5:00pm, we basically just relaxed, ate dinner, then Kevin and our new friend Tabatha (George Town, Spanish major) climbed a water tower post to gaze up at the glittering sky. There was no light pollution whatsoever! This was followed by a second star gaze session with our new Jewish mountain man looking, but extremely cool friend, Gary. We talked about religion, aliens, life, and how people should be more chill for about 2 hours (the rest of the night)… you know, the average galaxy gazing conversation. 

In the boat on the way to the forest

Just Like the Mississippi

Tom Sawyer shot

Oil Station

Nasty Dog

Ciao,

Michael

Natural Hot Springs

Saturday, April 2, 2011:

Today, we went to a place called Papallacta. It's pretty close to where we live -- only about an hour. We were only there for a day, but it was what I was waiting for. Even though it was drizzly and overcast for most of the day, almost nothing can spoil an afternoon sitting in natural volcanically heated water.

Before we did this, Laura, Meredith and I all took a horse ride and the horses were very agitated the entire time. So much so, that Laura and Meredith who have been riding horses their entire life, insisted that it end early because they didn't know how the horses where going to react. I didn't want to get bucked, so I didn't argue.

There's not much to say about the day except it was extremely relaxing. We met an older couple from the states who live close to Naperville, and some Indian guy who claimed to teach a whole bunch of languages. Although, his English was more broken than Michael Jackson's nose after his 50th surgery... exactly, non-existent.

Anyway, it fulfilled my hot spring urge that I had since the beginning of the trip going to Baños (and I realized Baños was not hot springs at all --  just a bunch of pools filled with dirty people -- nice place otherwise though). 

Off the the Amazon next!

Ciao,

Michael

Nicole Stops by in Ecuador

Dinner With Host Family 

Host brother/sister

Salsa Lesson

At Antonia's Piano Recital 

Gaby's House In Guayaquil

Gaby's Apartment on the Beach

Sun Bathing on the beach -- we're hot

Ciao,

Michael

A Holy Weekend to Remember

Saturday and Sunday March 19-20, 2011:

Arriving last night without Father Don got me a bit scared. I’m religious, don’t get me wrong, but something about being in a castle-sized house by myself with only nuns scares me. Thankfully, he arrived about 15 minutes after along with the rest of the crew.

I’ll rewind a bit. I’m in a Nun’s house (I don’t know what it’s called officially) because I’m helping Father Don, our old priest at St. Thomas, who has been doing missionary work down here in Ecuador for the past 8.5 years and is now 79 years old. They’re having a retreat where professionals are coming in to help teach some leaders of their town (Rancho Alto) how to teach others about treating alcohol, drug abuse, and violence. My role is to help translate what he doesn’t understand and to start trying to form this board of directors.

We ate dinner and did our first session, which was mostly just talking about the program they would teach the next day; then we all went to bed. In the room with me were Victor (el macho), Jorge (wakes up at 4:00am) and Carlos Julio (missionary).

Promptly at 6:15am, I was reluctantly greeted with the bright red flash that consumes everything in your body when bright lights are flicked on. And just on time, the droning music of string plucking and an 80-year-old unturned voice was blaring over a speaker system. It’s not music that would get stuck in your head, but it sure as hell isn’t going anywhere when I’m sleeping!

Shortly, all three of us were up-and-adam. Only one showered and it wasn’t me – it didn’t help there was no warm water. We went to the mini chapel for a 30-minute prayer session before breakfast with everyone. In the prayer sesh, they said to go outside for 15 minutes and ask a plant why it was there and what it said to you… I know a little out there, but it wasn’t so bad. I got to enjoy the landscaping. There were blooming rose bushes, ripe pastel green lime trees, cactus and more…

We had a pleasant breakfast of bread, cheese, bananas, and warm milk. I’m becoming more fond of warm milk each time I have it. It only bothers me when it curdles then gets in my mouth.

Promptly after breakfast, the day of teaching began. I realized early that the professionals were not going to be teaching about drugs, alcohol, or violence, but rather, how to improve your family relationship. This helps with these issues and helps improve the community. They are also teaching how to organize their info sessions when they (the town leaders) do them for the addicts.

We had a bunch of small group sessions where we discussed culture, family, past vs. present, how to organize classes, and most of all, we sang/prayed a lot. It was a blast because all of the role-plays we did with small groups were hilarious. At one point, I was a drunkard, and at another a “dad” to 2 women twice my age and married to another woman – the “kids” wanted us to make babies. We broke for 2 coffee breaks, lunch, and dinner while the rest of the day was teaching sessions. It was exhausting but very rewarding. I was telling the professionals about the 5 love languages and some other philosophy from PBJ/my own studies, and they were eating it up! They actually gave me the floor to explain what I told them…in Spanish. Everyone commented on how impressed they were with my Spanish throughout the weekend. I was proud of that. In fact, one lady (who was my “wife”) asked me if I knew any classes that could teach her son English as well as I spoke Spanish. I just said Rosetta Stone to start, and then get a job as a tour guide who caters to English foreigners.

At about 9:00pm (it ended at 11:15pm), I started losing focus and started planning more of my book in my notebook – oops. At least it was productive inattentiveness. Looking up from my notebook, I noticed something very interesting. It was the most peculiar thing; we were in a group session and people were supposed to tell about their lives. There were about 8 people in the group, and absolutely nobody was paying attention to the person speaking. They had no regard for what they were saying. It was clear that they were thinking about what they were going to say, going to eat the next day, or just sleeping…. Literally, the LEADER of retreat strait up was sleeping right in front of these people’s faces. I don’t know how he could let himself do that. Anyway, the most interesting part was that only after each person spoke did they pay attention to the rest of the speakers. Every single person listened to others and cared only after they were heard. This emphasizes the fact that everyone wants something to say, to feel important. Only after they have felt important do they let others do the same. This story is going in my book. It’s a bit Dale Carnegie, but lesson learned – make people feel important before you talk about yourself. That is when they will actually pay attention to you.

Later, when we were all sitting in our room about to go to bed, all the guys from the town were reflecting on the experience from the day and how to help their town with it. They all REALLY care.

A few light facts I learned from the day:

1.     Ecuadorians have much more hair than Americans (not as many bald people)

2.     Ecuador is the only place where I am repeatedly the tallest person in the room

3.     They LOVE to sing

4.     They all REALLY want to improve their town

5.     God is a huge part of all their lives – not all in the town, but those that are here

Ciao,

Michael

BBQ at the Casa

Saturday March 12, 2011: 

Today, I planned to have a BBQ at my house for all of my guy/Ju Jit Su friends. I invited all of my exchange group. They're my friends, and I also knew the guys would like gringas at the party. People from my Ju Jit Su class were supposed to be there, my dance instructor, Jose, his friends, friends from Puerto Lopez who live in Quito, and basically the whole exchange group. No one from Ju Jit Su showed up and Kike (my dance instructor) didn't either. That was a shame considering a lot of the girls wanted to meet him. The night was still great though. Highlights:

1. Took 1.5 hours to start the grill -- no gas, crappy char coal, and other problems
2. Ended up cooking most of the food in the kitchen
3. All the girls wanted to have a kid with Camilo's hair
4. We all talked, hung out, and later danced
5. People left to go out in Quito, but I stayed home and cleaned everything up until 1:00am so that my host family wouldn't be mad -- they were actually very impressed the next morning

Paz,

Michael

Carnaval!!

Saturday, March 5, 2011-Tuesday, March 8, 2011:

I'll upload pictures from the weekend later. It's not working at the moment.

Michae

Playing in the Pacific

Sunday, February 20, 2011:

This morning I was up at the crack of dawn. When I say crack, I mean crack. As soon as my eyes cracked open, my ears could make out the sound of waves cracking against the shore. Normally, it takes me about 45 minutes and 20 alarms to get me up (those who know me, know this isn’t an exaggeration), but today I was woken up quicker than a testosterone flaring 15 year-old teen on Viagra.

Kevin was already out on the bench reading (this is 7:00am mind you – no one else up but us). I whipped on my swim suit, flung open the door and trotted over to Kevin as he sat there leisurely reading his novel and taking quick ocean gaze breaks every few seconds. As he raised his eyes for his next ocean gaze,  and I positioned myself rect in front of his view and stated in question form, “do you want to come swimming with me?” He responded, “In a little bit, I’m just going to finish this chapter.” As soon as his I heard “In a bit,” I let out a wild yelp, kicked the ground and started galloping for the shores of the Pacific. It was like a scene out of Bay Watch: my cut (not so big anymore) muscles glistening in the rays of the rising sun, salt reflecting off my skin, and I plunged into the first wave that was surging toward me. I think sometime between my child like yelp and Bay Watch running, Kevin decided to say to hell with his chapter, change his cloths and join me. Within 30 minutes, we had half of our exchange group with us frolicking in the ocean.

Soon after, we went to eat breakfast, then it was off to take our tour of the Mangroves. If you don’t already know, which I didn’t either, the Mangroves are trees that have extremely long roots that are along the rivers that connect to the ocean. They play a vital role in the ecosystem in some way or another. Anyways, they are starting to become extinct and thus, it becomes a tourist attraction. We walked along the beach for about 2-3 miles where we finally came up to the river where the boat was going to take us through the various channels. I had my shirt off the whole time because I seriously needed some rays.

The tour was fun, but it didn’t really make me think of “Ecuador.” My mind kept skipping to my Tom Sawyer days on the Mississippi River because this river had the same muddy water, wild life on the shores, and hawks of various breeds soaring overhead.

As the tour finished up, we started to walk back. I forgot to mention that there had been a rottweiler that had been following us around our entire journey, and we got so accustomed to him, the group told me to lift him in the boat, so yes, he did tag along. Walking back though, I started to jog a little bit, and he kept right up with me as if he were my own. At this point, Kevin took my backpack, and I was running free in my vibrum five fingers with one of the strongest dogs I’ve ever been around trotting at my side. Thanks to the altitude in Quito, I was running on an oxygen hi and did not want to stop, so I ran the whole way back. It was the only run I had done in Ecuador yet and it felt absolutely invigorating. Light as a bird and enough oxygen in my lungs to lift a hot air balloon, I made it back to our cabanas 30 minutes before everyone else. I took that time to take another dip in the ocean.

The rest of the day passed pretty leisurely. It consisted of Kevin and I helping some Argentinian set up his sale boat, try to get it past the waves like in The Castaway, being unsuccessful, and having to bail out to let the Argentinean get past the wave breaks (less weight in the boat). Kevin unfortunately lost his bracelet in this endeavor that his Columbian girlfriend got him from Columbia that he wears everywhere. We looked in the waters of the rising tide for about an hour, but nothing to be seen.

Finally, it was time to go. At this point in the day, the tide had raised enough to where a boat could drive the whole way that the cars drove us yesterday and deliver us back to our bus. It was an adventure – people complaining of sickness, then waves and rocking on top of it…. Ouch for them. The best part was being in a motorboat pummeling our way over the ocean’s wave break point, then getting soaked with every thump. Fun times. It was a long bus ride back, but the weekend was worth it.

I’m just going to put this comment in this post because it’s not worth its own. I got sick from something this weekend and was sick the whole next week. It wasn’t pretty, especially for my bowels.

I got better though. It gave me a whole new appreciation/sympathy for when women say they have “cramps.” Women… you’re stronger than I am. I couldn’t do that on a monthly basis.

That’s all for now.

Ciao,

Michael