While we were camped out in the jungle, our guide Diego was reveling us with stories of Ecuador’s coast. Hearing tales of the Ruta Del Sol (Route of the Sun), Galapagos Islands, and fresh ceviche was enough to have us change our destination from mountains back to the coastline.

Headed out of the jungle we picked up a flat-tire, we easily tracked down a vulcanizadora in a nearby town. A 14-year old boy and his 8-year old brother came out to greet us. As they were removing the tire I realized it was a Tuesday and asked the kids if they should be in school. They both looked at me confused and said “This is our school”. I felt guilty as I spent most of my 14-year old childhood doing my best to make my teachers lives a living hell. I think they should send little jerks like me to fix tires out in the jungle for a few months. I would be begging to come home and study. Perspective.

15 minutes and $2 later the tire was patched, filled, and we were back on the road.


We made a pitstop near the touristy town of Banos to relax for a few days at the wonderful Pequeno Paraiso, a highly recommended hostel/campground run by a friendly couple whom primarily cater to large. These tour companies rig up giant buses with kitchens, camping equipment, and other overlanding gear, load 30 people on the bus and drive all over the place for months. A concept I had never heard of but is apparently very popular in South America, Europe, and Africa. Personally I don’t think I could be stuck on a bus with 30 strangers for 6-months but some people must enjoy it. Luckily no group was there and we had full run of the joint. Its a great spot to hang for a few days.

We explored the areas waterfalls and recharged our batteries for a few days enjoying the cool mountain air.

From Banos we hit the highway, passing up and over the Andes, waving hello to Mount Cotopaxi on our way.

Pick your cut!

Eventually we were cruising closer to the coastline through some interesting dry tropical forest like landscape, it was full of these giant “bottle trees” which looked more like something out of Africa than South America. I later learned these are called “Ceibos” and actually are related to the famed Boabab trees of Africa.

Lauren, ever the queen of wildlife, picked up a new friend along the way, somehow this guy ended up landing on Lauren’s hand while we were cruising at 55MPH. Amazing colors.

Soon we met up with the coastline itself, ah the Pacific, nice to see you again!

We discovered the “Route of the Sun” was more akin to the “Route of Grey”. It is common knowledge (to us now as well…) that this time of year in Ecuador the coastline is primarily clouded over with grey clouds. Undeterred, We trekked on down to Puerto Lopez, our next destination.

Arriving in Puerto Lopez we quickly tracked down a little campground with wifi, hot showers, and a bar. Check, Check, and Check.

We made arrangements to head out to the “Isla de la Plata” the next morning. We had read that Isla de la Plata was the “poor mans Galapagos”. Home to blue-footed boobies, frigate birds, and other forms of rare wildlife usually seen on the famed Galapagos islands. The difference was, a trip to the Isla de la Plata is $40 whereas a trip to Galapagos can range from $1000-$5000 depending. One day we would like to return and explore the real Galapagos. For now, the $40 Isla is more in our budget range.

Next morning we were out on the beach where we mingled with the fisherman hauling in the days catch. Seemed like 1/2 of the damn ocean was being hauled in to the shore.

We saw giant squids, tuna, dolphin, shrimp, you name it, being loaded by the crate into refrigerated trucks.

We weren’t here for the food today, I doubt my stomach could handle eating a giant squid at 7:00AM anyway.

We met our boat captain, suited up, and walked out into the ocean to board our vessel. No fancy docks here, you gotta get wet to get onboard.

We were soon tooling along across the Pacific, the weather had cleared up and it was a gorgeous morning. My eagle-eyes caught many whales breaching the water off on the horizon. We also passed a few trawlers out hunting for shrimps or squid.

After a 2-hour ride we spotted a small island in the distance. From afar the island island appeared to have strange white patches all over it, as we approached I could see why, surrounding the island were thousands upon thousands of birds flying to and fro. The white patches? Awww ya thats doo-doo baby.

On the boat ride over we made friends with some fellow english-speakers, Aaron and Bri from Canada. We teamed up and got ready to hit the trails. However, once we actually made it onto shore we learned we were not allowed to just freely roam the island, we needed to go with a tour guide. Pretty lame, especially lame since we ended up standing around waiting for an hour for a late boat to arrive with more touristas. Oh well, We made the best of it practicing our best boobie jokes in preparation.

What kind of bees make milk? Boobies!

Finally our hike started and within 15 minutes we came across our first booby-sighting!

Seeing Blue-footed boobies was one of Lauren’s top items on her bucket-list and she was pretty stoked.

I soon learned they don’t have birds in Canada so our friends were a bit frightened by the strange creatures, doing their best to avoid their potential attacks.

Bri and Aaron gracefully dodging the hungry beasts

It was mating season on the island, the male birds were all out shaking their tail feathers trying to find a lovely lady to get it on with. We saw some pretty awkward moments when the males went into a all-out sexy dance for 2 minutes only to be scorned by the female who boredly sauntered away after the dance was over.

I think back to the days showing my white-boy moves off on the dancefloors of Miami. I know that feel, Mr. Bird…

The views from the island were breathtaking and we saw more boobies than we knew what to do with.

Some boobies hanging out on their doo-doo nest. The way the birds mark their nest is by crapping all over the thing. You probably won’t see in the next Martha Stewart magazine but it works for them, I guess.

As much as Lauren was into the boobies, I was interested in checking out the giant Frigate birds. We rounded a corner where we saw hundreds of them filling the sky. Score!

I stood and watched them cruising around with their giant red throats puffed out. So cool, cross it off the bucket list!

Eventually we got bored of birds and the tour came to an end, back on the boat for some up close humpback whale watching. We spent the next few hours chasing after whales and attempting (in vain) to get a decent photo of one breaching out of the water. We did manage to get a few snaps of them swimming along side our boat.

As we motored on home we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the ocean.

…and just as a reminder that we were still in Latin America, the boat broke down and we watched the mechanic struggle to get her back to life. Some of the greener touristas were a bit scared to be bobbing around in the fading light, stuck in middle of the ocean. However, I had faith in my latino brother and sure enough he rigged up some old gardening hose to replace the busted line and we were soon back to shore.

Next morning we were up and headed south. Our new friends were going to be stopping in the town of Montinita just about an hour south. We told em we would see them there and cruised on down the coast.

Hey Dad, this ones for you. You think it would stand up to Miami’s hurricane codes?

We spent 2 nights in Montinita hanging with our buds and drinking way to much. Not much to do in Montinita aside from drink and lie on the beach. And since the weather was crappy, we focused primarily on the former. The weather did clear up a little bit and we strolled down to some cool cliffs at the end of the beach.

Heading south again, the brakes on the truck were making some pretty god awful noises. We stopped in Guayaquil where they were eventually able to track down some new pads and rotors. Note to self: When constantly traversing huge mountain ranges you may need to replace brake pads more often… expensive lesson learned.

We slept nearby the Peruvian border, with plans to cross into Peru the next morning.

Ecuador is an amazing country, we will miss it and its $1.50 gallon gas. In my opinion Ecuador is one of the best countries to travel if you have a short time schedule and small budget. It has everything you expect from a South American country, Amazon jungle, Andes mountains, and endless coastline. The country is small enough to traverse from one side to the other in a day or two as opposed to the giant expanses of neighboring Colombia, Brazil, and Peru. Gas is incredibly cheap and that trickles down to all of your consumer goods. Transportation is practically free, food is cheap, lodging is fair, and the people are incredibly friendly and warm.

Ecuador, we will be back!

Getting out to deep amazon jungle on your own is a bit difficult. The primary form of travel in the Amazon is via the millions of rivers and water ways that wind through the rainforest. There are very few roads and access via automobile is rare. We always regret not installing deploy-able Pontoons on the 4runner in situations like this…

I looked at our map of Ecuador and found the Cuyabeno National Park which appeared to be the most remote Amazon jungle area that we could actually drive to. Well you could not really drive INTO the park but you could get damn close. At the end of the road we would have to hitch a ride in a motorized canoe to actually make inside the parks boundary.

We hooked up with a cheap jungle lodge company in Quito that would agree to let us drive to the jungle ourselves. We had less than 24 hours to make it all the way across Ecuador to a random bridge in the jungle where there would (hopefully) be a canoe waiting to pick us up.

No big deal.

We hauled ass from Quito that afternoon. We crossed up and over the Andes mountains into a thick fog. We broke through the fog to see the low-lying Amazon jungle below us as far as the eye could see.


We dropped down from the mountains into the hot misty jungle. By this time night was falling, we found a spot to post up the night in front of an old clapboard house on stilts. This construction was typical of the area, reminded us of the homes seen along the Caribbean coasts of Central America.

Up in the morning and back on the road. We were zooming past miles and miles of oil pipelines and drilling rigs.

[RANT]
I usually try keep my personal politics off the blog but feel this needs to be shared. Ecuador is home to one of the largest oil reserves in the Americas. For over 25 years Texaco/Chevron and PetroEcuador have been pumping the hell out of the rainforest to the tune of 1.5+ billion barrels. Great for gas prices but absolutely devastating to the environment. The oil companies have been leaving behind their drilling waste products in large open pits in the rainforest. These pits overflow in the rainy season causing widespread contamination to the water table, soil, and farms of the local communities. There has been ongoing litigation in Ecuador between the 30,000+ locals effected in the rainforest and the oil companies who have exploited it. There is a great documentary called “CRUDE” which goes into much more detail on this situation. The movie is available streaming on Netflix. You can watch the trailer HERE on youtube. HERE is a short 60-minutes piece on the issue as well. I encourage readers to watch these segments and learn about the exploitation taking place, this kind of crap would absolutely not fly in the U.S.A.
[/RANT]

Eventually we arrive at a lonely bridge in the middle of the jungle. We see no one. Crap! Did we miss the boat? We park and start looking around. We go underneath the bridge where we discover a toothless old man snoozing in a canoe. We gently nudge him awake. He sits up and I see he is wearing a “Cuyabeno River Lodge” t-shirt. Score! This was our guy.

We stash the truck at the old mans shack, load our stuff into the canoe, and hit the river. The small 5 horsepower motor slowly idled our canoe through the thick forest canopy. The morning was full of jungle sounds, frogs, monkeys, birds, insects. The sound of the jungle in the morning is something you must experience at least once in your life.

We travel for around an hour or so via canoe seeing nothing but dense rainforest. We come around a bend and rising up out of the jungle is the “Cuyabeno River Lodge”. The river-front lodge consists of one large primary building and about 10 separate open-air cabanas.

We unloaded our stuff and were directed to our open-air cabin. Complete with hardcore bug net (very necessary out here in the jungle)

Home Sweet Home.

After a quick 30-min rest up the main bell sounded. We headed back up the clubhouse and met, Diego, our jungle guide. We also met a great group of ladies who have been volunteering with a street children education program in Quito for the past few months. They would be part of our group for the next few days.

First order of business. Suit up! We were all given a pair of knee-high rubber boats AKA Wellies to hike through the jungle with. Our guide tells us, “It’s pretty wet out”. (This would prove to be an understatement…)

Geared up we headed out into the jungle.

We strolled along various trails through the jungle as Diego pointed out different birds, insects, plants, etc. Diego grew up in the jungle and his eyes were remarkable, he could spot things we never would have seen without him.

Soon the hard-packed trail eroded into more of a mud/water soup. We learned quickly what the boots are for.

“The trail”

Back at camp Diego had mentioned something about “swimming”. Being the ignorant gringos we were we assumed something got lost in translation. Standing on the edge of the muddy river bank we realized he was not joking at all…

Diego could have sworn there was a bridge here last year.

Follow me!

We put our cameras into ziplock bags and prayed that we would not be eaten by some crazy river anacondas.

1/2 across the river the bank cuts out and you have to really have to swim for it.

Today we learned: Swimming with giant rubber boots full of water is difficult.

Diego had encouraged us to be very quiet and not thrash around while crossing the river. As the last girl came up out of the water, the river erupted with splashing and activity.

Piranhas.

The girls look back at the river we just swam through, now teeming with flesh-eating fish.

Luckily most of the other river crossings had downed logs, saving us from whatever nasties might be waiting in the river to eat us.

We hiked through the rainforest eventually coming back to the lodge, we cleaned up and headed back to the clubhouse where we shared dinner and drinks.

One of the chefs showed us around the clubhouse after dinner. Apparently you don’t need to go very far to encounter wildlife out here in the jungle. He lifted a random painting off the wall, where we found this guy hanging out.

While trying to get a better picture Lauren got a little too close, the treefrog saw it as a good chance to hitch a ride and jumped right into her hair!

After all the screaming and jumping about died down, the frog was still holding strong. The sticky foot pads made for an interesting extraction process.

Success!

Back in our cabana that night, Lauren jumped into the bugnet while I rummaged around. I heard a strange squeaking sound. I looked up at the main pole that supports the cabin and discovered we weren’t the only guests that night.

BATS.

I must say I am pretty proud of Lauren, before we started this trip she was deathly afraid of the flying beasts. Now she is able to sleep right underneath them. We heard them flying around all night eating up random insects that also flew around our bug fortress. The perks of an open-air cabin in the middle of the jungle.

Morning eventually came and we were awoken by the sounds of loud crashing in the trees behind our cabin. I looked out the open-wall of the cabin to investigate and saw a large troop of Cappuccino monkeys making their way through the jungle. I woke Lauren up and we spent the morning hanging out watching them pick fruit and munch happily making their way through the trees.

Eventually the breakfast bell breaks us from our monkey trance and we make our way down to the clubhouse. This morning we meet “Tas”. Tas was an orphaned Peccary (kind of like a wild jungle pig) that was separated from his herd when they crossed the river. The guys at the lodge adopted him and have been raising him as a pet.

He was pretty much the cutest jungle pig ever.

After breakfast we loaded up the canoes and hit the river. We were headed up to a small village located about 4 hours deeper into the jungle.

What started out to be a sunny day quickly turned into a downpour (I guess thats why they call it the “rainforest”) Luckily we had all brought along ponchos and suited up for the 4-hour canoe slog in the rain.

Along the way we spotted some interesting animals including a baby Anaconda and a very strange Mohawked bird called a “Stinky Turkey”. Apparently the birds digestive process is quite odd and emits a very foul odor. Luckily we were upwind.

We eventually arrived at the tiny village, tied up the canoes and trekked up to a small shack we we found an older woman who taught us how to make Yucca bread. A staple of the amazon diet.

Step #1: Acquire Yucca. I followed this bad ass old lady into the jungle, she started macheting up some random vines.

She then told me to dig something up out of the ground, not one to argue with old ladys wielding machetes I said Yes Mam. After some digging and tugging I yanked out this giant Yucca root from underground.

Some quick machete action split up the giant root in manageable sized pieces, Lauren and the girls peeled off the tough and dirty root bark revealing the edible white Yucca beneath.

With our fresh haul of Yucca we headed back to the hut.

Back in the hut we washed down the Yucca and then began to grate it on some old tin plates with holes punched in it. All the girls got in to help in the process.

The shredded Yucca was placed into this woven sleeve and wrapped up.

Then the sleeve was hung and twisted to wring out excess liquid from the Yucca itself.

Once sufficiently dried out, the Yucca was transferred to a woven mat, similar to a Sieve.

We all got in on the process of sifting the dried yucca through the sieve.

What we were left with was a fine Yucca flour.

The flour was scooped up and placed directly onto a hot stone. No oil, sugar, salt. Nothing added at all. Simply yucca flour on a hot stone.

After a few minutes, she flipped it over, few minutes more flip again and we were done. What we created was a thin bread disc, sort of similar to Indian Naan bread. The sugars of the Yucca caramelized to hold the entire thing together. We enjoyed our fresh yucca bread with some jam. Quite delicious actually.

We shared with some of the local kids as well.

After that it was back onto the canoe for a long trip home, luckily the weather had cleared up a bit and we could enjoy the view sin panchos.

When we returned to the Cuyabeno River Lodge we found the river had risen considerably due to the all the rain and actually flooded it banks. Our river front lodge was now a river ON lodge.

One of the local kids enjoyed paddling all over the lodge grounds underneath the raised platforms of the huts. Beats walking!

We lounged around the rest of the afternoon in some hammocks, discussing our travels, the jungle, and bugs.

That evening we loaded back into the canoes again. We were headed out to go Piranha fishing (Very touristy yes but something I always wanted to do!)

Diego said he knew a good-spot. We killed the motor and paddled up a small-side creek deep into the jungle.

The process was simple, some sticks, a bit of fishing line, some old rusty hooks, and good ol’ fashion RAW BEEF for bait.

Once Diego taught us the trick of using our fishing pole to thrash up the water like a dying animal, it was PIRANA ON!

Check it off the bucketlist!

The sun set while we were deep in the forest. It was pretty spooky out there.

We navigated our way back down the canals while looking for Crocs.

We spent another day out in the jungle exploring the place. Eventually we loaded our stuff back into the canoes and took a ride back to the bridge where we found our truck waiting safe and sound.

This was our first taste of the Amazon jungle. We found it to be amazingly beautiful, mysterious, and just a bit dangerous. We are definitely hungry for more and looking forward to returning. The Cuyabeno River Lodge is a great introduction to the jungle and we highly recommend it if you find yourself in Ecuador looking for an amazon adventure.

After completing the worlds easiest border crossing we headed on down the highway into Ecuador.

We had technically been traveling in the Andes mountains for about a month now, but we never seem to get tired of the views.

Our first Llamas! Or Alpacas? I dont know the difference yet.

I had heard about the cheap gas in Ecuador. But man I was shocked when I finally saw it on the board. $1.45 USD/gallon. Insane! I pulled over giddy with delight and gave the man a $20. Fill her up!

The man gave me a confused look, gave me $10 change back immediatly and started pumping our gas.

Apparently within 50 miles or so of the border all the gas stations are limited at $10 per car to keep Colombians/Peruvians from coming across the borders and filling up. The gas station attendants are equipped with radios and are supposed to report to other stations in the area who has filled up already.

We got our $10, headed to the next town, and topped off the tank. No one bothered with the radio.

Our first stop in Ecuador is a popular town by the name of Otavalo. Otavalo is home to the biggest craft market in Ecuador. Locals travel from the surrounding areas to sell their goods here in the large open-air market.

Lauren tracked down a pair of Alpaca gloves, a Alpaca hat, and a kick-ass pair of ninja slippers. All for $7 USD. Crazy.

We camped for the night nearby and checked out some of the beautiful mountains surrounding Otavalo.

Cruising down the PanAm I knew we were supposed to eventually cross the equator (Protip: the word ECUADOR is spanish for EQUATOR) but I did not know exactly when. We ended up driving right by the damn thing without realizing it. Luckily we doubled-back trying to find a campsite and saw the GIGANTIC YELLOW TOWER LABELED EQUATOR. Not sure how we missed it the first time….

The lines in the concrete line up with the shadow of the tower to create a giant sundial.

It has always been a dream of mine to drink a beer on the equator. Well not really, but we had some in the truck so what the hell. Equator beers!

We ended up making friends with the tour-guy there who gave us a cool lesson on the equator itself and explained the many ancient monuments that surround the area. Pre-Columbian ancient civilizations have been using this particular area to accurately tell time, forecast future seasons/weather, and observe the cosmos for thousands of years. None of that water drains backwards, balance an egg, hoaky fake equator B.S. here. Sorry to disappoint guys.

Our new Equator/Ecuador friend said he was getting off in 30 minutes and asked if we would like to camp on his fathers farm just up the street for free? Why yes we would! We spent a wonderful night hanging out with our new friend, his father, and some amazing stars. The father even hooked up the water in his cabin for us if we were interested in taking freezing cold showers. We passed but appreciated the gesture! This was the first of many encounters with Ecuadorian locals, we found them all to be friendly and accommodating.

Check out Laurens new hat. 2 Happy campers.

Next morning we hit the road south to Quito. The capital of Ecuador. Quito is a fairly large city, crazy traffic, and tons of 1-way streets. We eventually navigated our way to the Historic district of the city. Quito is home to one of the largest, best preserved, historic centers in the Americas. It is crammed with beautiful Spanish architecture, churches, and monuments.

I just noticed the little kid re-enacting the monument in this photo.

We explored Quito for a few days, while planning our next move. We hung mainly in the historic district. We found it to have a nice balance of local/foreign tourists all out enjoying the beautiful city. We also discovered the INSANELY cheap set menus. $1.50 will get you a delicious 3-course meal with juice. It is cheaper here to eat out than cook at home.

Both Lauren and myself have always wanted to see the Amazon jungle. It turns out Ecuador is the perfect place to do exactly that. With a little research, we found a cheap lodge way off in the jungle.

We packed up our stuff and left the big city.

JUNGLE BOUND.