Biking Riding: The Ecuadorian Way

So I know, sometimes we go overboard in the States. For a school to go anywhere that's not school with their students they have let the parents know and get their permission, plan the trip, get extra chaperones to make sure none of the students run off, etc, etc, etc. We all love to roll our eyes that the

So how do the Ecuadorians do something like this? Well, permission slips don't exist in this country.. If the school says 'jump', the students jump. If they say 'go here', the students go there. Once, the child of a family that I know went with his school to the movie theater to see some 'educational' movie (I don't remember the name, I just remember that it didn't sound all that educational). The parents found out AFTER the fact when the kid arrived home and told his mom and dad that he needed to take $10 to school the next day to pay for the field trip he had ALREADY gone on. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at this.. The hourly minimum wage here comes out to something like $2.70.

Anyways, around 8 AM this morning (towards the end of my 7-8:15 AM class) I started to notice that cars were starting to drop off kids and bikes outside of our school..

'That's cool,' I thought. 'I want to bike!'

When I got downstairs around 8:25 I realized that absolute mayhem was unfolding outside.

"What's going on?" I asked some of the other teachers. I found out that a lot of the high schools and some of the universities in Cuenca were biking around the city today.

There were hundreds of high school students (lets say 13-17 here in Ecuador) students gathering on the street. But, here's the catch... The street was still open and cars were slowly pushing through the throngs of students, honking to tell students to pedal (and pedal quickly) out of the way.

I stepped outside to watch. This was too good to miss. Among the hundreds of students students (and several cars) I think I saw... Four teachers. That's right. FOUR!

On of the teachers was standing on the corner and shouted, "Asuncion! Por aqui!" (Asuncion - one of the high schools. This way!). The mob of students just continued to mill about.

'This is hilarious', I thought again.

I went inside to get my camera. Picture opportunities like this don't come along too often. By the time I got outside (maybe 2 minutes later) all of the students were gone.. Maybe it was better organized than I thought. I'll let you be the judge.

Parque Nacional Cuyabeno

After the unfortunate experience (to say the least) in Quito, we took another overnight bus (left Quito at 11:30 pm and arrived at 7 am) into the Amazon and arrived in a small town called Lago Agrio. There we met up with two different groups of Germans and waited to be picked up by the tour company (for those of you that hear the word 'tour' and cringe, it's basically impossible to visit any remote parts of the Amazon without being on a tour). We got picked up around 9 am started a 2 hour bus ride along a road that parallels the Trans-Ecuadorian pipeline (we were in the part of the country where the people had filled the largest class-action lawsuit against an oil company. Ever. I'll go more into that in the next post.). Finally, we got to a river, boarded a boat and headed even deeper into the jungle on a 2 hour canoe ride.

I don't know why, but the entire canoe ride I couldn't help compare it to the jungle tour at Disney. I don't know why... I guess because it was just a surreal experience. This part of the jungle has an abnormal amount of water, making it possible to get to a lot of different places via canoe. And, right by the lodge there was a large lagoon where we could swim (as long as we only saw in the middle off the canoe.. Close to the shore it can be dangers since you're close to the animal habitats). And, then there was the lodge.. An oasis in the middle of it all. The beds were comfortable, the cabins were quaint, there was a room with nothing else but hammocks and there lots of delicious food.

Also, most importantly, during the course of the 4 days we were there we saw; endangered pink river dolphins that are only found in a river in China and in the Amazon river, an anaconda, several different types of monkeys, piranha, caiman and an uncountable number of beautiful, colorful birds. It's hard to explain it all in words, so hopefully these pictures help..



Our canoe ride to the lodge. As I said, it was so incredible that I actually had trouble believing where I was. I can't even describe it.




Very early in to the canoe ride we saw an anaconda sunning itself by the river. Our guide told us that anaconda's can exert something like 6 kilos of pressure per square centimeter where they constrict.. Not something I want to see or experience!




Some monkeys were playing in some trees by our lodge before lunch one day.




One of the monkey's friends in the next tree over.




Every evening we went out into the middle of the lagoon by the lodge in the canoe where we could swim and watch the sun set. It was quiet a way to end the day, but the guide made sure we stayed in the middle of the lagoon. Swimming closer to the shore you'd run the risk of running into some of the other inhabitants of the lagoon.. The most dangerous? The electric eel!




Even trips to the bathroom reminded you that you were in the middle of the jungle.. When the toad jumped out of the sink to a ledge about 4 feet away it almost scared the life out of me.




No trip to the jungle would be complete without seeing a big, hairy spider.. I didn't feel the urge to get too close, though, and let the guide take the picture.




Here I am by a sign by the canoe landing. Every once and a while I have to prove that I haven't withered away or been befriended by an anaconda!