Hola todos
So I'm now back from my trip to the jungle (la selva). It's much hotter in the jungle, and very humid. In keeping with my style of trying to avoid doing anything touristy, I went there with Danny to see his family, who live there, in a 'town' called Chonta Punta. Chonta Punta has about 100 people that live there, it's a few roads and some houses, and chickens and dogs, 1 little shop and a school. And a new school being paid for by petrol money the government has. Not sure if this is a good thing, but it's a fact anyway.
We took the bus from Quito on Sunday afternoon, to Tena. This is to the East, towards the amazon region. If you go West from Quito, you'd be at the coast. Tena is the capital of the region called Napu. The bus journey there was pretty spectacular. You leave Quito, pretty slowly due to it being hilly and the bus being full of people, and there being traffic. I was amazed at how big Quito is, it goes on and on and on. At one point we went through a pretty swanky area, called Marvalle (I think) - it had an Apple iStore and an Imax theatre. People got on the bus selling various things, so we had a coconut flavour lollipop at this point. We declined the offer of buying a new watch or memory stick.
After leaving Quito a while later the road starts to climb and climb, the windows steam up and the view outside becomes amazing - huge tall mountains, with jungle on them and waterfalls falling down them, and then massive vallies for as far as you can see. And if you're unlucky you have to get a bag from the driver to vomit into as the road becomes really really windy (that's windy as in curvy, not windy as in breezy - have never noticed this could be ambigious until now) with huge drop offs which you wouldn't want the bus to drop off into. I didn't have to vomit, I really enjoyed this bit. The clouds descend so you are pretty much in them - or rather we ascended to the clouds is more likely what actually happened. We climbed up then dropped down again and so on, on the windy roads, for a long time. I was listening to my panpipe music I got in Peru/Bolivia a while ago, and something weird happens to me when I listen to panpipe music. I know it's really odd, but it makes me euphorically happy, I am sure that in a past life I was an Andean musician. So there I was, on the windy bus, looking out at the jungle landscape, euphorically happy listening to panpipes and going on an adventure, and thinking how nice it felt to feel so happy. And then thinking how it's always tinged with an awareness that it won't last, the happiness. Not in a depressing way, but it will always pass, just as bad moods do too, so when it happens you have to try and stay right in it and not think about it passing. But obviously by that point you've thought about it. This is an insight into my mind which isn't as enlightened as the Buddha's mind quite yet, but almost.
After a while we were in Tena, where we went for food and found a place to stay. Danny called his mum to say we would be there in the morning in Chonta Punta, but neither of them knew when the buses left so we ended up getting up really early and being at the 'bus station' (small dusty area where the local buses leave/arrive) at 5.30am the next day. The next bus was 6.30am. We went to findsome breakfast on the street - flat, round bready things full of cheese - kind of like an enclosed small pizza without tomatoes or any other toppings/fillings. This was served with a small really sugary coffee which I dipped my bread into. The sun was rising and gradually more people appeared and I watched the old couple whose stall it was, making the little pizzas, and I guess that's what they do day in day out just by the bus station. A small boy slept behind them on a dusty rug.
The bus to Chonta Punta went through little jungle villages with little wooden houses and horses/chickens/dogs etc. It reminded me so much of Belize - where we used to live in Cayo near Guatemala was just like this. I hadn't realised that we were living in jungle area there really. When you say jungle I guess the mental picture is of really thick jungle with monkeys swinging from trees and panthers prowling around, chasing away poisonous snakes, and parrots chirping and giant tarantulas making webs to trap you in. But there are roads and villages and people living their lives there, and in the villages there are schools and health centres and shops. The pace of life is extremely slow, probably because it is so hot. We got to Chonta Punta around 9am and went to see Danny's mum. She has a restaurant, called La Patrona. They chatted away, I understood nothing, so sat there smiling and watching them, and wishing I'd had more Spanish lessons before I left. Mind you, even if I had, I think it's a different level of fluency being able to follow a conversation that fast between family members, in the jungle where they probably use all sorts of words that are specific to the area. Danny offered me a beer, which I accepted after a bit of hesitation. So by 11am on Monday morning I was really drunk (it was a really big beer).
I'll leave you with that cliffhanger as I have to go find my Spanish lessons for the morning. I found a school to have some lessons for today and tomorrow, but have no idea what time the lessons start so I better get there soon.
Oh there was a small earthquake yesterday in northern Quito but nothing serious as far as I know - it was around 5 on the richter scale.
Adios xx
So I'm now back from my trip to the jungle (la selva). It's much hotter in the jungle, and very humid. In keeping with my style of trying to avoid doing anything touristy, I went there with Danny to see his family, who live there, in a 'town' called Chonta Punta. Chonta Punta has about 100 people that live there, it's a few roads and some houses, and chickens and dogs, 1 little shop and a school. And a new school being paid for by petrol money the government has. Not sure if this is a good thing, but it's a fact anyway.
We took the bus from Quito on Sunday afternoon, to Tena. This is to the East, towards the amazon region. If you go West from Quito, you'd be at the coast. Tena is the capital of the region called Napu. The bus journey there was pretty spectacular. You leave Quito, pretty slowly due to it being hilly and the bus being full of people, and there being traffic. I was amazed at how big Quito is, it goes on and on and on. At one point we went through a pretty swanky area, called Marvalle (I think) - it had an Apple iStore and an Imax theatre. People got on the bus selling various things, so we had a coconut flavour lollipop at this point. We declined the offer of buying a new watch or memory stick.
After leaving Quito a while later the road starts to climb and climb, the windows steam up and the view outside becomes amazing - huge tall mountains, with jungle on them and waterfalls falling down them, and then massive vallies for as far as you can see. And if you're unlucky you have to get a bag from the driver to vomit into as the road becomes really really windy (that's windy as in curvy, not windy as in breezy - have never noticed this could be ambigious until now) with huge drop offs which you wouldn't want the bus to drop off into. I didn't have to vomit, I really enjoyed this bit. The clouds descend so you are pretty much in them - or rather we ascended to the clouds is more likely what actually happened. We climbed up then dropped down again and so on, on the windy roads, for a long time. I was listening to my panpipe music I got in Peru/Bolivia a while ago, and something weird happens to me when I listen to panpipe music. I know it's really odd, but it makes me euphorically happy, I am sure that in a past life I was an Andean musician. So there I was, on the windy bus, looking out at the jungle landscape, euphorically happy listening to panpipes and going on an adventure, and thinking how nice it felt to feel so happy. And then thinking how it's always tinged with an awareness that it won't last, the happiness. Not in a depressing way, but it will always pass, just as bad moods do too, so when it happens you have to try and stay right in it and not think about it passing. But obviously by that point you've thought about it. This is an insight into my mind which isn't as enlightened as the Buddha's mind quite yet, but almost.
After a while we were in Tena, where we went for food and found a place to stay. Danny called his mum to say we would be there in the morning in Chonta Punta, but neither of them knew when the buses left so we ended up getting up really early and being at the 'bus station' (small dusty area where the local buses leave/arrive) at 5.30am the next day. The next bus was 6.30am. We went to findsome breakfast on the street - flat, round bready things full of cheese - kind of like an enclosed small pizza without tomatoes or any other toppings/fillings. This was served with a small really sugary coffee which I dipped my bread into. The sun was rising and gradually more people appeared and I watched the old couple whose stall it was, making the little pizzas, and I guess that's what they do day in day out just by the bus station. A small boy slept behind them on a dusty rug.
The bus to Chonta Punta went through little jungle villages with little wooden houses and horses/chickens/dogs etc. It reminded me so much of Belize - where we used to live in Cayo near Guatemala was just like this. I hadn't realised that we were living in jungle area there really. When you say jungle I guess the mental picture is of really thick jungle with monkeys swinging from trees and panthers prowling around, chasing away poisonous snakes, and parrots chirping and giant tarantulas making webs to trap you in. But there are roads and villages and people living their lives there, and in the villages there are schools and health centres and shops. The pace of life is extremely slow, probably because it is so hot. We got to Chonta Punta around 9am and went to see Danny's mum. She has a restaurant, called La Patrona. They chatted away, I understood nothing, so sat there smiling and watching them, and wishing I'd had more Spanish lessons before I left. Mind you, even if I had, I think it's a different level of fluency being able to follow a conversation that fast between family members, in the jungle where they probably use all sorts of words that are specific to the area. Danny offered me a beer, which I accepted after a bit of hesitation. So by 11am on Monday morning I was really drunk (it was a really big beer).
I'll leave you with that cliffhanger as I have to go find my Spanish lessons for the morning. I found a school to have some lessons for today and tomorrow, but have no idea what time the lessons start so I better get there soon.
Oh there was a small earthquake yesterday in northern Quito but nothing serious as far as I know - it was around 5 on the richter scale.
Adios xx
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