Last Week :( ...Volcano! :)

It’s my last week in Ecuador, I left the bear project last Sunday morning, spent a night in Quito and then went on one final short trip to Baños. This little town, located in central Ecuador, is known for the hot springs that give it its name, adventure sports and nearby volcano Tungurahua. Currently Tungurahua - literally “fire-throat” in Quichua – is in the process of erupting. So I went to go see it.

In recent news, Tungurahua expelled a lot of ash and lava, covering its leeward side and forcing the evacuation of many resident campesinos and farmers on that side. As far as I know, no people were physically harmed, but unfortunately many livestock got into trouble. I don’t know what options are available to the residents of all the high-risk areas – whether they have somewhere to go to, or what they are going to do now that their land and homes have been destroyed. Seems like a pretty tough situation to be in. So far Baños has been unaffected by the recent eruptions due to it being situated on the other side of the volcano. The bus ride and generally clear skies made it easy for me to see the impressive destruction all over the mountain’s side. It was completely covered in ash, looked like a river of gray had flooded upon it. During the day clouds generally cover the summit of the volcano, but a huge gray cloud of ash billowing upwards rose out of the mist, visible from quite far away. In order to see the actual lava flow one needs to look at night, so after wandering around town, getting a room, going for a little walk up a nearby hill, and eating, I found myself on a “chiva” bus – an open truck designed for transporting tourists around the area. We rode up the opposite side of the valley and from here we could see the mountain outlined quite well. Our guides told us that we were approximately 5 km from the top. Since the crater seems to be facing away from the Baños side, we could see some flames rising up and occasionally lava rolling down on the horizon, like bright red moving sparkles. We had been watching for a little while when suddenly the volcano erupted. It’s a pretty hard phenomenon to describe. First of all it was pretty unexpected. Suddenly there was this puff of redness, and a huge bright red cloud shot upwards. Glittering pieces of lava rose with it and seemed to hang in the air for a long breathtaking moment. Then they covered the entire face of the mountain, making it glow like it was on fire. A deep rumble shook the air. It sounded a lot like thunder.

After that I don’t know if I expected the rest of the trip to compare to that moment, but white water rafting was another definite highlight. The next day I found myself soaking wet and paddling like crazy as our raft swayed from side to side on the Rio Pastaza. The trip took us East, away from Baños to the area around the town of Puyo – the beginnings of the rainforest. I ended up with a big group of tourists, split up on two rafts, each with its own guide who barked out rowing commands: ‘forward’, ‘stop’, ‘backwards’, ‘right backwards’, ‘left backwards’, and my personal favorite ‘inside’, where we all huddled towards the center so we wouldn’t fall out in situations when impact with rough waves or shallow waters was expected. We had a couple of close moments in the water when I though the raft was going to capsize, but luckily that didn’t happen and only two people fell out who were quickly recovered. The other raft wasn’t so lucky: one minute it was upright and the next it was upside down and its occupants were in the river. We had lunch in Puyo, and it was cool to see that town too. Considerably less touristy, seemed somewhat more sprawling than Baños, to me, and it felt a lot warmer too. The jungle was seeping in! The rest of my trip was spent hiking up to some nice viewpoints, walking around, eating big breakfasts and renting a quadbike for an hour, when I went to see a pretty waterfall.

I’m back in Quito now, only a couple more days to go. Just enough time to say goodbye to my homestay family, Aldemar and Xavier, as well as newfound relatives Anita Steinitz and company, who have been so kind to take me in for my last few days. It’s been great. I’m sad to leave South America but at the same time, happy that I will see my family soon. It’s too bad that I have 4 days in transit from Quito to Windhoek, but I suppose that will be another adventure.

Hardcore Beartrackers

the other day we moved a cage. I dont know if i explained this properly, but the Bear Project has several cages located in various remote corners of Intag, for the purpose of catching a bear in order to collar it. They are made of ten large steel panels screwed together into a rectangular prism with a trap door triggered when the bear pulls on the bait inside - a cow's foot. The trapdoor shutting also activates a collar to emit a signal that we can hear by radio and know that we caught something.
A few days ago, the volunteers met their biggest challenge yet: moving a cage. This particular cage was located in a maize field. The bears enjoy looting the corn, a fact that local farmers dont like very much. We were assigned the task of moving it from this field to another one - down a steep hill covered in fallen tree trunks, across a river with no bridge, through thick grass, and up half of a very steep mountain to another cornfield. We all arrive at the cage, sweaty from climbing down and then up to the field and Alberto starts taking it apart with our one and only spanner. Pretty soon Sara, Donna and Ashley start taking the panels down one by one towards the river, while Joe and I stay and help dismantle. The panels are not only large, they are awkward and heavy and I have somehow gotten it into my head that I will be able to carry two of them up the hill. The steep descent is difficult enough, I roll a panel (using its corners) downwards, while trying to balance myself by grabbing onto nearby foliage. The soil gives away under me and I'm sliding downwards between treetrunks and lianas, desperately trying not to loose control of the panel. Eventually we end up with a pile of panels next to the river. Then Ashley gets attacked by a swarm of bees and stung. Luckily the rest of us avoided them somehow. In the midst of that chaos, Joe and I manage to move all the panels across the river, both of us balancing on rocks, me passing the heavy things to Joe who tosses them onto the adjacent bank. I dont know how he managed to throw them. Alberto arrives with the last of the panels, helps Joe and I tie our panels together - the three of us take two, the others take one for the climb. With much effort I get them onto my back, they are so heavy that if I angle them too far forward I almost fall head over heels, but if they aren't mostly on my back, I dont have the arm strength to keep holding them . I know I mentioned this before but I say it again: Alberto is a machine. He carries two on his back practically running the whole way up, even when it gets extremely steep and its like trying to climb tall stairs. Joe and I follow more slowly, sinking into the high grass, breaking through spiderwebs unintentionally. My back is completely bent, the panels are so big that I cant easily straighten up. There isnt a cloud in the sky and I'm drenched in sweat. We get to the steep part and Joe starts rolling his panels upwards. I try this but I barely have the strength after a few rolls - pushing on a given side while holding panels upright, balancing them on their corners. I develop a new method: I stand in front of the panels, facing back down, taking a few steps backwards (up mountainside), pull the panels up a short distance and then do it again. Its a long process. Alberto has vanished far above us. He reappears when we still have a ways to go, to get the last panel still down by the river and carry it up. By this time, I'm totally exhausted. I have already had a near accident where I lost control of the panels and they fell about 6 feet back down the path. Luckily no one was close behind me. Finally we make it to the edge of the cornfield, which is just as steep as anywhere else on the mountain, but at least now we are rolling sideways. We arrive at the designated spot; high-fives all around, Joe and I run back down to get the backpacks and I find myself carrying the cowfoot, break for lunch, and then help set the cage up again. This part isnt easy either, because we have to keep manouvering the pieces so that we can screw them all together right. Then we grease the trapdoor so it will close more quickly and make a protective screen around it, chopping deadwood branches into smaller sticks with a machete and tieing them all together, and finally covering with leaves. Bears apparently have ripped off the trapdoors in the past by climbing on top of the cages instead of inside, so the screen stops them from doing this. By this time we are all ready to jump into a shower, I' m completely covered in sweat, blood, grease and dirt, but we still have to climb the rest of the way up the mountain and then walk 5km back to the volunteer house. Joe and I race part of the way, we're so tired we are hyper. Another day in the life of a beartracker passes, as does my tan in the shower.