The Girls from Santo Domingo

Orquidea Poema
Guayusa y Canela
Así es mi Tena

On Wednesday, after spending a relaxing morning and early afternoon in the city (eating bland chinese food, chatting with tourists, using internet), I headed back to the Shangri-La cabins. I showered, got dressed and left my room just at the same time that a large group of Ecuadorans arrived from their afternoon hike. I knew that a large group had arrived at the cabins, but what I didn`t know until Wednesday evening was that the group consisted of of 24 students: 2 guys and 22 girls! After chatting briefly with one of the girls, I determined that they were all from Santo Domingo de los Colorados (about 2 hrs west of Quito) and that they (all 20-22 year old students studying tourism in a university) were on a class trip to the Oriente!

I spent almost the entire evening hanging out with the chicas....lots of fun. After dinner, some musicians came to Shangri-La to play for everyone, and we cleared out the common area on one of the decks for dancing. Everyone drank guayusa (a traditional type of herbal tea, but in this case prepared with aguardiente and sugar) after shouting ¨Upishoun¨ (Cheers in Quichua). The party also celebrated a birthday of one of the girls (named Araceli), and the homemade birthday cake was vanilla with bananas and raisins. Lots of fun, dancing, singing, etc....the other guests that night (a group of 3 from USA and Ecuador, and a family from Chile) were also included in the festivities. So was the bus driver from Santo Domingo!

One strange thing about the group from Santo Domingo was that they were extremely divided into two different clicks....this was explained to me early in the evening by Araceli and Paulina, both part of the larger click. According to them, the 7 girls in the other click were more elite and mean, the type who talk behind others` backs, drink a lot, complain about things, etc... and the split had occured about one year earlier when something happened between a few of the girls. Since I made friends first with the larger group, I ended up not speaking to the other girls at all. The divide was sometimes painful to even watch and the whole thing was pretty immature. The 7 girls in one click literally did not speak to the other girls...as far as I could tell, the only people who crossed between the two groups were the 2 guys and the professor who was with the class on the trip. The clicks ate dinner at different tables, and the smaller click didn`t participate in the birthday festivities or the dancing, and they slept on a different end of the Shangri-La complex.

I ended up staying up late (11:30! haha) which was not so smart since we all had to wake up at 6:30 for whitewater rafting. Julio, my boss, had informed me the day before that I would be accompanying the large group (and the 2 chilean kids) on a whitewater rafting trip.....my job is awful, i know, but someone has to do it...

All of us piled into two pickup trucks (The Chileans and the two guys went with one click, and the profesora and I went with the other) and drove to Tena, where we picked up the rafts and all the gear. Eduardo Jr from the Amarongachi Cabins was one of the guides, he was funny as usual. We started the rafting trip on the Jatunyacu River just between the lagoon and the Amarongachi Cabins, so the first 10 minutes of the river was familiar to me....in the rafts we traveled all the way down to Puerto Napo, so the end of the trip (where the Jatunyacu meets the Anzu to form the Napo) was also familiar.

My boat was very fun, so I had a great time rafting. I forget the name of our guide, he has a complicated name, but he was very good. In my raft were the two Chilean siblings (Francisca who is 20 and Edgardo who is 15) and 4 of the girls (Wendy, Katty, Jackie and Churitos, whose nickname came from the curls in her hair). Everyone was at least a decent swimmer, and lots of us spent lots of time in the river! The rapids were never too intense, but still lots of fun. The water in the river was cold....when it started raining at one point the rain felt really nice since it was so much warmer than the river! In certain rapids, we took turns riding on the front of the raft, and sometimes we could swim down smaller rapids. At one point we purposefuly flipped the raft over, and at another point it almost flipped over cause of carelessness (most of us, including me, fell out, as did the paddles, etc) So despite being a slightly rough ride, we had lots of fun.

After the trip, Fabian (one of the main drivers for Amarongachi Tours) gave me a ride back to the Cabins. I had to say goodbyes to everyone, I got lots of email addresses and phone numbers and hopefully in April or May I`ll get a chance to visit everyone in Santo Domingo. I managed to get very sunburned despite wearing sunscreen, and I also now have a MAJOR teva tan. Last night I was exhausted, and I went to bed early. Today I rested, didn`t feel too well, but in the afternoon felt okay enough to come to Tena...and here I am! Now I`m off, got to catch a bus to get back in time for dinner!!!