I am back in Riobamba now, and now that I`ve posted a few pictures, I`m gonna catch up on writing. Last weekend the Thai food was for the most part a success. The papaya salad didn´t turn out too well because I used a papaya that wasn`t green anymore....it was practically ripe. I do not recommend making Thai papaya salad with ripe papaya cause the papaya flavor made it kind of gross. Luckily other people liked it. The massaman curry was very good however, although not all of the Ecuadorans liked it. I definitely enjoyed it though, it was nice to eat non-Ecuadoran food.
My last week in Tena was pretty relaxed since there ended up being no tourists who needed a translator. I didn`t end up going whitewater rafting, which was just as well because it gave me time to do errands in Tena. Just after I finished my errands and ate lunch, Fabian (one of the taxi drivers who often works for Amarongachi Tours) pulled up with Rosalia and Ruth, two of the girls from the other cabins. I ran across the street to the car (avoiding the water balloons that were being thrown down from a rooftop) to talk to them. They were on their way to a Carnaval celebration just outside of Tena, and I went with them. We drove for about 10 minutes (with windows closed to avoid water attacks) to La Soga, a swimming hole on the Tena River which was the site of Monday´s Carnaval Party. The scene was basically a huge beach party: people swimming in the river and spraying each other with water guns, stalls with food, soft drinks and beer, loud music, dancing, and lots of shaving cream fights. After swimming for a while, the four of us shared 2 large Pilseners, then after not too long we headed back to Tena. This time I sat with Rosalia and Ruth in the back of the pickup truck, which basically meant that we were targets for tons of kids and adults standing on the side of the roads with water. At one point Fabian purposefully stopped the car in front of a family who had buckets of water and a big hose....we got soaked but it was pretty fun.
Carnaval continued that night in Shangri-La with some live music for all the tourists....we drank canelaso (cinnamon tea mixed with aguardiente) and danced. There were a bunch of people there so it was quite fun. Tuesday, the last day of Carnaval was more relaxed. The highlight of the day was when, on a whim, Roberto, Victor, Luis (guides at Shangri-La) and I decided to float down the river. The water was very high due to rain the night before, so the 2 km float (wearing just life jackets) took about 12 minutes. The afternoon was beautiful, so the walk back to the cabins was enjoyable as well.
On Wednesday I didn´t do too much...in the morning I helped out with some cleaning, and in the afternoon I chilled and played cards. There must have been something more but I can´t remember at the moment.
On Thursday, my last day in the jungle, I walked to the community of Santa Monica in the morning with a French family, Victor and Juan Carlos (see pictures below), then in the afternoon went to Tena briefly to do some last minute errands. In the afternoon I started to feel a bit sick (a runny nose and headache), but I did my best to ignore it. I walked down to the waterfall (halfway down to the river on the huge staircase) with Elizabeth and Jhanet, then went up to the volleyball court to watch a match between the people from Shangri-La and the people from Amarongachi Cabins. Everyone from the other cabins came to Shangri-La for the match, and then they stayed for dinner and for my despedida (goodbye party). It was really nice that everyone came to say goodbye to me, especially since I was told that they had never had a party like that before for other volunteers. So it was quite an honor.
There wasn`t any live music, but we had a stereo, so after dinner we cleared the tables to make a dance floor and blasted music for several hours....we also drank lots of beer and canelaso and gross strawberry wine. I didn`t drink too much cause I wasn`t feeling too well, but I danced quite a bit with practically every female present...at 11 PM I left the party for about 45 minutes to go pack my suitcase...the party was still going when I finished that though, and some people had had more than enough to drink. I danced a bit more, then the Amarongachi gang eventually left at about 12:30 and I headed to bed. Overall a great night.
On Friday I woke up at 6:45 since I thought I was going to be picked up at 8 to go to Tena, but in fact that didn`t end up happening, so I had plenty of time to relax before heading up to wait for the bus at 9 AM. Everyone from the cabins came up with me to wait for the bus...it came late, so we were waiting for half an hour. Eventually it came though and I was off...it was sad saying goodbye, but I`ll be going back to visit in May, which is not too far off. The trip back to Riobamba was pretty uneventful and took 5 hours. Back with my host family, I ate a bit, took a nap, did some errands. We ordered a pizza for dinner which was awesome since I hadn`t had pizza in quite a while. I headed to bed early, slept well and today feel a bit better.
Today I went to the market with my host family in the morning. We bought lots of fruit: chirimoya, strawberries, tuna, bananas, etc. I think we´re having strawberry juice at lunch. Yum. That´s all for now....my time in the jungle was amazing, and on Tuesday I`m off to my next adventure at the Black Sheep Inn!
