The Amazon

My time in the Amazon was more like my Contiki trips than the Galapagos was. And not. My head was filled with expectations. I had rain gear and good hiking boots. I had my imagination.

I also had the expectations of what I’d seen on a travel show called “Don’t Forget your Passport,” a Canadian travel show similar to the Lonely Planet Guides. I saw an episode on the Amazon, in Ecuador, where the host and intrepid explorer stayed at the same place I happened to be booked into: the Kapawai Ecolodge and Reserve. I watched him ride in the bow of a dugout canoe, slash his way through the undergrowth, sit in parley with chieftains in authentic indigenous dress. I was stoked. I just had to get there.

I completed my Galapagos tour, said goodbye to my travel companions, both New Orleanais and middle-aged alike, and flew out of the Islands back to Guayaquil and Quito. There was a delay in Guayaquil as we disembarked our plane, watched our luggage unloaded and transferred to the identical plane alongside it. We watched the passengers disembark that plane and board our plane, their luggage be transferred from their plane to ours. Only then were we allowed to board their plane. That took a couple hours. Then we were off again for the half-hour flight back to Quito.

Air Coffin

I ate supper, strolled El Rondo again, and slept. I rode and returned to the airport at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am, where I boarded the ricketiest plane I’ve ever set eyes on. Mel Gibson and Air America came to mind. I dubbed thee Air Coffin

There was a family flying out with me, a couple in their 60s, their son, his wife and the son’s boy. The pilot offered the front seat to the boy. I’d have loved to sit up front but I knew that it would be the thrill of a lifetime for the boy and who am I to argue with that. As to flying Air Coffin, it wasn’t that bad. It was loud. It rose and fell on hazy thermals, but it was otherwise a smooth 45-minute flight over mostly unbroken rainforest, a few wide strips of clear cut evident here and there. I saw a red airstrip slashed out of the crest of a hill, the thatched huts of the Achuar Indian community following its length, a river bending about the base of the hill it rose above. We plunged down on the little strip of land cut out of the jungle, landing fast, bouncing twice before fully alit, the huts but a blur until we lurched to a stop.

We were led down a steep switchback to the river where a brightly canvased river bus awaited us. The sun burned off the haze over the next thirty minutes as we wound our way downriver, the blue acrid smoke of our exhaust trailing us, the only haze remaining. The shadows shortened, leaving only the jungle closing in on either side, the canopy reaching out and scratching the striped canvas.

We arrived at the lodge in time for lunch, then spent a quiet afternoon walking along a sandbar beach at a bend of the Pastaza River, lectured on Ecuadorian rainforest and the Achuar culture. We watched the sun set, the late golden light draining fast. The sun sets fast that fast close to the equator.

Kapawi Lodge

The sun down, we hiked back to the lodge, our haven of comfort in the jungle. It boasted twenty raised cabins connected by a wandering walkway, the reeds and river grasses filling the spaces between. The cabins were what one might hope for, round, thatched, almost treehouses, the balconies boasting a hammock for those leisure moments as we waited for the triangle’s clanging, calling us to dinner. The beds were comfortable, the mosquito netting draped across the screened windows like curtains. But there was no electricity. There were solar panels that lent limited light to twenty-watt bulbs that were good enough to guide one to the washroom but not for reading. There was no running water. There was a basin and ewer. There was a shower of a sort, as well; Each day sacks of water were laid out in the sun to be heated by day and hung in the shower for a nighttime wash. In the mornings there was the basin.

Days of canoe trips and hiking followed. I had to laugh at how I was misled by “Don’t Forget Your Passport.” Where the intrepid host wore hiking boots, we had to wear calf high rubber boots, and for good reason too; mud crawled up our legs, and were we wearing hiking boots, we’d have surely left them behind in the mud somewhere. We also had to wear lifejackets, where the intrepid host did not, acting like he was exploring uncharted territory, where no white man had ventured before. And I’d have been convinced had the natives not been attired in Columbia sandals and Coca-Cola tee-shirts. The natives were depicted as secluded, but they were rather comfortable with the presence of we tourists, in my opinion. Too comfortable. It was almost like there was a tourist eco-lodge nearby. There was a lot of jungle, though.

There were macaws, there were lime green parrots. There was a flurry and crash of movement in the perpetual twilight, no more than four feet from me when we startled some bird in the undergrowth. After whatever that bird was had escaped our catching sight of it, I spotted something at my feet, something I’d seen a few times on the tube, a line of leafcutter ants crossing the trail at my feet. I called out to our guide who retraced his steps to where I guarded their passage. We crouched low and were treated to the ecology of the ants. Then we were on our way, too busy rubbernecking to note where our Achuar guide was going, at least until we reached a fork in the trail, our guide nowhere in sight. The only prudent thing to do was wait and call out. I saw a silhouette resolve from the undergrowth, one led be a gleam of teeth as he chuckled at our obvious discomfort.

One afternoon we kayaked the Kapawi River and the lagoons nearby. We were told to keep an eye out for river dolphins, but we didn’t see any. I didn’t see any catfish or piranha, either, although we did have catfish for dinner once.

There were night walks, bats flittering overhead, insects and snakes scurrying and slithering about. Frogs chirped and croaked all around us.

One thing I really wanted to see, and did, was a sloth. We heard him first, hooting and howling from out across the river that rounded the lodge. He was hard to spot; he didn’t move much; but once I caught sight of him in my binoculars, high in the trees across the way, I spent a few minutes each morning and evening seeing what he was up to, which wasn’t much. Sloths are slothful by nature, no more than couch potatoes in trees, really.

But what would be a trip to the Amazon without a little cultural exchange. We visited the nearest Achuar village, scaling the switchback to where it perched high and dry like all native villages in the Amazon. We saw chickens, we saw pigs, we saw children running and hiding as children do. And we watched the art of Achuar face painting.

There was lots of bird watching. There was a lot of bird watching in the Galapagos, there was a lot of bird watching in the Amazon. I wondered if it were a middle-age rite of passage. I was treated to their book of sightings, too, much as a I’d been in the Galapagos.

The boy was not interested in bird watching. He was interested in football, and my being the only person present that he wasn’t related to and wasn’t staff, he talked to me about it, a lot. He talked to me about just about everything: his friends, his school, his sports, his favourite football team. He’d flop over the couch in the lounge, practicing his preteen postures with abandon; he saddled up next to me at the bar, always asking me what my favourite NFL team was. His grandfather laughed when I said, “the Edmonton Eskimos.”

“Who are they?” the boy asked, his face squinted up in question.

“My team,” I said, “they’re in the CFL.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

Galapagos

The Galapagos marked a change in travel for me, or a beginning to said change, anyways. Adventure was apparently on its way out. Luxury was in. Backpacking was out, although I landed there with a backpack in tow. Dinner jackets were in. Early mornings were in. Late nights were out. There was sightseeing, wildlife sightings. There was neither scuba diving nor white-water rafting. Sipping wine and scotch replaced guzzling flagons of beer. My travel companions were older now, and sadly that meant that Europals were out.

I miss that aspect of travel more than anything, those spontaneous meetings, those fortuitous temporary friendships. I don’t miss the nights of excess, although I do miss the nights. The nights were fun. The nights were the most memorable of times. I mostly miss those earnest conversations over coffee or drinks, the sun bearing down, the heat, the closeness of the nights. I miss hanging out, listening as the tropical breeze rustled foliage, as the surf rolled in and crashed onto jagged shorelines. I miss the cabanas, the bamboo huts, and the songs of cicadas. Mostly I miss the people I whiled the hours away with. The discovery.

This is not to say there was no discovery in the Galapagos; there was. There were finches and penguins and sea lions and seals. There were pink and red flamingos balanced on impossibly tall and thin legs, iguanas that snorted viscose brines as they purged the salt from their bodies. I climbed steep hills, leapt from jagged rock to jagged rock under the spray of coastal geysers, scaled jet black dunes and strolled rust red beaches as rich as PEI’s soils.

I walked in Darwin’s footsteps on the brown sands of the isthmus of Bartolome Island Beach, watching as cormorants and boobies whirled about the spearhead obelisk that pierced the Pacific. I lay an arm’s length away from disinterested seals. I raced a Giant Tortoise; okay, it wasn’t so much a race as a stroll, at least until the tortoise stopped and growled a breathy gasp, releasing a gallon of urine in defiance of my presence.

But I did it alone (metaphorically, that is). And it was all very strictly monitored. I suppose most of my adventures were strictly monitored. I’ve been treated to instructions to not take flash photos here, do not approach that frieze; do not stray here, do not touch that. Keep together. Do not lag. It was much the same there: do not stray from the path; it is okay for the seals to touch you but not for you to touch the seals. Respect the tenaciously tough and fragile ecosystem. I was okay with all that. I was there to see, not to destroy.

But it was all so very comfortable. Course after course of gourmet foods followed one after another. There were perfectly paired wines. There were Egyptian cottons. There was air-conditioning. There were pleasant middle-aged companions who shared my table at meals, who asked me what I’d seen, what had captivated me, who showed me their wonderful pictures, and on this occasion and that, shared my excursions, trekking up trails and crouching next to this animal or that. They were wonderful people. They just weren’t my age. They had mortgages; they had children; they’d paid off their mortgages; they’d retired. They gardened. They cruised. They bird watched. They checked off their lists, consulted one another on the species they’d chased down and captured with camera. They showed me those pictures so that I too could marvel over their conquests. They discussed whether to get into RV’ing, or did RV’ing mean the end of cruising. They went to bed early.

There were no mosquito nets. No bowls below lights to capture the moths as they fluttered about the lights. There were no late-night cocktails under the stars. No deep conversations of self, unrealized expectations, and unexpected regrets. There was no leafing through one another’s CDs, discussions on whether Oasis was as good as Radiohead, or flirtations.

That all sounds shallow, but there’s an ambiance to backpacking, roughing it a little, and hanging out with people who happen to be in the same metaphorical place as you.

There was one couple of near like age as me. They were almost ten years younger than me, but as I was sharing time with people about twenty years older than me, I was forever hoping to fall in with them. I did not. We rarely found ourselves in the same groups as we made our way ashore. We did not share meals. They sat second seating, I sat first. We did meet for drinks a few times after we finally crossed paths long enough to say more than “hey” to one another.

We crossed paths for the first time on the Bartolome isthmus. We were not in the same group on that day either, but all groups ended their day’s touring on the isthmus; so, when they spied me sitting on the beach, watching cormorants and boobies circle the spire, they approached me and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said with more enthusiasm that I wished to gush forth.

They sat, pressing their toes into the cool sand beneath the hot, much as I had.

“How’s your tour?” he asked in a thick southern accent

“Good,” I said.

My “good” must have been less enthusiastic than intended because we all laughed.

“Where you two from?” rushed out of me. I’d never come across so thick a southern accent and was very curious to place it.

He gave me a pause before saying, “Man,” he drawled, “y’all talk funny. Where you from?” He spoke slowly, slower than anyone I’d ever spoken with. His words flowed forth as though accustomed to sultry heat and a conservation of energy.

“I talk funny?” I said, clearly astonished by his having said what he did. Then I too paused.
We laughed again.

“I’m from Ontario, like way north Ontario,” I said. “You?”

“Nawlins,” he said.

“Nawlins?”

New Orleans. His girlfriend was from up “north,” he said, which I assumed meant somewhere north of Nawlins, if way South of what I considered North.

“How are you finding this trip?” I asked.

It was alright, they said, but not what they were accustomed to doing. Which was? Backpacking. Thumbin’ it. I had to listen hard to cut through his drawl and suss out what he was saying, but I began to get the cadence of it in a little while. Her accent was less thick than his, even if she talked less. They were there doing what I was, checking off an item on the bucket list.

It took them a little while to cut through my accent, too, it seems, or so they said.

Funny, I never thought of myself as having an accent until then.

 

The Equator

Collected from the airport, my guide and driver shuttled me to my hotel. While on the way, I mentioned that I had a day to spare and wouldn’t mind an excursion or two, if time allowed. I was told that there were a fair number of options and that there were pamphlets to choose from at the front desk. All I had to do was give them a call and they would set me up; “that’s what we’re here for, Mr. John.”

It turns out that Quito is quite the destination, and thousands of people choose to visit the city, not only as a jumping off point like I had, but as an actual destination. It just wasn’t what I was looking for just then. It’s spectacular, if you haven’t heard of it. It’s a World Heritage Site, after all. It had once been the seat of Spanish power in South America, and had all colonial administration in its seat at one time, judiciously chosen for its high altitude near-temperate climate. There are a lot of churches, a great deal of stunning architecture, volcanoes nearby, and a lively nightlife. And as much chaos as you can stand, too. Most places outside of the developed West are chaotic, I’ve found. In spite of that, it’s beautiful there. So, who wouldn’t want to go there? Me, apparently. My younger self pleads ignorance.

My hotel was around La Ronda. Where exactly? I have no idea. I didn’t stay there long. I slept there on three occasions though. That night and the next, between my Galapagos and Amazon legs, and prior to leaving. I recall blue and white tile work with a hint of Inca, lots of potted plants, mostly ferns, otherwise floral or leathery leafed, and far too expensive breakfasts. I checked in, noted the terrace, the restaurant, the pool, and went to bed.

I took my time rising. I’d weathered the Mr. John confusion, hoping that would be the one glitch of the vacation. There’s always one. At least one. In this case, there was one more. I discovered that I was missing a few toiletries. No problem, I thought. There were bound to be pharmacies about.

I browsed pamphlets and my Lonely Planet guide over coffee after I had my first overpriced breakfast. I decided that I ought to go see the equator, seeing that I was only about ten or twenty kilometers away. I wasn’t sure how long that might take. Twenty kilometers may not seem too far, but I’ve found that navigating cities can take hours, depending on the chaos nurtured there. Maybe it’s not chaos; maybe it’s just a laissez-faire attitude towards the rules of the road.

I called my contact and he arrived in about an hour. His company could offer me whatever I wanted, he said; so, we discussed my needs and wants and decided on an agenda. I paid my excursion fees and we were off. We picked up no others. Not counting my driver and guide, I had the minivan to myself, so, that saved some time. No need to crisscross the city, no need to herd cats. They only had to herd one. I asked to stop at a pharmacy, I picked up my deodorant and blades and we were headed north to the Middle of the World where the equatorial line divides the northern and southern hemispheres. It was a thin strip of brass that cut across the asphalt, a sign on the shoulder pointing north and south. The cliff fell sharply away from it, the valley a hazy, smoky blue beyond with what I expected were thermals rising to become a storm. Spots of white stucco and grey concrete and red tile broke the foliage here and there, as far as I could see. I saw wide gaps too.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Coffee,” they said. A flash of Juan Valdes (remember him?), leading his ass down mountain trails, crossed my mind.

“I need a snap of me astride the equator,” I said, handing my camera to my guide.

“That’s not really the Equator,” my guide said. “We crossed that back there. It was moved because it was on a blind corner and there were a lot of accidents.” Not the equator? I shrugged. Who would know? Who would care? I did the tourist thing and stepped on either side of the little brass line that apparently meant nothing, my arms held wide, and smiled for the obligatory photo.

They took me to Guápulo, a neighborhood in Quito, home to local artists and a couple of hippy cafés and bars. Beads, macramé, tie-dyed paint jobs; you get the picture. The weather was less than ideal, cloudy, threatening rain, so I opted to return early, have supper, and see what La Ronda was all about.
It rained, and did not let up, so I was forced to carry an umbrella, something to trip over and stab people with in close quarters, something to be conscious of carrying and losing. Once I got off the major streets, the side streets were narrow, the buildings usually no more than a couple stories high, the laneways steep. There were a lot of clubs. There were buskers on every corner, cowering under awnings and trying to cast a brightness the early evening lacked. I wanted to explore more, but I had an early flight in the morning so I didn’t stay out late. I hate being conscious of time when on vacation. I found a lively club not too far from my hotel that hosted a number of backpackers, so I decided to linger there and not stray too far afield. When I looked around, I realized that I was getting older. The backpackers were noticeably younger, the music less to my taste, my newfound invisibility surprising. A couple guys chatted with me when I broke the silence between us but by and large the conversations were shallow and quick, those younger men far more interested with braided blondes and brunettes in halter tops, flannel shirts, Rastafarian toques and Doc Martins than me. I don’t blame them. If I were their age, I’d have been far more interested in those women than me, too. I left after only a couple beers, not wanting to lose my way or risk the hangover; like I’ve said before, I was getting older.

After breakfast my guide delivered me to the airport for my flights to the port city of Guayaquil and then the Islands. The first flight was shorter than the wait to board, just 30 minutes. We rose up, vaulted the mountain peaks and swung about over the Pacific, plunging down to the coast. The wait to board the flight to the Islands was longer still. An hour later I was in the air for another hour and then I was on San Cristobal Island, and then on the cruise ship. Have you been on one? Galapagos cruises are small. The number of people allowed on any island at any time is strictly regimented to limit their impact on the delicate ecology. It was small, but it was cozy.

My stateroom was better than any I’d had thus far, spacious, brassy, woody, marbled. And I had it to myself. That’s good and bad. I wasn’t crammed into a single bed, I could spread out, and I didn’t have to deal with anyone else’s idiosyncrasies, but I missed the camaraderie of those Contiki tours, where twenty or forty people are thrown together and, through shared experience, forced to get to know one another. Or is that just a factor of youth? I see now that twenty-year-olds are similar to children in that aspect. They’re open to meeting new people, open to new experiences, open to what comes more so than older people, certainly more so than couples who tend to keep to themselves.

I wasn’t alone, though. A few middle-aged couples adopted me and there was a young couple from New Orleans that I hung around with from time to time, if not always.

I saw the writing on the wall. I wasn’t part of the young crowd anymore, despite my only being in my middle thirties.

Funny how that happens in the blink of an eye.

Mr. John

My plans made, I prepared for my shortest flight in years. For the last few years, getting there, wherever there was, tended to be a two-day affair, with lengthy stops between flights, some as short as five hours, some as long as eighteen, or even twenty-four when the plane didn’t arrive. The six and a half hours to Quito seemed a puddle jump by comparison.

I’d been lax. I’d done little to no research on Quito, only considering it a waystation between actual trips, someplace to sleep. I should have taken note of the amount of time I’d spend there between the legs of this adventure.

Landing in Quito was an adventure. The airport, indeed, the landing strip, was pressed in upon by the city, its buildings within hailing distance and very little space between. It is also bounded by mountains. That leaves little room for a leisurely descent. One moment the airliner was gliding along, the next it sped forward and plunged downward, its nose diving down perceptively from within. My stomach lurched with it. I felt the need to brace my feet and lean back into my seat as we dove into the airfield. The city lights drew up fast, transforming from a sheet to pin lamps. Cars raced us, falling behind quickly.

We landed, the wheels slamming into the ground. The flaps fell, the brakes engaged (are there breaks on a plane), and I felt myself flung into my belt, my spine weightless against my seat. When we turned to taxi, I noticed how close the buildings were. They were right there! I’d never landed at an airport what wasn’t conveniently way over there, miles from the city they reputedly sought to serve. Quito’s airport was actually IN the city!

I disembarked it a cool damp night, the city’s altitude making it feel autumnal despite its straddling the equator. I collected my bags, got my passport stamped, and consulted my itinerary. I was to be shuttled to my hotel, but I’d seen nobody I would have recognized as expecting me. There were few in the airport proper at the outside edge of Arrivals. I followed the flow, passing more than a few tour groups clustered around someone in a brightly coloured golf shirt, holding aloft a sign, a clip board in the other hand, mentally checking off the people around them. I kept looking up at their signs, looking for a match to my own itinerary, my anxiety growing as I eliminated one after another. Before I knew it, I was outside, under glaring incandescent lights dappled with flurries of moths. I saw a phalanx of expectant faces three deep, most of them obviously family members in no need of signs. My fellow passengers rushed toward them, embraced and kissed and scooped up, broadcasting their love for one another with the brightest of smiles.

There was a number of signs held up out there, as well. Most bore the name of companies, tour groups and such, a few bore names. I scanned them, not seeing mine, my name or my tour company. I glanced back at my itinerary, searching for a name, then back at the signs, looking for a match or a clue and finding none. I became a little concerned. Did no one come to collect me? I paid for a transfer from the airport to my hotel and was a little annoyed that there was no one there. That wouldn’t have been the end of the world; there are cabs, after all; but I had no idea where my hotel was in relation to the airport and what the ride might cost. It was late. And I was tired after a day of travel. I was in a country that was by no means English-speaking. Was English even common in Quito? I was growing a little anxious, my stomach twisting into what would eventually become a knot. I decided to ask for help before hiring one of the cabs that were in plain sight just past the greeting masses.

I re-entered the airport proper, weaving between those streaming past me into the night. I approached a tour guide, obviously a tour guide, a woman in a crimson red golf shirt with a company logo stitched into its breast, Quito Tours, or some such. She looked at my sheets, asked another tour guide, this one in a blue golf shirt. They gestured to another to come over. Not one of them recognized my tour company. My gut was clenching. They called out to airport security employee who also looked at my itinerary.
She asked, “Did you look outside?”

I had. She decided that maybe if we looked together, we might find my ride.

She scanned the signs much as I did earlier and pointed one out: MR JOHN. She drew me towards the man displaying it before his chest.

“Are you looking for…” she asked, her question directed at the face above the sign, glanced at my papers again, “Leonard, David John?”

He looked from my papers to his. “Mr. John,” he said, nodding, obviously pleased to have found the eponymous Mr. John.

I too looked, comparing his blurry fax to my sheet. I began to feel my anxiousness ease away. He pointed from one sheet to the other, from one name to the matching other: “Leonard David John?” he said. “Mr. John?”

“Is that you?” the girl asked.

“I think so,” I said. I suppressed the urge to giggle. Mr. John. I was Mr. John. They thought my name was Leonard David John.

“That’s not my name,” I said, thoroughly confusing him. My middle name is John.”

“This way, please, Mr. John,” he said, leading me to the car that would take me and my pack to my hotel.

No matter how many times I tried to tell him that my name was not Mr. John, I could not for the life of me convince him otherwise.