Off the Grid

Hi Everyone,

As requested, I will post a map as soon as I can post pictures (probably tomorrow night).

As soon as I arrived at Cabañas Yankuam, I started searching around for signs of life. It seemed I had stumbled upon an abandoned hotel...although that didn´t stop me from making myself right at home.
After about an hour of lounging around and reading the paper, a man came walking up from the river. I figured he wasn´t some vagabond way out here and probably worked for the hotel. He introduced himself as such and asked if I wanted to take a hike before sunset. Why not!


Well only 20 minutes up the hill from the Cabins were the most amazing waterfalls. Supposedly they I quite common place in Ecuador, as I am beginning to find out and you will soon see...



After playing in the water for a few minutes, we trudged back. I was intrigued and excited just to be hiking in the jungle, let alone getting to poke around a rarely visited cascada on my new backdoor step.

To be perfectly honest, I just wanted to sit and relax for a while. The one employee didn´t seem to mind.

After an amazing freshly caught fish dinner, he and his amigo (who had just shown up) asked if I wanted to join them for a sunset cruise to Las Orchideas (alright, so they didn´t frame it that way, it was a trip to buy some cigarettes for the guy, but it´s much more jungly with my interpretation).


There were some more astounding waterfalls during the 10 minute ride and, as expected of a town with 70 people, it was uneventful. We made it back just before a wonderful jungle downpour. I couldn´t resist the urge to sleep and went deep into a Mefloquin (my malaria meds which have the very strange side effect of allowing you to remember every dream in vivid detail) and rain induced coma.

The next morning, for the first time in God knows how long, I awoke with the sun.

I had a massive breakfast of freshly picked fruit, organic granola, locally made blackberry yogurt, scrambled eggs, empanadas (imagine a samosa with only cheese), and Ecuadorian coffee. That was more than enough carbs to get me through the day ahead.

We hopped on the long boat and headed up to Shaimi, a Shuar community (Shuar is a tribe in Ecuador and Peru famous for their history of shrinking heads and wearing them as necklaces...). The trip up the river was astounding. We travelled through several gorges and past, yet again, more waterfalls. We stopped upon my request to explore some rocks.

After about 1 1/2 hours, we pulled up to Shaimi. Within about a minute of arrival, one of their traditional carved out canoes came from the opposite direction.

I don´t know why this brought me joy, but as they attempted to bring the boat to shore, one guy abandoned ship and, as a result, the whole thing went under! I feel bad because they lost a boatload of supplies in about 20 seconds, but I expected that if they´ve been doing this for thousands of years, they would be a little better at docking!

Anyways, we walked through the town which, for the first time I´d seen in Ecuador, did not have electricity ( I guess the last government promised power to all, so it has a better electrical grid than most of Western Europe). I met up with my Shuar guide and we chatted about the tribal customs, history, language, relationships, politics, etc. He then explained that he didn´t feel up to guiding today, but I would still have to pay him the guide fee (consider it an admission ticket). I was a little peeved and told the guy from the hotel that I felt ripped off. He acted sympathetic, but I don´t think he cared.

We hiked and trail-blazed for the next 2 hours through rivers, pastures, forests, and finally, jungle. Our destination was a cave.


We arrived after making excellent time, despite terrible mud. The cave is famous because it houses something called the oilbird. The oilbird is it´s own family and species. It is a nocturnal, cave dwelling, palm fruit eating, strange sounding, supposedly tasty, normal looking bird. We entered the cave and made a bit of noise, which obviously upset the oilbirds because they started to click, scream, and fly around (the sound is similar to the very scary and evil creatures in the movie ¨The Descent,¨ I was able to record it and will post it asap).

We had a great simple lunch sitting next to the cave entrance and then proceeded back. The walk back was a little quicker but it was now mid-day and getting very hot. As we reached town, I ran into some obvious looking Americans (I guess I´m pretty obvious too, but I like to think with more and more tan that I am beginning to fit in...). They had just checked into Cabañas, and I was excited to have some English speaking company for dinner!

A personal boast here, but it had now been over 48 hours since I had heard, spoken, or read anything in English.

There was some sort of delay in leaving Shaimi. I busied myself attempting to steal a canoe (not really, but I did want to try it).

The hotel guy eventually told me that he wanted to wait for his friends from upriver (in 2 hours!). I told him that for the $50 I had paid, I wasn´t waiting. He arranged for alternative transportation for me upriver. Somehow I ended up with 10 Shuar people and a very frightened pig.

Dinner and the conversation were great. The group of four were bird watchers from Colorado. Supposedly I had seen some rare bird called an orange-throated Tanager (sp?). It just looked colorful to me.

The next morning I was leaving for Gualaquiza, about 8 hours North.

With Love,
Kent