Into the Jungle

So we left San Clemente good and early, bussing it down the giant hill one last time, blundering around in Ibarra a bit until we found our bus, then heading out, south and east, towards Tena and the Amazon. This was a bit of a complex travel day, since we were trying to avoid Quito and its traffic and its widely separated giant bus terminals.

We took our first bus for about two and half hours to the midsized town of Pifo. This was a gorgeous ride at times, with awesome, with clear views of the giant, glaciated snowcone of the Cotapaxi volcano along the way. But the bus was very crowded, the aisles packed full of people (including some of our group who had to stand) and the consistent stopping and going to get and release passengers was a bit trying at times. Traveling down the spine of Ecuador´s central highlands, passing through innumerable towns and villages and small cities, it was easy to believe that this is South America´s most densely populated country. Finally we reached Pifo, walked a bit with all our gear to an adjoining roadway, and waited on the side of the road by a petrol station for a Tena-bound bus. After waiting less than an hour, a big, yellow Banos Express cruised on up, and we piled our bags underneath, piled ourselves into the interior, and set off for Tena.

This country´s transportation infrastructure is totally impressive. Good pavement everywhere you want it. It just works. It runs on schedule. You can count on it, which is much more than I can say for a lot of other places I´ve been in the past.

So we pointed southeast and began climbing the giant set of ridges that defines the central highlands, curvy and steep and green as always, then after a couple of hours began our descent. Vegetation getting more and more tropical, air getting more humid, road twisting down through deep green valleys, we plied our way out of the mountains and into the Amazon basin, accompanied, as always, by an awful American martial arts movie dubbed into Spanish on the bus´s TV.

About 4 hours out of Pifo we crossed a big bridge over a roiling brown river and rolled down a big hill into Tena. The heat and humidity and general shabbiness of Tena were a bit offputting at first, and we floundered around, walking in circles with all of our gear, in the heat of the late afternoon, until we finally got it together and figured out where we were going and found our hostel. This was decent place, with a great view of the town and the mountains in the distance and soon enough we were comfortably ensconced, the kids pretty excited about having beds for the first time in a long while, and we began to settle in and make plans for the jungle trek, which would begin the next morning.

Tena, seen from the Limon Cocha hostel

More later...this internet cafe is about to close.