Tena

Brenna On Rocks

During my Spanish course at the Catolica Universidad I was introduced to Lori, a young American who was on a University exchange programme, where essentially she can pick from a few places in the world and spend a couple of semesters learning there. She choose Ecuador. Along with Lori were another 20 or so American´s all doing the same and over the last couple of months here, I became good friends with this group, often spending my time out on the town with them or being asked to join them on a weekend trip away.

Of all of them, I became closest with Brenna - born in the States, she lived in New Zealand from the ages of 1 till 11 before moving back to America where she has been living in Orange County ever since. Her dad is a geologist and worked in New Zealand for GNS (Geological and Nuclear Science), where 9 months earlier, I had been working!!!

Tena is a small town located on the western edges of the Amazon Jungle. It´s technically part of the expansive foresty landscape but is more cloud forest than deep interior jungle. It takes about 5 hours to get there from Quito and when you arrive you realise it´s a place you could easily forget to leave. It was the first weekend trip away that I did with the all American group, and it was fun.

We were actually quite lucky on this trip as everything, from food, accommodation and activities had all been planned for us. As part of the exchange programme, each of the students has to stay with an Ecuadorian family. One of the girls on the programme, Serena, had parents with friends out in Tena, who sorted out our whole weekend. We essentially had an entire house for all 12 of us to roam in. The mother would cook us breakfast every day and she had also arranged some day trips out for us. This woman was pretty amazing.

You don´t have to travel far out of the relaxing and peaceful town of Tena before you´re riding in the back of a jeep, traveling on dirt roads and out into beautiful jungle surroundings. There are numerous rivers around the area of Tena, known as the Napo Province and our first trip was to head out on those rivers. We had hired big rubber tubes, like the ones from the inside of a tyre and we each hopped on one and then let the rapids guide us down-stream. It reminded me of floating down the river in Vang Vieng (Laos) except this was a little less relaxing and there were no bamboo bars ready to tempt you to shore. Instead, stunning jungle scenery was on view 360 degrees. The river was often deserted, apart from interspersed periods where Ecuadorian kids would be splashing around in the water and would often climb aboard your tube to get a lift - mostly with the result of capsize!!!

The tubing was mostly relaxing but always fun. Often a rock would pop out of no-where as we headed down the rapids and would graze a bum cheek now and again, but it was all worth it in the end. You would also see one of the others lodged between two rocks and unable to move. The general help I gave was to simply laugh at them as I floated past, beyond the point of aid. Of course my lack of assistance would come back to play on me as 15 minutes later there they were, sailing on past as I frantically try and get myself out of a thick tree branch which had somehow impaled my tube. I also spent 20 minutes trying to attack a bug that simply wouldn´t leave me alone as I glided down this river. It only took a bite of me once and it damn hurt. After an hour of tubing we pulled alongside the shore and there was the family, cooking a BBQ for us. It was a good day.

The second day we headed out to a cave. You go in groups and are taken by a guide. It´s pretty amazing. A dark cave with Stalagmites and Stalagtites as well as the odd bat and underground waterfall. Most of it is pitch dark so you walk in pairs, one of whom has a head-light. I spent most of the time in that cave falling over or bumping into the people in front. The head-lights weren´t great!!!

The rest of the day we spent checking out Tena. The town does have an influx of tourists but on the weekend we were there I don´t remember seeing a single one, apart from those in our group of course. The town is small, built around the river and has a very peaceful feel to it. Local indigenous communities surround the area, speaking mostly in the original tounge of Quichua (or Kichwa), a language I feel is beyond my learning powers as I still struggle to grasp `simplistic´ Spanish. We covered most of Tena in an hour, in the pleasant climate that radiates in this part of the world.

At night we sat outside in our garden, swinging on hammocks and playing drinking games, and late on Sunday afternoon we returned back to Quito, for the others had University to attend and I had to return back to work. On the way back, we discussed our next trip away. We agreed on Banos......................