After spending a whole day recovering, I was ready for some action. Luckily, I got what I asked for. Starting the morning with a steric(spelling) “bud leaves at 8” but I wasn’t surprised when it left near 8:30. Throughout the trip I really came to understand the phrase “we are on Ecuadorian time.” After a hour and half bus ride we drive across a bridge with minimal guardrails to see our stallion of a canoe. I got a largest one which meant more stability for dancing and shenanigans.
Donya and I were great entertainment for the locals and we showed them out music and dances for the 70 mile canoe ride. Well it was mostly Donya, I participated here and there. In the midst of catching tan, Donya would grab leaves from low hanging branches at the front of the canoe and throw them up for us in the back to catch. It is important to note that these canoes were motorized so catching them was not easy task. What was awesome to watch, was Justin who snagged a leaf behind his back while sitting on the edge of the canoe. A little while later, someone got the genius idea to throw chips at the front of the canoe in the air for the driver in the back to catch and eat. The driver would use his hat as a net to catch the chips and we kept going until we ran out of chips. Sadly, he went the ride without chips.
Finally we pull up to our cabin and moral was low. We all sat at the dinner table grimy and waiting for our food. Immediately after eating everyone washed off their layer of sweat and dirty and passed out. The sun and the heat really drains you. The next morning we woke up and was greeted but the Waorani Nation. As an ice breaker, we all told our names and were given Waorani names. When I told my name the tribe gave a little chuckle so I wonder if my name was that foreign to them that it was funny or if my name meant something in their language. My Waorani name was pronounced “meepoo” which was the tribes great grandfather.
After getting to know the tribe a little bit we gathered on the canoes for a short ride up the river. The tribe had to stop the engine to take us into a small stream connected to the river and used a big stick to push up the stream. The man at the front of the boat had to use a machete to clear the branches in the way and the sound of a clean cut sounded just like a movie. Trying to get out of the boat was a little difficult considering our only path was a pretty much a mud slide that we had to climb up. The tribe lead us through the rainforest as they cut the branches down for us and cleared a path for us. The problem for me as that I am a taller then them so I had to duck under a lot of path they cleared out. Then we arrived at a stream with a vine hanging next to it. Our group unlocked our inner Tarzan and swung on a vine. All of us were successful but one.
After walking and boating back to the cabin Donya asked if him and I could join them fishing. They said yes so Donya and I got back on the canoe with four of the locals and went for a half hour fishing trip. We both caught two catfish each with just a fishing rode that had no reel so just had to pull on the rode and pull on the string. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience to be fishing with them and seeing how they feed their family. When we pulled up to the first spot the grandfather jumped off the canoe and wondered into the rainforest with a machete and I was wondering what he was doing. Five minutes later, he comes out with a curved stick and ties fishing line to the stick and makes a make shift fishing rode for the day. Another thing that really stood out to me was when we got a snag and the fishing hook got stuck on something under water. One of the locals use a long stick to track down the fishing line to see find where the snag was and then jumped in to get it. After about five minutes of searching and pulling out random logs he found it. This was very different than an American fisher because we would have just cut the line and got another hook but her that one hook is so valuable. Then we returned back to the cabin.
