Wednesday 2 November 2016

Canelos


Isabela and her party had taken 12 days to hike from Riombanba to Canelos, through heavy rain and mud. We chose to hike the mere last 25km stretch of the journey from Puyo to Canelos. Of course it was an attempt to mirror the experience of Isabela Godin, however the road from Puyo to Canelos was no longer primary rain forest. It had long been turned into secondary rainforest having been cleared years before. There was now a brand new paved road and a bus service to Canelos and so our hike was on tarmac. Almost every person who drove past stopped to offer us a lift. They didn’t understand why we walked. It certainly wasn’t a hike you would do for any other reason other than the one we had. Nevertheless, birds nest still hung from the palm trees and butterflies flew around us and we passed a mirage of squashed lizards and frogs on the road and huts by the side of the road inhabited by Kichwa people with dried sloths and jaguar skins hanging from their banisters.

Isabela’s party consisted of herself and 10 others, including her brothers, nephew and servants, but they were also accompanied by 31 natives. They were commissioned to carry both herself (in her palanquin and embroidered slippers) and her baggage and food supplies for the journey.

She had been told this would be the worst part of the journey. Upon reaching Canelos there would be canoes waiting and it would be smooth sailing thereafter.

After 4 hours of hiking in the head we finally reached Canelos. We were greeted by an arrangement of spread out concrete blocks and buildings.

It felt like a border town, with stray dogs running about and a collection of concrete buildings where men sat drinking beer.

Isabela’s site on her arrival would have been a much more depressing. The expectation should have been one of a fleet of boats awaiting in a welcoming village. Instead the village was deserted with burnt down huts. Smallpox had been the cause and all the residents of the village and fled. The canoes, either had too been burnt or used in the evacuation process. Her Indian companions sense the danger and fled. Her party of 42 diminished to 10 in minutes.

In his words:

The Americans who escorted Madame Godin, who were paid in advance according to the bad custom in this country, a custom, founded on mistrust, at times too well founded, scarcely reached Canelos before they retracted their steps, either from dread of the air being infected or from apprehension of being obliged to embark, a matter obnoxious in extreme to individuals who had perhaps never seen a canoe in their lives but at a distance.’

When we organized the journey we had had to negotiate with Juan and Heraldo, to pay 50% upfront and 50% after. They had wanted full payment upfront. We laughed when they told us that if we didn’t pay up at the end he would take us back to Ecuador.

We walked down to take a look at the river. It looked shallow and fast with white water and rocks poking from the surface. I could immediately see the difficulties we were going to encounter in a fibreglass canoe, let alone a dug out.

We went back to set up camp. We were staying in a bar, disco, family home.

We were given the back room to setup camp. It was an open air bamboo hut with palm frond roof in which we set up our tents. It was clearly used as a disco room, with a disco ball, pictures of sexy ladies on the wall and tokenary paintings of Che Guevara and Bob Marley.

It took a while to find the switch to turn the main light off and there were a few disco lights flashed before we got the right one and Mauro got bitten by a spider in the process. It couldn’t have been a poisonous one as he was still alive the next morning.

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