South America,  Ecuador,  Travel

Shandia, Tena

June 15, 2021 /

Last night at 5 o'clock last night, I took a long-distance bus with yesterday's sofa owner from Quito for more than 5 hours to his hometown - a small village in the Amazon rainforest. A few weeks ago, he contacted me online and introduced to me the Amazon native culture that he is particularly proud of. He is one of the minority Kichwa people, and they also have their own language, which is very different from Spanish. Besides that, he also sent me some pictures of the travelers he hosted from all over the world. I didn’t take a closer look at first, but when I quickly flipped through the photos, I suddenly saw a person who looked very familiar. After a closer look, I looked very much like the Denver boy I met in a youth hostel in Chiang Mai, Thailand when I first started traveling alone, but because he was too small. Not sure, but when I asked the owner of the sofa, it was really him. The world is so small, he also came to be received by the same sofa owner two years ago. I didn't plan to come here at first, and thought it was a bit too remote, but when I talked to the Denver boy about his experience, I felt that this was a rare opportunity to understand Amazon culture. Anyway, I thought I came here when I had time. On the way to the long-distance bus, the most unbelievable scene appeared when the movie was playing on the front screen: Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior" actually started playing, with a weird Western dubbing, and a strong sense of disobedience. It was very late when I arrived at their village home, and I was ready to make a bed on the floor, but I didn't expect them to spare a room for me to sleep in. I am very grateful. It is said that there are many mosquitoes in the Amazon jungle, and there is a mosquito net in the bedroom. Just as I was about to put down the mosquito net, I saw a big green insect on it, and asked the sofa owner to help me take it out. Had a good sleep last night and was not disturbed by any mosquitoes. Woke up in the morning to the rooster crowing.

Their living conditions are not as difficult as I imagined. They have basic water and electricity grids, but life is still not easy. The toilets are built outside the house for public use. In the kitchen there is a small stove that needs to be ignited with matches, and a ground stove that can be lit outside for cooking, but there is no convenient faucet for washing, washing clothes by hand, cooking, washing dishes, etc. When using water, use a small plastic bowl to fish out the water from the large basin, and if it is gone, use a small water pipe to refill it. If you take a shower, use the small water pipe to flush directly. There are a lot of collected coffee beans on the ground of his house, which will be dried outside and then processed into coffee. For breakfast, I prepared two breads, three omelets and a large bowl of chicha (juice squeezed from cassava). I was surprised that they only ate one bread each, and they didn’t spread eggs, saying that the eggs were all for me. of. Of course I was very embarrassed and strongly asked everyone to share the food, but they still insisted that I eat them all. I can only say that I was really full, and they started to eat the rest of the eggs. Although they don't have much and are not rich, they will selflessly give me what they have.

Their village is called Shandia, and there is a small store and a primary school in the village. Chatting with him and one of his cousins during the meal, I learned that there are 2,000 people in their village, and 500 of them are their relatives and family members! My couch owner cousin has 15 siblings, he has 10, he is the youngest child - 33, his eldest brother is 60. In this way, her mother gave birth from 14 years old to 41 years old, my God! When he chatted with his cousin, he didn't speak Spanish, but spoke Kichwas, their local language, which he couldn't understand at all. He used to be a Spanish, Kichwa, and Russian-speaking tour guide in the Amazon jungle. His village mainly relied on tourism to maintain the local economy. Many foreigners came here and fell in love with life in the countryside, so they stayed on the farm to do farm work as volunteers. What, but after the epidemic started last year, there were basically no tourists, and he has been out of work. Although he continues to receive foreign tourists, although he has no direct economic benefits, he said that tourists will be more or less beneficial to his village. Taking taxis, buying drinks and snacks, visiting local attractions, etc. will all promote the economy of his village effect.

After breakfast, he and his cousin took me to hike near their place. He asked me to wear a pair of big size 39 boots, saying that he was afraid that there would be too many mosquitoes in the rainforest. But I wear a pair of shorts, saying that their skin is thicker and I am used to it. While walking, they introduced to me the names of the plants on the roadside, what medicinal materials a certain plant can make, what kind of fruit a certain fruit tree bears, various birds, butterflies and monkeys, etc. Unfortunately, these information are completely incomprehensible in Spanish. Crossing the bridge and passing the Napo River, the current is very fast. They said that many tourists come here to play kayaking and other extreme sports. In the past two days, I found that people here seem to have a vague concept of time. I asked several passers-by in Quito yesterday how long it takes to get to the destination. They said 5 minutes, but it took me 15 minutes. I can still walk fast. Yesterday the sofa owner said that it would take 4 hours for a long-distance bus to come to their village, but it took almost 6 hours in the end. He said that he only needed to walk for two hours on foot today, but in the end he walked for almost 4 hours. From yesterday's 10-degree plateau city to today's low-altitude rainforest of more than 30 degrees, plus the big boots that don't need to be changed (no mosquitoes), walking in the sun for nearly 4 hours is so tiring. Gradually, I also learned not to ask how long it will take for them to arrive, because it is too unreliable to ask, just let nature take its course, and you will always reach your destination.

Back from hiking, I helped cut onions and carrots for lunch. They made a Kichwa special dish, which was chicken noodles, but he also cooked rice. I was wondering, should we eat noodles or rice? He said that the noodle chicken is a dish, and it should be eaten with rice and cassava. It tastes like Colombian slow-cooked chicken, and it is not bad.

After eating, I slept for a long time. When I woke up, my whole body was wet. It was so humid and hot. Fortunately, it was a rainforest after all. It started to rain around five o'clock, and the temperature dropped instantly. The sofa owner and his 10-year-old cousin took me for a walk by the river, and the villagers I met on the way introduced me to them, all of whom were cousins of various kinds. When I came back, I went for a walk with a group of relatives and children in his family. Along the way, the children talked and laughed for half an hour. Only when they arrived at the destination did they realize that they were going to play in the only children’s paradise park within a few miles. There are some slides and street fitness equipment, and the children had a great time.

My whole body is very sticky when I come back. I didn’t take a bath directly with the small water pipe as I thought. Because the water flow is too thin, I have to pour water into the big basin in advance, and then use the small basin to pour water on my body. No matter what the conditions are, I never After taking such a refreshing cold bath, I feel much more comfortable. Suddenly the power went out at night. Looking out of the window, the whole village was pitch black. Half an hour later, the electricity was restored, and people outside cheered. I can’t imagine a day without electricity in this day and age! Just living here for a short day has made me more aware of how superior my living conditions are compared to them, and it has made me cherish everything I have even more.

It rained cats and dogs all night last night, and I got up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, and I had to put on the heavy rain boots at the door and run to the toilet outside in the rain. Originally, the cousin of the sofa owner was going to take me to a waterfall today, but I only found out that it was closed in the morning. Apart from this scenic spot, he said that there is nothing else to go around. So I decided to say goodbye to them one day in advance and go to Tena, anyway, I was going to take a long-distance bus here to go to the next stop. It happened that the sofa owner's brother was going to Tena City to sell a large bag of coffee beans they picked. When we were waiting for the bus at the station at the entrance of the village, his cousin happened to drive by and was going to the city, so he yelled at us to get on the bus and give us a ride. When he arrived in the city, he went to a small shop in the center of the city. The proprietress cut open the coffee beans to check the quality, and then he sold the coffee beans in 12 kilograms of big bags for 5 dollars, which is almost 5 dollars to buy a cup of coffee in the United States. Then he took another empty sack from here, saying that he would sell it to them next time.

Although this is only a small city, but because I stayed in the original village for a day or two, I felt like I entered a big city in comparison. It was raining here all morning. I walked around the neighborhood and ate grilled fish wrapped in banana leaves for lunch. I didn’t know the side dishes next to it. I asked the waiter and she patiently helped me write it down. I only found out after looking it up in the dictionary One is the palmito palm tree heart, which tastes like the tip of a bamboo shoot, and the other is garabato yuyo, a wild vegetable.

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