January 6-7th 2015
I wake up early and enjoy a tasty but costly breakfast (6 USD for bread, eggs, hot chocolate, juice,and fruit) before grabbing my pack and walking down the road towards the nearest bus stop just outside the turn off for San Rafael, this time though I’m going to a waterfall where I can (maybe) get some.
I meet a friendly Ecuadorian man at the bus stop and we chat away for a few minutes before I slip off the curb of the road and into ankle deep mud. We both have a good laugh about it before a bus pulls around the corner and I quickly pull my only partially cleaned shoe back on before climbing on and being very careful to tell both the driver and attendant that I’m heading to “Las Cascadas Magica en la Rio Malo.”
The 15-20 minute ride passes quickly and after a friendly warning form the passenger beside me I get up and make sure the bus stops where I’ve asked just past the Rio Malo. I backtrack and after asking a couple of young men loitering by the river I’m on my up a unpaved car path up into the jungle. I pass Jungle Jayro which offers some sort of rappelling program among other things, and also seem to offer camping and a place to set up a tent, definitely a good options to see these falls if you want to avoid paying Hosteria Reventador’s room fees (39.40 single, 49.40 double and around 60 dollars for a triple. That said I don’t have a tent for now so I head up past the un-attended building and am enveloped by the surrounding forest and it’s countless butterflies.
As I hurry along the car path I do encounter two very massive and somewhat scary looking millipedes which are easier and quicker to grab photos of than the forever fluttering butterflies.
After maybe 10 minutes the car path ends with a very simple outhouse and small rain shelter and parking area, rejoining the Rio Malo proper. I take the only path I can find, right along the river, hopping from stone to stone to avoid soaking my shoes.
I catch enticing glimpses of the waterfall in the distance as I walk and come to a fork in the river, where a shallow stream on the right joins the main flow on the left. Here there’s two options, cross the smaller stream and take a small winding path through small thick groves of trees, or, if you don’t mind your feet getting wet, cut up through the stream on your right. Both will lead you to Magic.
Not knowing the stream, which ends up being made up almost entirely of the mist from the waterfall returned to earth, leads to the falls easily enough I take the path to the trees and after another few minutes of walking stumble out into a clearing and the full glory of Magica falls.
Even from several hundred feet away the spray is strong enough that I quickly need to put away my camera before it get’s soaked and shift to my go pro. Before climbing closer to the roughly 300 foot tall pillar of water spilling out of the jungle covered mountains and crashing into the rocky river bed. I’ll say this, it deserves it’s name.
As I peel off my shirt, raincoat and bury my bag in some shrubs, and head closer to the falls I marvel at the fact that I am again alone despite being less than 30 minutes walk away from a road which sees countless tourists zoom past en route to the amazon, oblivious the the paradise they are skipping. In fact in my roughly 4 hours at Magica falls I do end up meeting two people accompanied by an Ecuadorian guide, of course they spend all of five minutes looking up at the falls before disappearing back the way they’ve come towards the amazon.
Go pro firmly affixed to my head I made my way deeper and deeper into the cloud of spray which only grew more and more violent as I reached the edge of the shallow rocky pool below the cascades. It was slow going as first as the path led me through countless slick and slippery rocks before finally reaching the pool itself.
Fighting strong winds, spray like a thousand tiny daggers in the air, and strong currents in the knee deep water I managed to make it out towards the center of the pool, not under the main cascades themselves, but as close as I dared go without someone there watching to help me should I need it. I love waterfalls, but I respect them too. Powerful things, and easy to be swept away or dragged under. Still the swirling, flashing sheets of spray flying into my bare skin, as the eater rushed out of the pool along the river’s course was plenty exhilarating. Here’s a brief video of the hurricane of water all around me, sorry I’f i’m hard to hear, believe me I’m shouting pretty loudly.
Eventually the mix of pain and joy becomes to much and i head out of the falls again, retracing my careful steps over a field of treacherous rocks before exploring some of the smaller ribbon falls that surround the stunning and isolated paradise.
I clamber up through mud and rocks to get to a few of them and get under their flows which seems akin to a lovely natural showers on steroids, or a torrential rain storm. Lovely if not quite euphoric.
Eventually the distant crash of main attraction calls me back and I edge my way through the stream made up of mist and onto some much bigger rocks providing a terrific vantage point of the falls, at least when the wind directs the spray elsewhere. It’s more wild euphoria as I edge closer and higher ignoring the unrelenting waves of water and doing my best to stare down this marvel of nature.
After a little more exploring I reluctantly decide to head back, knowing I need to pay another visit to San Rafael falls and hopefully do some writing there. After saying goodbye to the falls, accidentally performing a few shakespearean monologues to it (I’m a nerd and a little crazy sometimes) I don my shirt and raincoat, retrieve my bag and head back along the path.
The sun has come out while I’m at the waterfall and the jungle around me seems more alive then ever, countless fascinating butterflies and dragonflies the most consistent visitors on my path. Butterflies are incredibly beautiful but frustrating to photograph, still I decide to take some time and manage to nab a few shots I like before making it back to the main road.
There I walk into the small village and grab a delicious ‘almuerzo’ (lunch) at a roadside restaurant for 3 dollars, before heading back into the village to explore a bit and grab a snack or two for the hosteria. The locals are clearly surprised to see a tourist walking down their one street but all wave and welcome me warmly.
Before long I’m back on the main road waiting for a bus headed back towards Ecuador’s biggest cascades. One arrives after maybe 40 minutes but as I try to hail it it only speeds by. This happens 3 times before I’m joined by an Ecuadorian school teacher heading the other way who tells me often buses don’t view this little place as secure and so won’t stop.
We chat a bit and I decide I’d better get walking in case I need to go all the way back through the mountain road, but as I walk I stick out a thumb and before long I’m picked up by a mini bus carrying a bunch of hydro electric and oil workers to their various project sites. They have a spare seat and welcome me to the group as we share our backgrounds and stories. Before long I’m dropped off at the turn off for San Rafael and wished the best in my travels by the group of 5 young Ecuadorian men.
It’s much much later than I’d intended, and I’m pretty tired out, but after mulling it over my love of waterfalls destroys my love of resting and I head down the road towards the cascades, arriving at the registration point a little before 5.
I head down the trail again and this time actually encounter two other tourists and a guide heading back up the trail the way they’ve come. I glance at the clock on my cracked and dying I-pod and sigh, the bus complications mean I won’t have time to write, or even enough time to properly revel in the falls. annoyed at the delay I continue over the first bridge and wish I could have been there sooner.
That bitter wish disappears a moment later as suddenly I notice a rustling in the trees and look up to see a family of black monkeys, 8 of them in all, feeding and playing in the trees all around me. They notice me looking and seem to decide to put on a show for me, coming closer and closer, even launching a few fruits at me from their precarious perches in the thin branches.
I snap some pictures and watch them jump and climb, and dangle down, in awe at their fearlessness. In the amazon I showed my guide the above photos and asked him to identify the species as they did not respond to my howler monkey sound. Turns out they are the brown Wooly Monkey. He went on tell me they are very rare because they are hunted for food by tribes in the amazon as one of Ecuador’s biggest monkeys. He was also shocked I saw them near San Rafael, apparently outside of their normal territory. For information on this and other primates of Ecuador check out page 29 of this pdf.
Eventually I force myself to move on, hurrying along the path and making it to the falls again. For those who have not read my last entry, here are some pictures, and if you have, well there are worse fates than seeing the same beauty twice.
It doesn’t lose it’s special aura on my second visit and again I slip under the fence and edge closer and closer to the sheer precipice, looking down at the truly incredible scene at the base of the falls and wishing I had a way down there.
I lose myself to time again and realize it’s almost six by the time I decide I have to hurry back. As I walk I keep my eyes on the canopy and end up spotting some fascinating birds in the distance seen here in poor quality as I don’t have a special zoom lens (yet).
Then, in a completely different area of the park I stumble upon two more Brown Wooly Monkeys who I’m almost sure were not part of the original group before.
but in the descending darkness time and photo’s are hard to come by so I continue on before too long and find myself out on the car path up to the main road just in time to see a huge burst of dark smoke exploding up from the looming Volcan Reventador. A perfect cap to a day that had plenty of frustrations, but still far more euphoria.
I head back to the Hosteria Reventador and enjoy a better dinner than the night before (7 USD) and then indulge in a lovely swim and soak in the hot tub before calling it a night. I sleep well, and dream of being back in that irrepressible rush.
The next morning I wake up set on returning to the huge cascades and looking for more monkeys only to find that my camera won’t turn on. this changes plans as I know If I’ve any hope of getting it repaired or buying a new cheap one in the Amazon I need to arrive in Lago Agrio, a supposedly strange and charmless oil town, before dark.
That in mind I enjoy another 6 dollar hearty breakfast, pack my big bag and head out to the bus stop where I’m assured they will actually stop for me. I never find out.
After about 5 minutes waiting by the road off to San Rafael falls a truck stops and waves to me. Buoyed by my positive experience the day before, I shrug, shoulder my pack and climb into the truck, meeting Ricardo, a friendly man originally from northern Ecuador, who is driving a truck full of Savila plant to Lago Agrio and Beyond.
I spend the next four hours chatting in Spanish with this very friendly man, learning all sorts of things about Ecuador, making a few small deliveries with him, and even getting to know a local mechanic after the tuck gets a flat tire. I learn at the end of one delivery to a small family who use the gel from the plant to make medicines for their small town that it’s customary in Ecuador to always give a little extra product as a gift after a business transaction. I also learn that 5 year old kids are quite possessive with their bows and arrows as the kid runs away with the toy weapon clutched tightly when Ricardo asks to see it.
After maybe 4 hours with Ricardo, I’m dropped off free of charge and richer one friend on the main street of Lago Agrio, which is certainly a strange city, but unlike what most will tell you, not entirely without it’s charms.
Eventually I find Hotel D’Mario where I will be picked up in the morning for my Amazon experience and check in to a room there for simplicity’s sake. 18 dollars gets a private room with AC and a bathroom, and decent wifi. The room is small, but clean and the staff is actually quite friendly. Miraculously as I complete the check in I take out my camera and it turns on, making me all sorts of happy.
I spend most of the day wandering in Lago Agrio, a town which feels an awful lot like some in South East Asia. The local people are friendly but shy, and the population is also made up of many oil workers from Ecuador, Colombia, and abroad, as well as a generous dusting of prostitutes walking the streets as. Still, the few locals that I do talk to are welcoming, curious and eager to tell me about their lives, which is always nice. I’m pleased to as my Spanish is only getting better with more practice. Fluency by the end of my two or three years in this part of the world might not end up being an impossible dream after all.
I go to sleep early knowing that the Amazon jungle is waiting for me tomorrow, and I’ll relay those adventures to you before too long. I dream of monkeys in waterfalls with me and remember it vividly. (Hey I told you I was weird.)
