Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Time doesn't seem to pass here: it just is.  Yes, I'm reading The Fellowship of the Ring right now.  

I have semi-relocated to Baeza Ecuador, and it took very little time to feel at home here.  Baeza is split into two micro communities, old and new Baeza.  The old Baeza was partially destroyed by a landslide so a new community was built about a kilometer down the road.  This gives the old Baeza a classic charm where kayaker hostels quietly coexist with an entrenched community.  I love it here.

The view from my room at Gina's looking down into the Rio Quijos valley

Life here passes slowly by, and is only interrupted by the small group of men and women wanting to bounce their plastic boats down one of the copious rivers nearby.  Our effort is little to accomplish our calling.  Our amigo and his camioneta swing by our place, we strap down boats, and he drives us to the chosen river put-in.  

We float then grab the next passing cab back home.  Once home the owners of Gina's feed us, provide Pilseners (Ecuadorian cerveza), and force some local tequila down our throats.  Life is good.  To sweeten the deal the cost of this fine lifestyle has a very small impact on the pocketbook.  One might call it a dirtbag kayakers paradise.

And once in a while Catherine even comes to visit, which makes it truly feel like home.  Even though I've spent a short time here habitacion 4 at Gina's will always be a special place to me.

One last quote from my latest read: "The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."

Highs and Lows

Life always seems to follow a cyclic pattern for me, like a sine wave of excitement for life.  Recently my wavelength has shortened and life seems to be putting me through a little bit more of a tumultuous ride.  (Sorry for the dorky analogy, but it seemed fitting)

As one might expect, life in Ecuador hasn’t been a cake ride.  Moving to an unknown continent with absolutely no knowledge of the language and culture was expected to create a challenge.

My first task once arriving in Quito was obvious: learn Spanish.  On my second day in Quito I found a local school, and scheduled one-on-one instruction for four hours everyday.  While this certainly proved to be essential knowledge and it gave me somewhat of a purpose, it led to a bit of a mundane lifestyle.  Living in an apartment, in a relatively ritzy neighborhood, in a large city, where I didn’t speak the language didn’t quite fit the bill for the unique cultural experience I was seeking, and I found it quite easy to get into a funk.

After five or so weeks I decided I’d had enough of Spanish class.  I needed to find something different.  Somehow, despite this desire to get out and explore, I remained reluctant to leave the comfort of the apartment.  I spent two weeks at home not really accomplishing much.  Searching for volunteer opportunities on the interweb had led me to find many great places, but for an unknown reason I wasn’t finding what I was looking for, maybe it was because most places feel the need to charge what I felt was an excessively large amount to come work for free for them.  This didn’t compute for me.

Fortunately, during those two weeks off, I had made a friend who wanted to go kayaking and would be able to borrow an inflatable kayak for Catherine.  Perfect, the trip was set to go to Tena on Saturday and return Sunday.  The weekend started off with us watching a Marc Anthony, Cheyenne, and Pitbull concert from the roof of our apartment building.  It would be hard to beat that Friday night; right? Maybe; well… probably?   So I reached deep for a maneuver of epic coordination in the middle of the night.  Saturday morning at 4 AM I woke up to pee, afterwards I felt dizzy, and the next thing I know I’m laying on the bed looking up at Catherine.  She had woken up to a thud in the bathroom and found me seizing on the bathroom floor with a hole in my head.  I had fainted in the bathroom, and broke my fall with my eyebrow on a still unknown object.  Pretty scary for her, but she did a great job, and remained calm.  Thank you so much Catherine!  I'm super lucky to have you!

I found Ecuadorian hospital care quite good and reasonably priced.  Despite that, this marked my low point.  Swapping boating for hospital care: no bueno.  (Funny side note: the day after my injury, which involved a concussion, I went over the handle bars on my bike, and broke my fall with my head.  Somehow, I was okay, but you can see the scrapes from my bike helmet in the following picture)

My lovely nurse removing the stitches

In the end the kayaking trip was only pushed back one week.  We went to Tena and had a blast.  Catherine borrowed a ducky and we did the Upper Mishualli and the Lower Jondachi. Really fun and world class rivers.

For some reason two people in a one-man ducky seemed like a good idea.  Upper Mishualli

Check out Catherine's amigo in the background.  Lower Jondachi

Boof! Upper Mishualli

So things really seemed to be looking up from the face-plant incident, and they were about to get better.  My amigo, Dave, decided he'd seen enough of Ecuador, but before he left he wanted to climb Cotopaxi.  It seemed like a good idea to me so we climbed Pichincha on Tuesday and Cotopaxi on Wednesday/Thursday.  It made for a great week.

Training!

Acclimatizing

El Refugio Jose Ribas

Crater and me at sunrise (5897 m / 19,347 ft.)

Dave coming in out of the clouds

Glacier and Antisana

I had reached an amazing high point in my time here in Ecuador, and things are looking up.  My Spanish may be suffering a bit, but I have a lot more time left in South America to practice.  I am also still searching for that purpose that will make my time in Ecuador really something that I can look back on with pride.  I guess things like that just aren't going to come easy.  Until then, I'll it's kayaking season!

I am one month away from starting what promises to be one of the most challenging journeys of my life. Excitement abounds, never mind that my "plan" is still pretty unclear.  I've successfully found an amazing life for Zooey, sold half my possessions, rented my house, and finalized a personal leave from office life.  However, with one month to spare I'm lacking a plane ticket, a visa, and a mission.  I'm very fortunate to have made some great contacts so I'm feeling confident that life, while things may not go perfectly smooth, will eventually work out.  Fortunately, Catherine will have assistance finding housing and getting settled.  After I float down a river and she finishes orientation I will head down a week or so after her.  Ecuador here we come!

I am feeling extremely lucky to have been allowed such a great opportunity, and hopefully I will be able to use the opportunity to share my fortune.  Time will be devoted to learning the language and culture at first.  Then the road is a bit more uncertain.  I am passionate about protecting American waterways, and may have the opportunity to join Ecuadorian River Institute to do the same in Ecuador.  Or I may stumble upon other opportunities.  The possibilities are endless.  One thing that I feel assured of is that I will live my life simply, generously, and without reserve.  I think I can sum it up very simply:

Do more with less.

The idea of this page should be pretty clear.  I want to catalogue and share my thoughts, experiences, and life lessons for anyone who may care to read and look.  Plus it is something I have always wanted to try.  I am going to dedicate the rest of this post to the amazing people and experiences over the past few months.  We are so lucky to live in a place where these things are possible.

What little snow we had this winter started melting off really early so I kicked off my river season in March with a self support kayak trip on the Yampa and Green River in Dinosaur National Monument.  This was my first time on a multi-day river trip where we had no support from rafts.  We paddled what is usually a 5-6 day trip in 3 days, and I experienced what it is like to paddle in a dust storm.

Entering the canyon

Storm coming

Entering Split Mountain.  Little did we know....

In the month of April Catherine and I did three raft trips.  San Juan, Westwater, and San Juan again.  Fun. 

River House on the San Juan

40 person dual permit party on Westwater 

The McCutchen Family on the San Juan

Mullets and quicksand

Our little 9.5 Trib after a mud fight

In May I went on a six day 220 mile self-support kayak trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon and the Main Salmon River with 12 other boaters.  These two sections of river are usually done separately as six day trips each.  We had what is considered higher flows so we were in for some fun.  Unfortunately I broke my hand on the first day, but soothed it with ice cold river water and vitamin I.  I was able to make it work, and the relaxing hot springs most days didn't hurt either.

Everything needed for six days

Camp

The group at lunch

The last new river for me was the Gates of Lodore section of the Green River.  The Yampa flows in to the Green about half way so I repeated a little of the trip from March, but I was happy to do so.  

Group at camp on night one

Looking upstream at Rippling Brook camp

Rigging boats

The group

Winds at Split Mountain.  Again!  This time is wasn't so bad once we entered the canyon.  The rain was welcome too.

That raps up a really fun river season.  I am really going to miss living in Durango, but am only looking forward to the future.  I'll hopefully keep this going shortly after we move and get settled.