Gone to Baeza

I just arrived back in Tena from a four day trip to Baeza, a small mountain town. It is a beautiful place and much cooler and quieter than Tena. For only five dollars I had a private room with a private bathroom and direct tv! There was however, no internet, hence my lack of posting. Last Wednesday afternoon, while we were all relaxing at the hostel, a man came by and dropped a sack off at the gate of the hostel. All the gringos laying around thought nothing of it until one of the employees called us all over. It was a bag of tiny kittens that had been dumped off there! Keta and I of course fell immediately in love, before coming to grips with the fact that they could not stay. When we came back later our friends told us that a group of school children came by and took them all to good homes. Keta and I are doing our best to try and believe that story. Later that afternoon Keta and I climbed to the top of an old, probably abandonded concrete building in the middle of town. It offered us a pretty impressive view of the entire city and its surrounding mountains. We spent a good majority of that evening watching the birds fly by and the sun set. The following day we all headed out for another day on the Jondachi. The day started out well, but a few bad swims from a few of my friends put a little damper on the day. Everyone was fine in the end and all in all it was still a good day. After a somewhat long and tiring day on the river Keta and I decided to treat overselves to probably the most expensive meal we'll have in Ecuador. We were told of this random fine dining resturant in Tena which was suppose to be good, and that it was. I had a steak and lobster and Keta had lobster alfredo. The best part by far though was the restuarant´s interesting pet sloth! It was one of the weirdest creatures I have ever seen, but also one of the coolest. The waitor gave us some stuff to feed it and it chilled and climbed around us all dinner. We were the only ones in the place all night so we got full access to the sloth. I did not have my camera on me but I will definitely be going back to get some pictures to post. Only in Ecuador would you walk into a super expensive fine dining resturant to find that a sloth would be joining you for dinner! The next morning, all of us besides Jeremy, who had an unfortunate boat crushing swim the previous day, headed to Baeza for the Quijos river festival. Jeremy said that this was suppose to be vacation, and decided to spend his final weeks in Ecuador on the beach. He will be missed. Upon our arrival in Baeza, most of the group decided to do an afternoon run of the Quijos river (bridge to bridge section). It had some nice class three plus boogie water with a cool ledge drop at the end. All of Saturday was spent at the river festival. The day was filled with good food, music and a little dancing. We watched a fairly entertaining raft race as well as played with the local children as they climbed all over our boats. On Sunday we all decided to paddle a section of the Quijos (the Cheesehouse) above where we put in on Friday. It was slightly harder and more creeky than the bridge to bridge section. The day started out with a bit of carnage when my friend Ryan had a pretty scary pin, involving him getting out of his boat only by slippling through the spray skirt tunnel. His boat remained pinned for about 15 minutes until we managed to pull it off. The carnage continued when I had my first real swim in three years! We were sort of bombing down and I was second in the group. The person that was leading forgot about the big nasty hole in the middle of the river and I ran straight down the meat of it! I boofed, got backendered into the hole and proceeded to get trashed. In the middle of my working, Keta boofed on top of me, but luckily managed to avoid getting sucked in there with me. Eventually my paddle was ripped from my hands and I was swimming. Thankfully I was able to swim out of the backwash and not get recirculated in the hole, which definitely would have ruined my day. My boat would not come out of the hole on its own, and Scout had to rope it out. Besides a few cuts and bruises, I am just fine. My friends rescued all of my gear, including my camera box. Glad I got that Ecuadorian swim out of the way! Monday was a day of rest from the river, which we all really needed. Keta, Scout and I took a pretty full on hike to a waterfall. It involved lots of mud, a little bushwacking and some hiking through the river. It was well worth it though. The waterfall was around 100 feet tall and in the middle of a pretty isolated place. A bus strike kept us in Baeza another night, and this morning we all headed back to Tena. I plan on spending the afternoon getting settled back into my room and getting aquainted with that good old hammock again... Below are some pictures from the Upper Misahualli last Tuesday. The first is a picture of Keta and the latter of me. Enjoy!