Te Miraré En Los Rios De Ecuador
(I'll see you on the rivers in Ecuador)
by Kay Mattson
More than a year ago while sitting in my kayak, in what probably was a cold rainy soaked Oregon river, I said to myself there must be more than this! I'm happy to write there is! In late January I cashed in some frequent flyer miles, grabbed my summer kayak gear, my paddle, passport, water proof camera and the recommended Pepto Bismol pills and headed down to South America for an adventure. So, O.K. it wasn't quite that easy; just ask my friends. I agonized for months - should I go, can I hack the class IV- rivers, will I be O.K. a solo woman traveler, will my minimal Spanish skills get me by, should I or should I not take malaria pills? Outside of my personal tribulations there was a deadly flood in Caracas that almost put my circuitous flight plans in the lurch, an active volcano that occasionally closed the Quito airport, and to top it off a week before I left a Presidential coup. The trip, it seemed, wasn't going to happen! Then on D-Day January 27 I stepped onto the plane in Portland and almost 24 hours later found myself at 10,000 feet in Quito, Ecuador. I was exhausted from my flight and it was raining when I arrived, but there were rivers to run and I didn't have to go to work for three full weeks! Wha-hoo!
Two days later I sat down to breakfast at the Magic Bean, café con leche in hand, a stack of pancakes toped with strawberries and whipped cream and 13 other anxious American paddlers to review our itinerary. A two-hour van drive later over a 13,400-foot cloud capped mountain pass dappled with indigenous family farms the Quijos river laid before us. Drop me in the water! The Quijos Borja run was the first of 7 runs we ran during the week. With names like the Misahualli, the Jatunyacu and the Cosanga it was hard to sleep at night anticipating the next day's run. (The attacking praying mantis didn't help either, but that's another story that needs to be told over a cerveza!) It's hard to identify a favorite run since each offered memorable moments; whether it was the nailed roll at the top of the class IV Flintstones drop (a.k.a. Rock Biter) on the Quijos, the incredible surfing waves on the lower Misahualli while azure morpho mariposas flittered in my sun soaked face, or the orchids clinging to the banks of the Jatunyacu. I was smiling.
Like icing on my favorite kind of birthday cake each run was followed by stays in riverside lodges where hammocks beckoned me to relax while macaws and monkeys served up the evening's entertainment. The recounting of the day's runs with the other paddlers over happy hour and dinner was music to my vacation wanting ears. The rivers in Ecuador offer Oregonian boaters paradise in winter. Imagine boating in a shorty and sweating instead of doing the Bruno Mountain N. Santiam run in the snow! The diversity of the rivers guarantee that you'll find something to fit your mood or another option should the river level rise overnight while you're sleeping. A week is barely enough to whet your appetite.
Following the week of paddling I struck out on my own to the towns of Cuenca and Otavalo where architecture from the sixteenth century and spice filled markets, weavings and Ecuadorian roses teased my senses. Volcanoes active and dormant hovered around me, some at 20,000 feet. Climbing anyone? The entire combined adventure went off without a hitch. The only problem I have now is I want to go back; and three weeks of vacation just doesn't hack it
If your interested in a similar adventure I highly recommend hooking up with Phil and Mary DeRiemer our guides for the week. They were primo and well worth the sucres (Ecuador's currency unit before they changed over to the US dollar). Feel free to contact me as well for any beta, I'd love to share my stories and insights with you, as well as hear about your out of country paddling adventures!
Whatever you do just GO, life is short! Your jobs, wife/husband, dog/cat, car payment, house remodeling project or whatever else is keeping you here in this gray Oregon rain will be here when you get back! Vaya Con Rios!