There is a type of bee in the jungle called the Aveja Cortapelo. While it does not sting, it will burrow into your hair straight down to the root, and bite off a strand at its base. It will then roll up the hair and carry it back to its hive. It is black and sticky, extremely hard to get out of the hair, hurts when it wraps itself into your gnarled hair, comes out of its hive when you pound on buttress-rooted trees, and also makes your sister scream very loudly, run along the path a ways, flailing at her red hair in a very girlie fashion that you would never ever ever expect from a sister who could take on Rocky and kick some serious ass.

There is a tree called the Telefono de Selva (jungle telephone). It has long, wide buttress roots that sound like a deep thick drum punching out sound through the jungle. (Check to make sure tree doesn’t have hives up above).

None of us were going to mention it, but there’s also this tree that looks like a sex-shop’s easy set-up. In other words, dildos hanging down from every angle. Apparently, the dildos are new roots heading down to penetrate the soil and firm up the trees support structure. E gave us the technical name, but then grinned and said, “We just call it the Porno or Macho tree.” He wasn’t going to avoid the topic.

Unfortunately, mum got stuck in Chicago due to mechanical errors and had to fly into Ecuador a day late because she missed her connection. So, our whole trip was moved back a day. But I do think we did alright. Yesterday, we took mom river rafting on a Class III river (not too rough), and it was fabulous. Aside from being the perfect temperature… warm, cool, warm, rain mist rainbow, warm… the river descended through the mountains into the jungle area over some nice standing waves and rapids. I think A and I would have been okay with a few more rumble rapids, flipping over, getting lost a little, but for mom’s sake we took the “mellow” trip. I will, I think, never forget the sound of mom in truly hysterical giggles behind me after the first rapid we hit (within three minutes of launching) paved over us and send water up even my nose. Later, mom confessed that she thought that first rapid had just about done her in, and she was panicking wondering what we had got her into and how she was going to survive. But at the time, this manifested in laughter that she couldn’t stop, with one of our guides looking at her like… oh my god, what’s going on. It was a little addictive and A and I started laughing, which I think in the end helped to calm Mom down. Fortunately for her, the first rapid really was the biggest doosy and we were all good paddlers (A and I had fun competing to matched rhythms). I even heard our super-fun macho guide yell out to our Kayaker-support dude that he could take off because “ellas tienen todo,” or in other words, A and I impressed him just fine. I always knew we were water rats. So, the rest of the trip was “Forward Faster,” and “Faster Faster,” and “Stop,” until the guide pushed us over the side of the raft on a mellow stretch and let us float around in our jackets while mom laughed non-hysterical at us. So very very spoiled we are; we made just fine time with our one day less.

A and Mom are now traveling on their own to Cuenca while I teach for a few days. I have to admit I’m a little nervous to have them on their own, but I’ll knock on wood and feel confident in their skills as adults. When they come back, we are all going to the beach, where I know Mom plans on getting drunk with frequency.

All the crafts are beautiful… now that A and Mum are here, I find myself spending much more money. So, if there’s something anybody wants, let me know. Hats, knitted goods, bracelets from seeds, cloths, everything. On a semi-related note, I decided at the urging of mother and A that even though I am soon to be poverty-stricken in Chicago, I am still going to shell out to take a trip to the Galapagos. Who knows when I’ll have another chance. I’ll just charge it to the card.

Driving to Baños (from which any outdoor activity in the world can be organized, including our trip to the jungle and our rafting trip), we decided to take the “scenic” route… apparently a beautiful drive along the side of a volcano from Riobamba north. The street had very little markings (not unusual in this country), but we stopped and asked several pedestrians if we were on the right road. They said yes, but we then got lost as we hit several washouts. We went around the washouts, but ended up turning around when we hit a place where a truck was going over a crevasse on two wooden planks. Ali was game and laughed at me when I pointed out that our Jeep was rented: “What does that matter if we are dead at the bottom of a crevasse?” So, we went back to a little town where they told us that we were indeed on the right road, and they had been “working very hard,” and now it was possible to get to Baños on that road. Nobody thought to tell us, at any of our stopping points and questionings, that we would need ropes and carabineers to get across this particular hard-worked road, so back the way we came (a two-hour detour) and A was cussing out each and every Ecuadorian driver and yelling at us inner-car-tired-navigating-bastards by the time we arrived. Maybe driving in Ecuador isn’t the most relaxing way to travel…

(But I caught a bus back, and had to slap the hand of a man who tried to fondle me, who then pretended to fall asleep on my shoulder and at some point started burrowing and rubbing his chin into my shoulder blade like he thought I’d think the cuddling was cute. At this point, I yanked forward, let him fall, and leaned the rest of the time on the seat in front of me thinking resentfully about my encroached space. Fortunately this happened at hour 6 of the 7-hour trip and before too long I was jetting out of the bus into a taxi and then back home… so it’s all up in the air which mode of travel is best!)

There’s more to say, but I’ll say it later!