mangas part III

so we take off on this hike - it's a scorchingly hot day as we set out (i had almost gotten accustomed to the cool breezes of dos mangas and had even been cold overnight!). our guide is a friend of meagan and paul and is basically the head of an organization in town that tries to look after the use of natural resources in the area. they tax any wood that is taken out of dos mangas and the money goes to support him and programs that focus on sustainability. part of the big plan is giving tours to tourists, a venture that so far is more talk than action (dos mangas is not on the tourist map of ecuador - it's not on many maps of ecuador at all), but they're hoping for big things. he's a character - short and wiry, a machete at the hip and a walkie-talkie seemingly glued to his mouth. the latter was a gift of an international organization that is trying to help the people of dos mangas out. it's meant as a means of keeping in touch with the base headquarters while out on hikes, to relay in important information and inform others if there are tourist who need a guide. it's used to allow the guides to joke back and forth and entertain themselves as they share the minutae of their lives. for instance, when we finally made it to the pools on our hike and i asked our guide if i could snap a photo of him he beemed and took a macho position abreast the small waterfall leading down to the pool. after the picture was taken he immediately radioed in to basecamp to tell them that i had taken a picture. another time he radioed in to say that we had seen a snake (a poisonous one - the X), that we had made a hat of toquilla, that we found some wild papaya (not very tasty), and so on and so forth. very cute.

after returning we prepped for the return trip to guayaquil - the people downstairs brought us more food (the night before they cooked up rice and chicken - we ended up feeding most of it to the chickens and pigs), and we made our goodbyes before climbing back into the truck that would whisk us away to manglaralto and the main road. this time the truck was filled to the rim with drunken men celebrating sunday and passing a shotglass with rum in it. while i wasn't offered some the neighbours of meagan and paul did give me a couple glasses of beer before we left (they offered me a second and i took it much to the almost shock of the people there - i mean, they offered it to me...). the night before too they gave paul and i shots of this cane sugar alchohol which wasn't all that strong but they watched like hawks as we drank it down and then chirped when we showed any signs of puckering. people are like that here...