Many volunteers were leaving Katitawa to continue with their travels. As a sort of farewell trip, we all decided to travel to Tena at the edge of the Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador.

All eleven of us left the hostel early on Saturday morning and got to Salasaca centro. It wasn’t really much of a centre, but more an intersection of two roads. One was the smaller road that led to the library and beyond that, the hostel. The other was the larger road connecting Ambato and Baños. This is where we would part ways with Lizzy, who would be going towards Ambato. She was going to meet a friend in Quito, so wouldn’t be able to come with us to Tena. After a round of quick hugs and goodbyes, Lizzy was gone.

The rest of us then hired a camioneta till Baños, and got into the back. Beers appeared magically and were passed around.With all of us riding in the back together, the ride to Baños turned out to be super fun! We decided to ditch the earlier plan to take a bus to Tena, and instead checked with our camioneta driver if he would drive us all the way there. After a quick round of negotiations, an agreement was reached, food and a few crates of beer were purchased, and we were on our way.

Chilling in the back of the camioneta

Precariously perched

As always, the Ecuadorian landscapes along the way were simply breathtaking. About halfway there, it started pouring in torrents which meant all laptops and cameras and phones had to be put away in the cabin next to the driver. All of us got drenched to the bone, and that’s when the singing started. We cycled through dozens of songs, before finally settling on “In the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight”. Singling of this song was synchronised to the minutest detail in the most professional manner. Everybody had their specific parts to be sung or hummed at specific times at the right tempo. The singing eventually gave way to an enactment of our skit from the previous day - “Un Patito Feo” - in the cramped back of the camioneta, under the torrential downpour, while travelling at breakneck speeds through the winding mountain roads.

Emmtahn have also written an account of the trip to Tena from their perspective in their blog post here.

Once in Tena, we had a delicious lunch of “arroz con camarron” (rice with prawns) and “encebollada” (soup made with yuka and catfish), after which we spent the next few hours sipping beers by the river. Dinner was some truly amazing pizza, and thanks to the copious amounts of beer that had been consumed (99 bottles since morning between the 10 of us), I guess ours was by far the loudest table at the pizzeria.

The guys by the river in Tena

Pizzeria

On the way back to our hostel in Tena, we spotted a nice little place to chill. After a while at the new place, Pedro, Abraham & I said goodnight to the rest and went on ahead to the hostel. It was only the next morning that we heard the story of Nicolas locking himself up in the men’s restroom, climbing out of the small window there and going for a stroll by himself. When the others eventually discovered that Nicolas was missing, they went roaming around Tena looking for him. They gave up after a couple of hours and got back to the hostel only to find Nicolas already dozing on his bed :)

Everybody had brunch together the next morning (some still recovering from hangovers due to the excesses of the previous day), after which it was time to say goodbye. We had spent only a few weeks together, but had grown close living under the same roof and working together. We exchanged contacts, wished each other luck for the remainder of our travels, and then Nicolas, Pedro, Abraham & I caught a bus headed to Baños.

Oh, and also check out Lizzy’s excellent post about parting with old friends and making new ones on the road here.