Ecuador Part 1

January the 10th 2006 i packed up my guitar and went to London. I had a lot of new songs that i wanted to sing in the bars. I wrote down all the bars in London who had "open mic nights" and as soon as i got to the city i began the London open mic tour. I had a great time doing this, i played in huge nightclubs, gay bars, emty bars and one very silent bar.

I rode the subway north to south and east to west all over the city.

After a while, i started thinking about going somewhere. Some place on the earth. I did not know where. I went to a starbuck coffe place and decided to travel to Ecuador. I did not know anything about this country, not even the name of the capitol. Thats why i had to go there.

I went straight down to sta travel and bought my ticket to quito, leaving the next day.

After a long flight with no cigarettes, i finally breathed south american air.

I took a cab to the secret garden hostel in the old town of Quito, where i stayed for 3-4 days.

My guitar case was ruined after the flight, and i could`nt go anywhere until i had a new one. Its a bit strange to think about it now, my hunt for a guitar case took me all over Quito in no time, and no store i came to, had a case to fit my guitar.

The last day in quito i got one.

I checked in to the secret garden and went up to the roof. I bought a bear and i sat down.

When evening came a fire was made in a weelbarrel and a ecuadorian band came up to the roof and started playing these great ecuadorian songs. It was brilliant.

I wrote a song that night, ecuadorian girl.

I heard someone talking about Banos, so i decided to stop by there on my way to the jungle. I had read somewhere about voulenteering work in the jungle 48 kilometers from Puyo.

And i was thinking about doing that.

Anyway, i got my self a haircut, in fact its the best haircut i`ve ever had. And i could not even speak with her, and it cost me 1.50$, i gave her 5$.

And then i was on my way to Banos.

I drove into Banos in the afternoon on a rainy day, and started walking in one direction. I remember thinking at that point, how emty this place is. I stopped at a street corner and picked up my ecuador travel book that i bought in London, and found a hostel. I cant remember the name of it, something with santa maria i think. After a cupple of days i met brian, an irishman that i met in quito. I told him that i was leaving for the jungle, and that i knew about a place where we could spend the night.

This was not entirely true, but it made him come with me:-)

I did not see Banos as Banos at this time, it was just a place.

On the way to the jungle. None of us had ever been in a jungle before, we had no idea what to expect. We came to puyo in the afternoon, we ate dinner, and then we continued with my plan.

The only thing i knew, was that we had to take a bus from puyo, and tell the driver to stop at exactly 48 kilometers. This was no problem, we where on the way, everything looked fine. If only the busdriver had stopped at 48 kilometers, he did`nt.

The roads where so bad that the bus took forever to get there, so it was dark when it finally stopped.

To meet the jungle for the first time

Everytime i think about this, i laugh. Its just so funny.

Brian and I, we had never been in a jungle before.

We went out of the bus, and the bus drove away.

We stood there on the side of the road, jungle at both side of the road and complete darkness. And there was so many insects and sounds, that we became like children in a ghost house.

We did not know where to go, so we started following the dirt road. After a little while we came to a shack by the road, where there was a woman selling beer and supplies. And outside to the right there was some tables with a straw roof.

We where so shocked by this new scenery that we bought some beers and went over to the tables, to figure out what we should do.

On the tables there were lots of crawling insects, and in the roof huge spiders. I did`nt know until know that Brian had a fobia against spiders. I did not like it either.

We ended up standing with our beer, we just could`nt sit down.

But after some beers, we did. But we kept looking all over the place.

Anyway, here we are. In the jungle, in the night. With no where to go and nowhere to stay.

Destiny arrives again

After a few beers, a young man came walking out from no where with a flashlight. He saw us, and asked what we where doing here.

We told him the story. He lifted his eyebrow, probably thought how stupid we were.

He was an american, working in a research facility. He was 21 years old. He bought a beer and sat down with us, we asked him a lot of questions, about deadly spiders mostly. He did not make it better, cause he knew much about them, and said that they where around. More people came from the facility and sat down with us, it was a nice group of people. They said we could spend the night with them. The reason why they all came down to where we were, was because one of the girls working in the facility, was leaving that night back to europe. It was a farewell party.

After some more beers, the american wanted to show us a deadly spider, so we went around in the area with the flashlight. And belive it or not, he found one, a huge one. He said it was a banana spider, and that it could kill you. It was the size of his palm, and he tried to pick it up.

Damm that i did not have any camera at that time, now i know what the banana spider looks like, that night i only had his words. But i belived him, he had read a lot of spider books.

Research Facility

We followed them to the house. We walked from the dirt road, into a mud path, and he said "be careful here, i almost got bitten by a ekki 2 days ago", ekki is a highly venomus snake.

We came to a white house, standing alone in the forest. There was electricity and a light bulb hanging down, near the white painted house wall.

This wall was covered by one type of spider, a flat spider the size of a glas bottom. When Brian saw these spiders and that the house was`nt a house but a shack with open floor and roof, he became pale and silent. Innside where some beds, but no sheets, no mosquito nets and no blankets, and of course lots of these flat spiders. The american said that this area was infested with this type of spider because of a nearby swamp, and that they were not dangerous, but that they could bite.

We both got a bed. Me and the american in one room, and Brian in another room.

After 10min, we heard a scream, and then Brian came running into our room, he had seen a huge spider in his bed, and he was not happy about it. In fact at this point he started talking about leaving. It was 2 a clock in the morning, but apparently there was some buses driving by, heading for quito.

He sat in his sleepingbag in the middle of the floor, and he tried to make him self as tiny as possible. But it was`nt long before we heard a shout again. This time he actually managed to jump out of his sleepingbag and on to the floor in one leap. He had felt someting innside his sleepingbag.

This was just so funny, i laugh everytime i think about it.

He could`nt take it anymore, he went straight to quito.

To be honest, i did`nt sleep more than maybe 1 hour that night, i did`nt like that place either. The reason for why i stayed, was that the american had promised us to take us into the forest with an indiginous shuar guide. They had found a huge hole in a remote place in the forest, and they belived it was a Boa (snake) hole. The american said that he was gonna crawl into it.

End of part 1

Part 2