"On the Trail"
Sept 27, 2000: The Search for the Aguavil Family - from Quito to Communidad
Congomita (somewhere inbetween Santo Domingo and Puerto Limon), Ecuador.
Today was a full day with lots of travel (but not on bicycle). However, just before leaving heading out, Tad was surprised with a visit from another cyclist, Tom, whom he met in Central America. They had a lot to catch up on. After lunch we headed for the trolly on Calle Diez de Augusto in order to take us to the bus terminal to get to Santo Domingo.
As was suggested by all, during the trolly ride, I kept my bag on the front of my body to lessen the chance of theft. Actually the bag is one of my front Arkel OverDesigns panniers. I simply connected the shoulder strap to it and it changed from a bike pannier ot a shoulder bag in a few seconds. The terminal was quite an experience. After passing beggars and food stands, and going down many stairs, and paying our 2 centivos (cents) to go to the bathroom, we finally got on the Santo Domingo bus which was about to embark in a few minutes. Good timing.
Another new experience occurred for me. As we waited for the bus to leave and all along the 3 hour journey down the west side of the Andes, vendors would walk into the bus and try to sell their wares. One even stayed on and did a 20 minute talk about some kind of dehydrated vegetation food that will keep you healthy. He apparently made some good sales.
As Tad and I shared some mandarins (which are grown in this area), and as we got further and further from the towns of Quito and Aloag, we saw some awesome sites of the mountain sides. Waterfalls, lush forests and homes perched precariously on the edge of cliffs. The first part of the road from Aloag to Santo Domingo was very windy and we were in the clouds for the majority of the ride. I bet the views would have been spectacular if the sky was clear (which I heard is best before 10:00am). The road looked fairly OK for a bicycle but there are some dangerous spots with little shoulder and about 200 metre drops.
It was neat to see the transition from looking down the mountains at the beginning of the journey to looking up the mountains at the end. Another really interesting observation that I made was when I looked at my two water bottles. They were both pushed in dramatically. That was due to the increase in atmospheric pressure due to the 2000 metre drop in elevation.
OK - more new experiences. We got off the bus in Santo Domingo and had to go to the washroom again. We had to pay as usual, however, this time the women that we paid were in the bathroom. Oh well, canŽt stay shy too long. I was going to the toilet but was told to use the urinals which only costed 2 centivos (500 sucres) - a visit to the toilet would cost 6 centivos (1500 sucres). Sucres are still used very much here.
We next boarded a city bus to our 7 kilometre destination. The main street was bustling. Maybe it was market day. It was only one hour before sunset and the bus was going slower than the people walking on the streets, so we jumped out and grabbed a cab. Fortunately we got to the 7 km point just in time to jump on the back of a camionetta which was heading to Puerto Limon. (See the video). After moving some dead chickens we had room to stand with the 15 other Ecuadorians. They all knew of the familia of Chinto Aguavil (father of Alfonso), so we knew that we were on the right road.
The ride was slow but the chance to meet with the locals was great. They taught me some new Castillano (type of Spanish spoken in South America) words such as silvar (to whistle) and arca de iris (rainbow). By the way, I often write these words phonetically which is probably usually correct. We passed by many banana trees, papaya trees, people playing soccer and volleyball and people carrying mashettis. Tad took a video and showed the people on the camionetta and they were amazed. It is quite amazing. To see a video immediately after recording on this little machine - Sony Mavica.
We were dropped off at the road to Communidad Congomita which is part of the Comuna Congoma (6 km before Puerto Limon). It was only 20 minutes before sunset so we just made it. There were only a few mosquitos, but we put on some repellant just in case. We walked one half kilometers down this rough road and met Cristhian Joel Aguavil (9 years old) at the first home on the left. He was with his sister Mirian Andrea (about 16 years old). They were very welcoming and were expecting us. Next came out Rosa, AlfonsoŽs wife. No one else was home because they were out playing soccer.
They showed us to our room which was actually ConnieŽs old room. Connie is a linguist from Oregon who is helping the TsachiliŽs record and archive their native tounge which is Tsafiki. She is now teaching back in Oregon.
The tempurature in the house was very high and we were all sweating in the humidity. I did not feel the heat until then. The journey to this place was comfortable otherwise. After we got into the kitchen, Alfonso showed up. It was a great meeting. With him were Primitivo and Rene and his brother Juan showed up a few minutes later. We all chatted about many things as Rosa prepared us some food that we offered to pay for.
We talked about our journey, Castillano language, Tsafiki language, helped them with some English and even played music. Tsafiki was never written before, so it adopted the Castillano alphabet. It was only used orally. There are only about 2000 Tsachili and they are losing their native tounge quickly as is the case with many indiginous groups world wide. Alfonso and others are working diligently to archive the language and are writing a dictionary.
Tad learned several different phrases and words in Tsafiki. Here are a few
and they are written phonetically...
tsa ra ma jo buenos dias good day
que pen buenos noche good evening (night)
que bi buenos tardes good afternoon
lachi momun my name is
ho o grancias thank you
nian josatiya por favor please
nisi nikajun cuanto cuesta how much does it cost
ano fisha comemos we are eating
Primitivo played the flute (recorder) and I answered back with the harmonica that Cristhian brought out. Then Juan brought over a guitar. What a great night. Tad and I used, for the first time in this continent, the Pristine chlorine product to purify our water. They all understood our dilemma of drinking their water and they did not show any sign of being insulted. I asked them to please let us know if we did anything that is not accepted. I explained (through my broken Spanish but mostly through TadŽs great translation) that we do not want to insult them. They returned the same request. It was a very amicable experience.
Alfonso asked me if IŽd like to see his uncle Eduardo the shaman or his brother the herbalist during my visit. I laughed and said that IŽd love to see both. He said that heŽd arrange it. GREAT.
By 9:30 we were quite tired and went to sleep in our sleeping bags on the mats on the floor of ConnieŽs old office.
Tad and I exchanged thanks to each other in the fact that we share the same interests in this type of travelling and communicating. We are a great team.
Goodness, IŽve said a lot! Buenos noches.
- Words of a book are useless until they are read.
- Frank Pollari