Butterfly Trail

We were planning to walk a centuries old hiking trail from Guamote in the Ecuadorian highlands to Macas in the jungle to the east of the Andes mountains. Instead of starting in Guamote, however, we took a taxi from Riobamba and drove initially to Cebadas, the last village that could be reached by any car. From there, we asked our driver to go as far as he could reasonably go, which turned out to be to a location that was described as El Tingo on the map. From there we started our walk towards Laguna Atillo, where we would get the next morning, after spending the night in our tent. From Laguna Atillo, we had to climb to the highest point of the trail, from where it would be all down towards Macas for 3-4 days. Things didn’t go as planned, however. During the month of June, this area, also referred to as Ayapungo, can experience many days with fog, drizzle and overcast skies. Because of this it wasn’t easy to identify the trail all the time. In addition, the construction of the road from Guamote to Macas was still underway, so once the trail and the new dirt road started to overlap, we had to make sure that we would find the place where the two would separate again. In addition, the new dirt road did not show up on any of the maps yet. To make a long story short: we missed the trail and kept following the road instead. The weather conditions had deteriorated even more and we kept walking mile after mile. At one point in time, a truck was driving down towards us and the drivers were greeting us, but didn’t stop. About 15 minutes later, we reached the highest point of the trail in dense fog. We knew that the Amazon basin was in front of us, and from here on it would only be downhill. We were shocked how suddenly the cold wind we had experienced earlier that morning changed into a pleasant, warm tropical wind. We later found out that this particular location has one of the most extreme climate transitions in the world, because you move from an alpine climate to a tropical climate in almost no time. Not too long after we had started our downhill walk towards Macas, when we were still following the dirt road, we heard an explosion and large pieces of rock started coming down towards us. It became clear to us that the workers in the truck had been using dynamite explosives to support the construction of the road, but did not seem to feel the need to warn two “gringos” for the upcoming danger. All we could do was hope that we would not get hit by one of the larger rocks, which were at least our size. There was no way to avoid all the smaller rocks, however, so we were slowly but steadily dragged down the steep mountain. Once the worst was over, we did our best to climb back towards the road. The only way to accomplish this was to grab some of the stronger vines that were growing on those steep slopes and pull ourselves up against gravity. We finally made it but were looking at a road that now had been covered with lots of mud. With only two hours of daylight left, we decided to walk back to our last camp site. When we started walking back in the direction of Atillo, we noticed that there were a lot of very sharp pieces of rock in the deep mud and our legs were bleeding extensively because of this. We just had not noticed it earlier, because the cold, wet mud didn’t allow us to feel any pain. With dusk setting in we found a group of fishermen who were willing to take us to their encampment, once they were done fishing. It came as no surprise to us that the fishermen were some of the construction workers, maybe even the ones who didn’t inform us about the dynamite explosion. After just a few minutes, we arrived at the facility of the construction workers, which consisted of one larger facility and a large number of trailers. By this time we were in pain, tired, covered in mud from head to toe, and hungry, so everything would do. We had the opportunity to “wash” ourselves by using the ice cold water running from the main water pipe. Next we were invited to the main facility, where the workers just finished dinner and offered us some kind of stew that tasted like the best meal we ever had. After a while, two workers approached us and we thanked them as good as possible in our broken quechua (local dialect) for their hospitality and the food. When they noticed our injuries, they sent a traditional "doctor" to our table, who quickly noticed that one of us might have broken a finger. He sent someone outside to find some herbs, started singing a "mantra” song, rubbed the painful finger, poured boiling water over it and then applied the herbal mix that soothed the burning pain. The next day, most of the pain was gone. After this interesting experience someone helped gather all our wet stuff and put it near the stove in the kitchen to dry. Once that was taken care of, we were brought to a trailer where we could spend the night. The next morning we were invited for breakfast and met the "cook" who was responsible for preparing the meals for the workers. She had a little child with her and was preparing a separate meal for her baby. She was throwing living spiders into some milk brew, while bringing it to a boil. Supposedly, when the spiders start to experience stress because of the heating process, they produce a substance that strengthens the immune system of little children. That's why the dead spiders were removed from the milk, once the temperature had come down, so that this meal could be served to her child. Later that morning, one car would be driving back to Guamote on the new dirt road and we were offered to sit in the back of the old pick-up truck. After thanking everybody one more time, we left. Approximately 30 minutes later, we ran into an old man and two little boys who were on their way to Guamote as well, which would take multiple days of walking. They were invited to join us in the back of the truck. We will never forget the beautiful smile of that old man, pleased as he was to get to Guamote a lot quicker. In the meantime, it started to get quite windy and the dust was blowing over the road. In these conditions, which remembered us of a sandstorm, we suddenly saw a horse emerge with a guitar on its back and its rider walking next to it, due to the extreme conditions. A few seconds later they had disappeared, as they were walking in the opposite direction. One final surprise happened, when the car came to a stand-still. After examining the problem, the driver noticed that he needed something like a small rope to fix the problem. We gave him a shoestring and he concluded that it might work. After a few minutes, we were back on our way to Guamote, and the shoestring held up all the way. Around noon we arrived at the Panamarican Highway and jumped on a bus to Riobamba, where we had started our adventure 2 1/2 days earlier.

We went back to the same area some years later. The trail from Cebadas to Atillo is a paved road nowadays, and even has a grocery store along the road near the halfway point. The scenery of Ayapungo, however, has not changed a bit and is as impressive as it was that first time we experienced it.