We were up early again, packing our last few things for the jungle expedition. We paid our hotel bill and put our excess baggage in the hotel left luggage store. We then all trooped down to the dock on the river. We were all loaded down with food and water for nine people for four days.
No boats seemed to be going our way, which was towards Nuevo Rocafuerte, and the few that did demanded extortionate fares. A few enquiries revealed that our disappointed “ex-guide” from the Marine Barracks had spiked our guns by telling all the boatmen not to take us.
After a couple of fruitless hours our final resolve cracked, and we decided to give up the whole venture. Ben and Manuel went off to retrieve our passports from the Army Base while the rest of us waited with the kit and provisions. The French and the Swiss declared their intention to try the scheduled boat to Rocafuerte tomorrow.
Before long Peter-Paul threw his hand in with them and before long everyone had done an about turn, except me. There were too many tensions and differences of opinion within the group which threatened to erupt at the next difficulty or problem. I decided to cut loose while the going was good.
I repacked my gear back at the Hotel El Auca and sold my food to the group before going for an excellent Chinese Churrasco with Peter-Paul. Next, I tried to get a flight to Quito with TAME, the military airline, but there were no available seats for the next two days, so I settled for a ticket on the 20:00 hrs. Putumayo Bus to Quito. This cost 1,000 Sucres and was scheduled to arrive at 07:00 hrs. tomorrow.
I felt relieved now that I was out of this ill-fated jungle expedition. Earlier when I decided to opt out on the jetty steps I felt a load lifting and it was like being in a film as I stood there watching indigenous women and children washing in the river, porters loading concrete pipe sections into dugout canoes and military helicopters whizzing about like dragonflies overhead. Even the theme music was supplied by somebody’s Sony Walkman.
The rest of the day was spent killing time before the bus departed. I had a few fun moments walking about shopping for hammocks and machetes with Peter-Paul and his atrocious Dutch-accented Spanish.
While the others went swimming in the nasty dirty river, I wandered around Coca drinking fizzy drinks which varied in temperature as there was no electricity during the day in Coca. Prices also varied wildly from stall to shop. It was very hot and sticky here in eastern Ecuador.
Peter-Paul returned with a new military permission document for the trek and we had a good laugh trying to get it photo-copied in a friendly tienda with frequent power failures. The copies were for the almost inevitable situation of the group splitting up in the jungle.
We had supper in the Chinese Restaurant – Chop Suey by candlelight, with all the men topless and dripping with sweat. At 19:30 hrs. I said goodbye to the group of intrepid jungle explorers, consisting of Manuel and Alia, Peter-Paul, Ben and Nicky. I wish them well.
It was dark when I boarded the comfortable coach and sat there sweating until we departed just after 20:00 hrs. Fairly shortly we had to jump off of the bus while it was ferried across a river. I stood in the darkness with the other passengers hoping that the bus would wait for us on the other side.
Once across we chased the bus up the far bank and scrambled aboard. The coach jostled along through the night with the cassette player blaring along a dirt semblance of a road.
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