¿Porque Puyo?

On our last morning in Baños, the rain we'd been so eager for set in for a long soak.  Rather than embark on one last outing, we cleaned the parts of the house that we'd used, brushed Maxwell and put him in the playroom, along with his food, water and favorite toys, locked the doors and climbed in a taxi just past noon.

Our hosts were returning from Puyo that afternoon, so we'd decided to share the cost of the taxi with them. We'd pay for the trip down and they'd take the same taxi back.  The taxi driver would transfer their keys back to them.  Ordinarily we'd have taken the bus, but we liked the idea of the apparent efficiency of this arrangement.  And considering the weather, it felt safer.  We had not asked the cost of the trip in advance, but we figured it was half the distance to Quito, which cost $80 round trip, so we expected this trip would be $40 round trip and our half would be $20.  When we arrived in Puyo, the driver wanted $30.  We gave it to him, but did not give him any tip.  We should have taken the bus.

Ice cream advertisement over a store in Puyo

We saw a lot of Puyo on the drive in, primarily because the driver did not know where our hotel was.  We were not in the nicer part of town – and that's a relative term for Puyo – but we were close to the centro.  Our first impression, however, was decidedly negative.  The sense that we'd made a bad decision about the taxi, together with the dreary weather and the rugged appearance of the town, had us questioning our choice of hotel and our decision to come to Puyo at all.

We'd reserved a room at Hostal Kanoas on the main street in the centro, a few blocks from the central park, from the mercado in another direction, and many restaurants and shops in all directions.  The lobby was empty when we arrived – not even a desk, much less a clerk.  We ventured up some stairs from the lobby and found the reception desk on the second floor, where a pleasant young woman welcomed us and showed us our room.  The room was large, but crowded with a full-size bed and two twin beds arrayed across its length.  The bathroom was small, but clean and it had hot water from a tank, not a "suicide" electric heater attached to the shower head.  In fact, it had no shower head, just a pipe extending from the wall, but at least it had faucet handles for both hot and cold water.  The room was $10 per person, or $12  with breakfast

After resting a bit, we ventured out to explore the town.  A little rest and a clearing sky brought a better perspective and a more positive outlook, and Puyo turned out not to be quite as bad as we'd first thought.

Rio Puyo – swimming is not recommended.

Puyo is built along the west side of the Puyo river.  To the east side lies the Amazon jungle, and access to the jungle is about the only reason to go to Puyo.  The town of Tena, two and a half hours to the north, has better jungle access, however, so we decided to stay only one night in Puyo and go on to Tena the next day.  We'd read about two possibilities for an entertaining afternoon in Puyo, an orchid farm that also has lots of other native plants, and an ethnobotanical reserve whose proprietors are experts in native medicinal plants.  You have to call ahead for the orchid farm, and since that was our second choice anyway, we headed to the ethnobotanical park.

After first finding the tourist office and getting an excellent map of the city, we got a taxi.  The taxi driver had no idea what we were talking about.  He called his office and got directions, and after 15 or 20 minutes of driving through the wilds on the edge of the jungle, he stopped in front of the orchid farm. "No," we both said.  After taking a look at our map, the driver headed off at high speed in another direction, bouncing us over dirt roads with little sign of civilization.  We didn't want to alarm each other, but privately, both of us were thinking these might be our last moments on earth.  Before long, however, we emerged back onto a paved road that looked familiar from our first ride into town.  Soon, we were headed north along the riverfront and here we saw the nicer hotels and the malecon, an attractive pedestrian area lined with shops and restaurants.  Much better.

Arriving at Parque Omaere, the ethnobotanical park, at about 4:30, we met Chris Canaday, who runs the park with his wife, Teresa Shiki.  Chris was in the middle of a consultation with a guy that looked like a lawyer, and since he was the only English-speaking guide, we decided to come back the next morning at 9.  We walked a little way up the pedestrian path along the river, but with rain again threatening and evening coming on, we decided to turn back.  We stopped for a Pilsener at one of the restaurants on the malecon, and waved to Chris and his son Alan as they walked by on their way home a half-hour later.

Geni's steak

It took us another half-hour to walk back to our hotel, as we only got a little lost.  We found a pretty good restaurant and had steak and fish, then stopped for ice cream and picked up a copy of "Ted" on a pirated DVD to watch on the laptop in our room.

Larry's fish

The next morning, our $2 breakfast at the hotel consisted of a bun with a slice of farmer's cheese, a cup of hot chocolate and a scrambled egg, same as we'd seen in Ibarra and Otavalo.

We packed up all our belongings and left our bags in our room, then hustled back up to Parque Omaere. 

We got there about 20 minutes before 9 and the gate was still locked.  While we waited, a young German couple showed up, students who had spent a season volunteering at a reserve for injured animals outside Tena.  Chris arrived shortly and began the tour, but before he was far into it, a couple from Colombia arrived and joined us, making it a good size group and worth Chris's time.

Much of the tour revolved around the living habits of the Shaur and Huaorani people, indigenous groups that still live in the Amazon and maintain their traditional patterns, for the most part.  We saw a Shaur house, a sturdy structure made of split wood planks, but the Huaorani houses are made of leaves and last only for about a year, so we didn't see one of those.  We saw hundreds of native plant species and learned (temporarily, anyway) how they are used, whether for food, medicine or ritual.  We even marveled at – and tried out – Chris's pride and joy, a pair of dry toilets that fertilize the plants, don't contribute to wastewater problems, never overflow, and best of all, and don't smell.

The footbridge across the Rio Puyo to Parque Omaere.

Chris's wife Teresa is an expert in native herbal medicines, and we bought a nasal decongestant and a cough syrup that definitely helped our worsening respiratory symptoms after breathing volcano dust, and a skin remedy that soothed our sunburn after a rafting trip in Tena some days later.

Parque Omaere was the only tourist attraction that we visited in Puyo, but it made the trip to the town worthwhile and we are likely to return there.