"Woah!" I whispered excitedly to Emily--"did you see that!?" She and I crouched down on the well-beaten, damp jungle path, cameras aimed and ready. "Yes!" she breathed, then carefully raised her camera to snap some pictures. We could barely see it through the dense foliage, but the unmistakable flash of orange we'd glimpsed hurtling toward the trees was slightly visible through the jungle overgrowth. "What even is that?" Emily inquired, as she expertly tilted her camera so as to capture the best possible angle. "It looked like some sort of giant parakeet or breed of parrot. How awesome is that?!" I enthused. "Super cool," she agreed. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before our bird friend was startled by the sound of another person's footsteps on the path and darted away in a flurry of orange and black wings, just as suddenly as it had appeared. "Dangit," Emily muttered, flipping through her photos, "This is the best one I got." She showed me a picture of the bird's bright orange wings--its head, sadly, was blocked by a giant, green leaf. "Oh well," she sighed, "that was still really cool!" And it was. It was one of the most exciting natural encounters we've had so far this weekend.
Of all the jungle treks I've had the opportunity to be a part of, you'd think that by now I'd have seen plenty of wildlife besides bugs and flies, but alas--no such luck. Then again, we've mostly visited popular tourist destinations, which are sadly devoid of much wildlife. Thus, we were thrilled to have seen a parrot(?) in its natural habitat. A rare sighting. We were on our way back from visiting Pailon del Diablo, one of the most awe-inspiring, powerful, roaring, twisting, foaming giants of nature I've ever set my eyes on. It rightly gets its name, "Devil's Pot", from the churning, violent depths carved into the rocks all around it at the bottom of the waterfall's surge. The pressure is so high at the base of the waterfall that any attempts to swim across or dive down would be met with a painful, crushing death.
I can hardly describe the awesome, powerful beauty that surrounded us as we marched down, down, down to the base of the waterfall. Though paths have been cut through the rainforest, paths that thousands of tourists' feet have worn down even further, the jungle has such a wild, mysterious, untamed feeling about it. As if no hands of man could ever truly subdue that power of life that is the heartbeat and breath of the jungle. All around us, mountains rose upward, piercing the clouds above. I half expected King Kong to crash over the nearest peak, tearing through the underbrush and destroying everything in his wake. Obviously, this didn't happen, but it definitely seemed like it could happen. Anything seems possible here in the jungle, because everything is so exotic, so fresh, so LARGE. It's the kind of beauty that prompts one to wonder aloud how the new heavens and the new earth will ever surpass this because it's so incredible. It's the kind of place that takes one's breath away, not just because of the steep climb at a high altitude, but because it's so pure, so pristine, so untarnished. It's the kind of place that evokes joyous songs of praise and whoops of exultation because of the inescapable feeling of freedom that accompanies viewing this landscape. And there's a sense of danger as well--Volcan Tungurahua sleeps just above, an ironic protector of the busy town below. It erupted only a couple of months ago; inhabitants of Banos fled to nearby villages built on higher ground, expressly for the purpose of sheltering them from the lava flow and cascading rocks.
I sighed, content with the view. "Are you ready to go yet?" Emily's voice broke through my daydreams of King Kong and burning lava. "No," I admitted, "Let's stay here a little while longer. I want to soak it all in." Soak it in I did. We were definitely damp with waterfall mist and rain by the time we began the return journey.But these feelings of exhilaration are just the beginning of our adventure. Tomorrow, we visit Casa del Arbol and the "Swing off the Edge of the World", and plan on enjoying a colorful parade in celebration of the annual "Viva Banos" Festival. I smiled. I was ready to go, ready to move on, ready to greet the next experience with arms splayed to embrace the wind and a grin as wide as the world I'm able to live in and experience and love more fully than ever before...."Alright, Emily," I whooped, "Let's go!"
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