Ecuador--first trip of the year, and reason #7 we love Ecuador

Reason #7 that we love Ecuador: E-Woks frequent the resturants here!

So, we finished our first trip of the season on November 15th.

We had a group of friends from Colorado and New Mexico down here to help us start things off right.

Here's the gang stoked to be in Ecuador, heading out to the Oriente for their first day of paddling.

We had 3 kayakers and 1 shredder in the gang, we started them off with a couple of days on the Rio Quijos. Here, Katherine, Shanan, and Steve run some warm up rapids before dropping into El Chaco Canyon.Darcy and Sam shredding El Toro Rapid!

Scuba Steve following suite.

Shannan enjoying a nice, relaxing surf now that he knows El Torro is behind him:)

And Scuba flatwater cartwheeling his way through the basalt canyons.

Next we hit the road and headed down to Tena.

We ran the Jondachi and Hollin Rivers on our first day, where we were besieged by a group of pirate kids at the take out. They succesfully hyjacked the shredder from Sam and Darcy, but they eventually took pity us on gringos and gave it back.

The next day we hit up the Lower Misahualli. We haven't done this run with guests in years due to the massive pain in the A__ portage halfway through the run. But, we figured this was a good group to experiment on since they like to do their fair share of suffering. Here's a video of Don, Katherine, Shannan, and Steve dropping into Land of the Giants--reaping the reward of whitewater after sweating in the jungle.

Here's a veiw looking back upstream of the portage and Land of the Giants. It's really quite a spectacular place.

Then, later that night, Shannan was making new friends.

We came back to the Quijos Valley after 2 great days of paddling in Tena. We ran more sections of the Quijos and did the Lower Cosanga as well. Sam, Shannan, Steve, and Katherine all agreed a November kayaking trip to Ecuador was an awesome way to start their winter! They are all back in Colorado now settling into their winter jobs, and praying for snow on the ski slopes. But the one last taste of "summer" will get them through the cold winter!

If the cold weather blues are getting you down, think about a trip to Ecuador where you can enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables,

Good friends and fruity drinks in the bar,

and an all around good time!

www.smallworldadventures.com