Day 6 – How to Fall and Get Back Up

Yesterday was an exhausting day. It was an early morning with Banana and Cheese Empanadas for breakfast. These were pretty good, especially the banana ones.

After that, Sarah, Armando, Alberto, and I were headed for the trail named “Tabla Chupa”. We caught an 8:45 bus up to the top of the “Vuelta de Oso” trail. This trail is a jungle trail, where you literally climb straight up the mountain with foot holes and hand holes. This was crazy! No where in the volunteer packet does it say, “MUST CLIMB LIKE BEAR!”. We made it up to the first station, but unfortunately my rubber boots are not made to climb up the side of the mountain and I kept losing my footing and would slip. Based on that, we only did the first station of Tabla Chupa. I have to try on a pair of the Bear House’s boots before doing this trail again. We did hear Enrique though, so it wasn’t a total loss.

So, after climbing back down like a bear and falling once or twice, we continued on the Vuelta de Oso trail. Only thing is, we didn’t stay on it. Armando had to go back to the bear house after the first couple stations and caught a bus down the mountain. Not long after we walked past a little house that had pigs. We saw these pigs yesterday and today, one of them had been slaughtered. It’s pretty sad to see something alive one day and dead the next.

We continued on with Alberto, who decided we should do a side trail which was worse than Tabla Chupa. It is straight up jungle and mud, with no footing. We even had to climb over a spot where a landslide had occurred. It was at this point that I realized, I really could die out here. It’s kind of crazy. I probably slipped and fell a good 15 times on the same hip. Scuffed up my hands real good too.

The side trail is a trail that climbs through the jungle down the mountain to the river in the valley. It had rained the night before, so everything was extra wet and extremely dangerous. All I can say is I survived and learned how to fall and get back up over and over again.

I was so happy when this trail was over, I could have cried. I was terrified.

After that, we returned to the bear house and had dinner, which was my least favorite thing in the world – beans and rice. So… I ate leftovers from the night before. Following dinner, we watched a BBC documentary on the Andean Bear that features the Andean Bear Project and Armando. It was a really good documentary and covered the Andean bears behavior in Peru and Ecuador.

I’ve also been working on a sketch for an Andean bear mural I plan to do while here. I will probably be painting an Andean bear and its habitat in a mural on a wall at one of the local schools. The Andean bear murals are meant to help educate the public and children and to teach them that the bears are a good thing.

I’m really excited about that, but I don’t know when it’ll happen for sure.

So, with that!

Love and Andean Bears,

Ashley