Ecuador Part 4

'April 22, 2010

Today was my first day in quarantine. It was good except that I keep thinking I'll forget something and I keep second guessing myself. Right now there are 5 birds there so there isn't a lot of work to do there and it was basically uneventful. Last night there was a bonfire which was nice. The fire pit is right next to the river so it's pretty loud. Speaking of the river, yesterday Andrea and I went swimming/bathing in it. The water is cold but I find it very refreshing and it's quite something to be sitting on the rocks of a raging river in the middle of the jungle. So far that has given me the most repose. Especially after a day of work. It feels so soothing. That and the water is so clear and fresh. You can even drink from it and I often do. It's kinda sad that I have to come this far to find natural water that hasn't been polluted.

I feel 24 hours more comfortable here. That's a weird sentence but I know what I mean. It feels more and more like 2 weeks won't be that hard to manage. Oh yea, in the middle of the night last night it just started pouring. The sky opened up and unleashed a deluge that didn't stop until late morning. It went on for hours and made waking up at 7:30 quite challenging.'

This is a much shorter entry than the last. My writing betrays my intentions of trying to cheer myself up. If I write it, it MUST be what I'm feeling, right? Not that anything I wrote is untrue. I did feel more comfortable after the first day, but much of my unease remained, all of which is omitted in my entries.

To this day thinking about those jungle rains I can almost summon its sound in my ears, its scent in my nose. It's ethereal. Allow me to contrast that with having to wake up at 7am, though in reality you've been up for a couple hours because the sound is deafening, and putting on clothes that haven't dried from the day before and trudging out amidst the deluge. To be fair, there was only one morning when it was raining when we awoke. It did rain every day, multiple times.


Lying in that river was reverie; our reprieve. It was running so fast that there were very few spots to even sit down and swimming was basically out of the question. The clarity of the water and the alignment of the rocks belied its natural creation as it looked as if this was something to be found at a lavish fountain in las vegas. This must have been melt water or something originating from higher elevations in the hills because it was very cold.

We did find sitting spots and did little more than sit there and let the water rush past us. In these minutes we were engulfed in where we were. Sitting in a beautiful river in the middle of the jungle. The toils of the day as well as thoughts of the next days work rushed past us with the water.

This last picture is me with Oscar, the baby kinkajou. They are from the same family as raccoons. Think: nocturnal, furry and vicious. This little guy is adorable and although they are nocturnal he had to be given medicine each day. He was kept in a separate cage adjacent to the main kinkajou cage and the 7 adults. I believe he now resides in with the other adults which is progress for him. Yay!

Ecuador Part 3

'April 21, 2010,

It was the best of times it was the worst of times. Much has happened since I last wrote. We landed in Quito and were soon at our hotel. The hotel was fantastic and other than a stiff bed it was precisely what we needed to cure our delirium after 3 flights and 18 hours of travel. Yesterday morning we left the hotel and took a cab to the bus station. It was about 40 minutes and provided us a cursory view of Quito. We found bus pretty easily (despite the charming people at the ticket counters yelling at us) and embarked on the 4.5 hour ride to Mera. Most of it was fairly nondescript, though scenic. The main towns we passed through were Latacunga and Ambato, both uninspiring. Then we reached Banos. Banos sits on the edge of an active volcano and is a total laid back hippy town that we intend to visit. The last hour of the bus trip from Banos to Mera is beyond stunning. The road meanders along a gorge that has waterfalls all around and incredible vistas. I've driven the Big Sur coast and I think this tops that as the most amazing drive I've been on. We got off in Mera, a tiny sleepy town. There we got a cab out of town along an incredibly bumpy road to the path leads to Merazonia. We were really psyched at this point. The hike is about 1.5km each way and before we even got half way Andrea got terrible blisters from the boots and then it started to rain. And when it rains it pours. I mean that in more ways than one. So after struggling through the hike and barely making it we got to take a shower and unpacked. It was then that Andrea noticed her camera was stolen. I can't explain how upsetting this is. She was obviously and understandably a wreck. For a minute there we were contemplating leaving then and there. We were careful but not careful enough. We figured that it had to have happened on the bus ride, even though her bag was at our feet the whole time. That's how quick and insidious these people are. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and I'd like to think that if this person knew how much pain they caused then they might not have done it but I really don't know. I'd also prefer not to think that every Ecuadorian is a shifty camera thief but clearly we have to remain on guard at all times. But we're pushing on and we'll make the best of it.

Merazonia. We are smack dab in the middle of secondary jungle. This makes Algonquin seem like a joke. It'll take me too long to properly expound on my observations of this place so mainly I'll record what goes on in hopes that it'll trigger more insight when I'm home and then I'll write properly.

There are 8 people here and 3 dogs. Darwin is the biggest and scariest. He is essentially an adopted street dog from the Galapagos so he barks a lot and can come at you quite aggressively. He's basically harmless but it can be a little scary at times. The here are all very friendly and easy to get along with. They've definitely helped us adjust and it really is quite an adjustment. Frank, who owns the operates this area took us around today to show us how the feeding/cleaning goes. There are a couple different enclosures that house monkeys and a couple that house birds. Part of my adjustment is just to remember the names of the different species. Today was a bit of a struggle but I can feel it getting easier almost by the hour. Both Andrea and I got shit on by birds. After the afternoon feeding we went for a swim in the river. The water is moving really fast so we had to find a place to get in. It was cold but really refreshing. It's also incredibly clear and drinkable. That swim made us both feel a lot better and optimism is creeping in. This is definitely a character building experience'

Where to begin. First I should apologize for such stilted prose that's riddled with inconsistent tense.

That first experience in Quito was a total blur. We arrived super late at night, woke up at 8am to have breakfast at the hotel and then catch a bus that left around 10am. This was perhaps the most fundamental mistake we made on the trip. Not allowing time to acclimatize after the long travel. Instead we found ourselves in the middle of the jungle less than 24 hours after arriving. We would have been much better served if we spent a day or two in Quito before embarking to Merazonia.

Andrea's camera being stolen on literally our first bus ride was pretty devastating. That camera was really important to her and trying to deal with that loss was made all the more challenging given how isolated we were at the time and the fact that we still had 99.5% of the trip ahead of us. I suppose the only positive (and I use that term loosely in this case) was that she literally hadn't taken a single pic so at least this thief didn't steal any memories. I was/am mainly shocked at how brazen it was. The bag containing the camera never left our sight. Someone sat down behind us on the bus and reached under our seat and that was that. I shudder to think at what I would have done had I caught this person red handed because I would have totally lost it. Even now the thought makes me extremely angry. Sadly this happened a couple weeks later to another tourist on a bus we were on. Her bag was slashed with a knife. In talking with other travellers I got the impression that this kind of thing is more prevalent in Ecuador than it is in most other South American countries. After the initial shock I thought Andrea handled things remarkably well and from then on we always had our defenses on high alert.

Something else I notice in my writing is how upbeat I sound when talking about Merazonia. I think I was trying to convince myself that things were going well and didn't want to just dwell on the challenges. I'll write more on Merazonia itself in the next entry.

The cabs that they have in Mera are really just pickup trucks with covers over the back and benches to sit on. The reality is that only a 4x4 would even be able to traverse the unbelievably bumpy, rocky crevice filled road that leads out of town and up into the jungle. Easily the worst road I've ever been on. We were genuinely excited by this as it led us further and further away from any civilization and closer and closer to real adventure, our reason d'etre. The 1.5km trail into the park (all uphill I should point out) proved quite challenging. Andrea didn't wear socks under her waterproof boots and that quickly spelled trouble as she developed massive blisters on the backs of her ankles that very severe enough that they didn't heal until after we got back home. So she was in pain for almost the entire hike and about halfway through the torrential rain came down, as only it can in the jungle.

It's hard to imagine a more auspicious beginning, and that seemed to set the tone, at least for my Merazonia experience.

The Madman Within

I must admit a strong interest in the case of Russell Williams, the former top pilot in the canadian millitary and now confessed murderer/rapist/burgular/all around waste of a human being. His list of crimes so long as to almost seem redundant. Almost.

I find abhorrent behavior fascinating because I can't relate to it, but also because only the truly abhorrent can. Since I was young I've had an interest in serial killers, not so much on the crimes themselves or morbid details therein but in what motivates someone to reach such levels of depravity and how they are able, usually quite successfully for long periods of time, to hide this from others. The logistics, their process.

Though I'm no closer to understanding this, the questions I ask now are different. For instance: Russell Williams must have been acutely aware of his sick impulses, what if he had an outlet for them that didn't involve systematic terrorization and murder? Is this hypothetical outlet I speak of even possible? Before I can fully form an answer to that another pertinent question comes to mind: What, if anything, can citizens/government/law enforcement do to possibly stop someone like this in the future?

Maybe nothing. As someone who has only ever read about deranged minds from afar I really have no idea how entrenched or inescapable truly sick impulses are. For arguments sake (because my argument depends wholly on this) let's say that, at least in the case of Russell Williams, there was a tipping point. Not an exact time or place but some sort of formative period where he could have stayed on the path that led him to be a respectable human being for most of his life, but instead took a 180. I hypothesize this because so far the details seem to indicate that his descent, and certainly all of crimes, took place in the last 3 years alone. I say this with trepidation given what may later come to light, but it looks like he remained a law abiding and upstanding citizen until 2007. In looking at the totality of his existence, only a small fraction of it was spent undertaking heinous criminal activities. If he was 'normal' for so long, why couldn't or why didn't that continue?

I have to think that at least theoretically he could have turned out differently. I refer back to my question about having an outlet. I think if society can answer that question then there is a chance to stop predators like this. Perhaps it's naive to think that someone like Russell Williams, even if presented with some fictional outlet that sated his desires (sick as they might be) would chose that over the psychological and physical torture of real, live victims. Ultimately I'm just not comfortable with the thought that this was inevitable.

It seems far fetched to me that you could stop someone's brain from initiating depraved tendencies, but I know nothing of brain physiology so maybe that is, or can be, possible ala Minority Report. Surely there are many people who have twisted thoughts but never the inclination to act on them. Why wasn't Russell Williams one of them? What was/is different about him?

After all, it's the acts that we find most appalling. If he bought women's underwear from Winners and put them on and took pics of himself in his own home jerking off he wouldn't be arrested. There's no crime for being weird, there IS a crime for the manifestation of that weirdness into acts that harm others. Russell Williams became the later, but couldn't he have remained the former?

My desire to know answers to questions like that almost drive me to become a psychologist or sociologist, only in hopes of pinning down the elusive aspects of why certain members of our species wantonly wreak havoc and cause so much harm to so many other members of our species and if there is any way of preempting that.

Sadly i'm too often presented with interesting case studies.