A Day in the Oriente (Part 1)

The Oriente is the name of the eastern lowlands of Ecuador. We also hear it referred to as Amazonia, because the rivers flow east and ultimately, I suppose, into the Amazon.

The Spanish colonists ignored the Oriente and left it to the indigenous people. But oil was discovered in the northern Oriente in the 1960s. It now provides Ecuador with most of its wealth. But it also has brought a lot of environmental devastation and disruption for the indigenous people.

We decided to take a day trip from Banos, led by a Kichwa gentleman named Delfin, along with his girlfriend whose face was painted in the traditional way. There were about 20 of us on the tour, mostly young backpackers from Canada and Argentina and one friendly Polish couple. It was a fun group. The first stop was the most interesting for me. Delfin called it an "Amazon market" which might have been a stretch, but the selection of fruits and other produce was mind-boggling. We tried one of the strange fruits, but I would have liked to try them all. We also had our first taste of chicha, a fermented drink served from a communal bowl. It comes in a lot of varieties. This one was made from some fruit and was not very potent.

Here is Daniel drinking his chicha next to Delfin.

They also served us some kind of fat pale worms with black heads (they just called them gusanos) at the market. One of Delfin's assistants ate a live worm to gross everyone out. Then they served us some that were cooked. Daniel and I both scarfed one down. The heads were crunchy and the body was gooey and it didn't have a lot of flavor. I chewed fast and washed it down with the chicha.