A little bit past the end of the earth – Llurimagua River

 A few of us from San Clemente Ecuador were invited to go to a friends retreat house deep in the cloud forest.

It was a 6 hour drive to get there.  As we drove in, Eida, Brian and I joked that we just passed the middle of earth.  It felt completely remote.  The dirt road fizzled out into a walking suspension bridge about 5km from the house.

While there, the rooms were fantastic, the food was wonderful, the company was equally awesome and we all relaxed, ate and had a good time.

One day we went on a hike.

The clean shoes before the trip.

Eida ready to go hiking.

The long wait to get going.

And more waiting.

Finally we arrived at the trailhead after a short drive.

And we are off!

Brian says “that a way!”

It was a bit of a muddy start, with a lot of foreshadowing…

Eida made sure to point out the donkey dung to Keith!

We came to the river crossing no one knew we would be making.

Bethany was on the raft before we even got down there.

Here is a video of Keith trying to get on the raft with Bethany.

As you can see, that didnt work out too well.  🙂

Bethany on the other side.

Eida struggling to hang on at one moment.

After seeing all this, I figure I would take the adventurous route and I waded and swam across the river in full clothing.

The water was refreshingly cool without being cold.  I could walk about 1/2 way across chest deep, then it got too deep and I swam the rest of the way.

Here are photos from the other side.

Then Ken came across.  We decided to put all valuables in one backpack with Ken to cross so our gear wouldnt get wet.

Here is video of Ken crossing the river with the guarded valuables:

As you can see, this didnt work out too well either.  🙂

Ken trying to dry off.

We continued hiking.

Look how high the sides of the trail are where Brian is walking!

An idea of the mud factor.

Looking uphill.

Looking up hill across a revine that needed to be crossed.

After about 20 minutes of hiking we came to the waterfall / lagoon area of the river.

This waterfall was about 15 feet high.

Of course I went swimming in there.  I tried to touch bottom in the middle but couldnt.  I went down feet first with my hand extended upwards.  My hand went underwater, but my feet never touched.  So it is more than 8′ deep.

We were informed there was another water fall about 1 minute away.  Here is Eida in the foilage.

The lagoon here was real rocky and difficult to swim in, so I went back to the other pool.

And this is where the camera battery died.

We had a sandwich with soda and I had a few small travel bottles of bourbon.

It was a fantastic day in the forest.  I really enjoyed swimming in the lagoon.

Figuring it out…  1 river crossing at a time.