Canoa to Cuyabeno Calamity: Part One
- Peter Stromberg
- Jul 15, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 26
By Peter Stromberg
So there I was…
We started out great, right on schedule. Left Canoa at a reasonable hour in the morning and twisted our way up the Andes to the capital of Quito. There we met up with the other part of our crew, two local chaps that were going to join us on our adventure into the Amazon. Maija and I jumped into Rodrigo’s fancy new Land Rover in Quito and we started making our descent down the pass and towards our final destination of Cuyabeno, deep in the Amazon basin. About two hours out of Quito the check engine light started rearing its ugly head and there was definitely something going wrong with the engine…no oil pressure. We stopped at a mechanic in Baeza and determined that this car was going to need some special love back in Quito. In the spirit of progress we decided to catch a cab back to Quito to grab my truck and meet the group back in Baeza, get some good rest and continue in the early morning. Right on schedule.
After making the journey from Quito and back we were mounting our new steed in the pouring rain the following morning. Jungle rain…a deluge. The good thing about my truck being on the beach so long is that the salt air has taken the liberty of creating speed holes in the roof. It makes a cool whistling sound as you fly down the curvy roads. However, the speed holes do not work as well in the rain. In fact one could argue that the perforations actually help the rain get inside the truck, but mostly on the passenger side of things so it’s not that bad….for the driver. In addition to our leaky ride, we’ve been informed that the short four hour route is closed and that we must take another road to get to where we’re going, which takes seven hours. We set off with slightly soggy intentions and smiles as we kept making progress toward our final destination, deep in the Amazon.
