Secrets of a River

Two weeks ago, Saturday afternoon, the Wilf and I set off for another trip, this time a little shorter than around Christmas. We headed to Celica and stayed the night at a hostel which was by the main square. After suffering through the 'comforting' sounds of the night (motorcycles buzzing, people shouting and singing with alcohol-induced confidence and vocal talent), we woke up early and got a lift from the owner of the hostel and his son.

The old man took us to his favorite spot on the river, which ran in the valley next to the town, and led us to an astonishing river pool. The water was crystal clear, with tadpoles swimming around the bottom. Wilfred even tried catching some with a stick, but had no luck. On the other side of the river, two giant boulders sat in the water belittlingly. On the stones we could see a giant iguana, which to me was an extraordinary experience, because before I had only seen them in movies or on the cover of National Geographic. After posing for photos and contemplating the beauty of mother nature, we continued to our original destination: “Los monolitos de Quillusara”.

The monoliths of Quillusara are gigantic stones sticking out of the ground. Nobody really knows how they got there, because there is no historic documentation of them. Everyone just goes with the legend that they were erected for religious reasons by one of the tribes, which occupied Ecuador before the Incas.

When we saw them online, Wilf and I weren’t convinced that they were man-made, however, once we arrived and looked around, we both came to the conclusion that they were positioned too perfectly, all facing a specific direction. Wilfred and I were awed by the size of theses stones and discussed how they could have possibly been stood up and dug into the ground, some of them at an angle and some pointing perfectly to the sky above us. We noticed that some of the boulders had Inca iconography on them, just like one would see in Mexico.

After walking around for a while, I started wondering if we were pissing off some ancient spirit by touching and posing with her stones, so I decided to be extra respectful – better safe than sorry. All in all, we spent half an hour there and decided to continue, because the sun was directly above us, making it almost unbearable to stay in the open, and we wanted to see other sights as well before going back to Loja.

We drove along the river, stopping here and there for photos. Our old-aged guide lead us to a gorgeous place on the river, where the water had formed the rocks in immensely peculiar ways, making almost perfectly round holes in them and other almost artificial shapes that I had never seen water create before. Our guide, who must have been over sixty when reaching these incredible places turn into a little child, enthusiastically jumping from rock to rock like a ten-year-old who was finally out of the city and in nature.

Eventually we arrived in Pindal, where Wilfred and I went to a natural pool created by the very same river we followed. Not having packed swimming trunks, I changed into my spare underwear and went for a swim.

The cool water seemed like freezing as I first got in. This was the first time I had swum in a natural pool that was supposedly 8 meters deep in the center. At first, I was scared of jumping in, because although the water was astonishingly clean, I could still not see the bottom, and my internal little boy was imagining some Lockness monster living on the floor of the pool. And let me just say, the thirteen-year-old boy doing front flips into the pool didn’t help my self-confidence.

After swimming for a while, we went for lunch and walked around the elegant little town of Pindal, watching locals sit on wooden chairs while enjoying a post-lunch chat with their neighbor. At three in the afternoon, we finally caught the bus and enjoyed an eventless trip back to Loja, where we both rushed home to prepare our lessons for the week.

A.D.

Other pictures from this trip: