The Mis-Misadventure

I’ve been to this place before. I spent over 12 hours of my life in this one spot. All on accident. There are many rivers that flow through the mountains of Ecuador and wriggle their way through the dense Amazon jungle. But this one held a high school hostage 15 years ago, consisting of 11 students and 3 teachers.

I finally went back to this river, after 15 years. Thanks for coming with me Josh and Alex, oh and our driver, Roly!

The Lower Misahualli consists of three relatively large watersheds, the Hollin, Tena, and Jondachi, amongst many other small ones. The whole run is about 16 miles of meandering amazonian beauty, with some class 3-4 rapids washed in there. Then, there’s the portage. 

The day had been going great, it was a February day in 2005 (almost 15 years to today) and most of World Class Kayak Academy had been happily playing their way down yet another magical section of whitewater. Around the corner, we clearly could tell there was a huge rapid, the portage.

A view of the rock where we all hunkered down.

We started walking, trudging through the jungle, up the side of the mountain in the uninhabited landscape. There was mud, slipping shoes, dropped kayaks, blood, sweat, and tears. We walked for what felt like forever when our coach decided it was going to get dark and we had to go back down to the river to spend the night. We left our kayaks on the mountainside, just to wander back down to the river, dejected. We had no water, a loaf of banana bread, shortie dry tops and shorts. One thing I learned about the jungle that day: if you’re not hot, you’re freaking cold.

We all watched the sun go down over the Andes and hunkered down for what is still one of the longest nights of my life. We sang happy birthday to Kevin, it was his 18th birthday. He came down with malaria a week later. I never thought it could get cold in the jungle, until that night. We started a fire which was quickly put out by the oncoming deluge of water coming from the sky. Most of us found a cave to attempt to get somewhat dry, which lasted for all of an hour. Another careful shift in kids placed us on top of a rock, a rock where we spent over 5 hours shivering, despite the reignited fire.

Just taking a nap, reminiscing the good times we had on this rock.

At first light, our newest problem came into sight, the river had literally doubled in size overnight. We had even lost some gear from the rising levels, including a sprayskirt. Our trusty coach, thankfully, found the actual trail that we were supposed to go on. But, our kayaks and most of our gear was up the mountainside. We trudged back to the boats and gear feeling not only hungry but tired and itchy. We got to our kayaks and turned around to get back to the river. How dejected we were. There were rocks falling, all of us had to wear our helmets. The sweat came quickly, despite the ever-present thirst.

Suddenly, a lot of action came down below. “There is an amazon man in a Speedo down there!”, “He’s here to save us!”. All sorts of noise along with hearing mumblings he possibly had some food for us. I rounded the corner only to see, the one and only, Dan Dixon. Dan is a long time staple at both the NOC and in Ecuador. I learned how to kayak at the NOC when I was 11, imagine the looks on all of my peer’s faces when they realized I knew him! He brought us what was possibly the most mouth-watering brick of chocolate, amongst other provisions.

Portage on the left, Land of the Giants in the middle, breathtaking gorge on the right.

We had lost a sprayskirt in the flood, he brought saran wrap and a bike tube, all in his fancy (pretty much clear) Perception Pirouette S. For reference, I am pretty sure he is still paddling the same kayak down here. We proceeded to finish the heinous portage (which is hard without hiking up a mountainside the day before) and saran wrapped our coach into his kayak to paddle out the flooded river.

After the portage. It was hot and took about an hour. But totally worth it.

Luckily, it was so high, there were only massive waves and a lot of thoughts of food, water, and bed, in all of our brains. We made it to Puerto Mishualli and we were greeted by what felt like the whole town. All of us were covered in mud, torn up from the ankles to the shoulders, tired, and mostly broken. I don’t even remember the drive back to Tena.

I am not going to lie, I got on the plane in 2005, after spending two months in Ecuador, and I never ever wanted to go back. I am now on my third year in a row down here and I plan on coming back for as long as I can. Recently, I had the honor to get back on the Lower Mishualli. I found the exact rock where we spent so much time, the wrong trail (it’s still there) where we learned so much about ourselves, the cave where some of our gear was washed away. It was like no time had gone by but that was half of my life ago now. So much has changed and yet, this spot remained unchanged and untouched. A country that I left so long ago, has now become a staple in my life. Reminding me to never only go off of first impressions. Oh, and for those wondering, the portage is still hard. 

After the portage, happy to be getting back into the cool water and picturesque gorge.