Musap - Staying with a Shuar family

I was headed for Musap, the family of Ernesto Vargas' wife Marcia, with no idea of how easy it would be to find the place, if anyone knew I was coming or what might await me there. When I stepped off the bus I immediately saw that this family was indeed as friendly and welcoming as I had been told. I was greeted by three children coming towards me, (Lisa - 14, Edgar - 9 I think, Jhair - 7 I think) all smiles and offering to help with bags. Three of a family of eleven, aged 3 to 28. Not all of them were there during my visit but instead there were already the children´s children. Three year old uncles playing with 3 year old nieces and nephews. Ernesto, the father, whom I didn't meet, has two families. That's two current wives. The one I visited and another where he had 15 children but only 11 are living now. Both families live on large pieces of land, not too far away from each other. My family has had volunteers stay that worked on building water tanks for safe water and various backpackers come and stay. The other family has a more established eco/volunteer program with a Danish organisation.

My room was very simple. A wooden base with a thin foam camping mat, a mosquito net and a door with nothing to close in the door frame. I was grateful the Israelis told me to bring my sleeping bag because, even though I was in the jungle, it got pretty cool at night. After heading out with Lisa for a walk to a lookout on their property so see the volcano Sangay, the two of us headed into the village to play soccer. Us two girls and the rest boys of varying ages from the village. I had no clue what I was doing, except occasionally running towards someone who was expertly manoeuvring the ball, only to chicken out at the last minute from intercepting them. After soccer we went to shower. Since there are no showers at the house, it gets done at the outdoor showers at the school in the centre of the village, wearing underwear or swimmers.

The second day I went for a walk down to the river with German (21). It was a nice walk but as they use their land to cultivate various plants like bananas and also have cows, most of the area is only secondary forest. We went swimming in the foot deep river with an extremely strong current (the self exposure photos all ended up with me either still running or slipping and falling on the rocks as I rushed to get into place). German went fishing by hand for some fish that sit under the rocks in the sand. He caught one and they cooked it for me for dinner but I never actually got to try it. When I asked him if he wanted some and offered him the fish, he took the whole thing. I guess he was the one who caught it after all. While he was fishing I think I got eaten alive by sandflies. The next day when I headed to Baños and for at least 3 days later my legs were completely covered in incredibly itchy, red bites. On the way back I also found a huge grasshopper. Two actually, being.. er... busy.

In the afternoon we were off to play soccer again. I'd already decided that I was too useless to play again but before I got a chance to beg-off I found myself doing a warm-up and leg session with five other girls that had turned up. I swear, that 15 minutes killed my hamstrings for the next 4 days too, leaving me with really itchy and sore legs for 4 days. I was in so much agony in Baños I ended up doing a yoga class and getting a massage to try to fix them. 3.5 months of travel and I'm afraid I'm severely out of shape. I did get out of playing soccer though and started my renegade game of volleyball with the goalie, using the goal as our net.

(our goalie, being very attentive)

We had our daily shower and walking home, in the dark, managed to step on something that flicked back up towards me. Lisa screamed and jumped away. Kids came running. I'd stepped on a culebra (snake). Luckily I'd forgotten my flipflops for after the shower and had to put my sneakers back on. Otherwise the snake would have bitten clean into my foot. The boys that had come running proceeded to beat the poor snake to death. It wasn't until after they started holding the snake up for photos that I saw the amazing colours the snake had on it's underside.

(Taking and posing for photos was a big thing, so for the most part, my camera was never in my possession and Lisa took photos of everything and anything.)

If anyone is coming to Ecuador and wants to experience something outside of the usual touristy thing, I would definitely recommend going and visiting Musap, the house of Ernesto Vargas' wife, Marcia. They are genuinely friendly and welcoming people and what you do there, totally depends on what you want to do.