By the road among the clouds to the place where the greatest river borns – the Amazon!

Ksusha brought me to a small town called Misahualli from Quito. The bus trip took about five hours. I’ve to say that the first 2 hours I was really nervous… It was kind of unusual to look through the window of the bus and see road level clouds one yard distance from the canyon! That’s the time when you understand that your life is in the hands of the Indian with the steering wheel. Another unoptimistic factor were the crosses and drawn hearts on the road surface…
The ticketing process is way too interesting. It appeared that they usually sell the front seats to gringos (or whites). Initially I thought that was an occasion or kinda respect to white blood since the front seats were somewhat better. However, I realized that the front seats were the most dangerous since the ones sitting in the middle of the bus had more chances to survive in case of a crash :)

After a while I got used to the canyons. The bus periodically stopped and all kinds of hustlers entered it. One of them made me LMAO since he came to beg for money and his line was like: “please give me cash and say thanks that I'm not a junkie or a thief” :)

The most memorable part of Miswali was its central square inhabited with wild monkeys. They are very smart, clever and even spiteful. Recently they killed one man for the sake of revenge. They simply dropped a rock on his head. The monkeys make their bread by stealing stuff from tourists. So you better watch your belongings. These beasts do their work in couples. One of them distracts attention and the second steals the stuff it liked :)

This one targeted my shades while her mate distracted me :)


There’s a restaurant at the square which is popular among the monkeys. That’s why the visitors are given with a menu and a splasher at the entrance. You need to constantly twist your head. If you see a rapidly approaching monkey you need to use your splasher :) For some reason monkeys are afraid of them. However, they are OK with rains :)

Here I am: getting drunk with a monkey :)



Two wet monkeys :)



Amazon river takes it’s origin in Miswali. My old guide Panther took me down the river. The water is fairly quiet here but there are some river rapids. I saw several Indians washing gold and simultaneously I got sick with gold rush :). The next three days the only words Ksusha heard were “gold, gold!” :))) Now I really understand the heroes of Jack London’s books. Now I know what force drove them to the White Silence! I even thought of staying there, buying a bowl and starting to wash the golden sand! Luckily I was able to defeat my “illness” and decide to do it some time later… :)

Here’s the place where Amazon river origins… Panther is on the background


All the photos are made by Kseniya, so I express my gratitude to her :)

P.S. I’m writing this post in the middle of night… One hour later Enrique will take me to the Nazca desert…