Dos Mangas Excursion

Well the weekend flew past as usual. Its now Monday morning and Im stuck doing homework outside while some strange guy on a ladder is painting my bedroom…

I spent Friday at some cultural seminars and swimming in the pool and then we went to happy hour and our Mexican friend studying to be a chef made us true fish tacos, homemade tortillas and all. They were delicious. And then we went salsa dancing downtown.

Which made getting up on Saturday morning to leave for Dos Mangas just a little difficult… but we all made it. We left Saturday around 830 and we made it to the town of Dos Mangas by around 1130. The town has a lot of history of ancient civilizations. There have been multiple archeological excavations where they have found a bunch of old artifacts from before the Incas. The most common form of artifact found near Dos Mangas is a Venus statue. It is a statue of a woman with two legs and no arms and it is assumed to be related to fertility. Most of these statues are found broken by the neck. There is a huge statue that replicates the form of a typical Venus statue at the beginning of town.

Anyway, Saturday we went on a long hike, probably around 5 hours. But Leonor packed me an awesome veggie sandwich for lunch and there was plenty of fresh fruit around in the jungle to keep us going strong. We got to climb up a small waterfall and ended up bathing in some natural pools at the end of the path. It was really fun but the water was FREEZING!

Dos Mangas translates directly in to meaning “Two Sleeves.” The town was named Dos Mangas due to two small rivers that join close to where the town was founded. However by 2001 the river had all but disappeared due to the huge amounts of deforestation to export wood. At this point a few members of the community got together and signed a promise pledging to protect the forest from further damage, stop cutting down trees, and begin to re-plant.

Of course this required that the people find a new source of revenue to survive and make money. What did they turn to? Eco-tourism. The people of Dos Mangas received a loan from a World Bank organization to begin a small tourism protect. This allows the natives to use their expert knowledge of the forest to guide tourists on breath taking hikes as well as allowed them to buy the equipment necessary to begin large scale levels of artisan crafts. Almost the entire town (around 1000 people) now works in either artisan crafts or tourism. The only products that are now permitted to be cut and sold in the close by forests are bamboo (which grows like weeds here and is used in all main construction products) and the toquilla plant which is used to make Panama hats.

As a result there were tons of horses and mules lugging out bamboo and toquilla while we were hiking. The next day we learned how to shred, cook, dry, dye, and weave with the toquilla plant. Although we didn’t quite reach the level of master Panama hat makers we did manage to weave some little pendants…

The tagua plant is another native plant to this part of Ecuador. The seeds of the plant are large and liquid in the inside when they are first picked, but when aloud to dry and harden you end up with a really durable material that the people can make jewelry, pipes, and pendants out of. We also made our own tagua necklaces using a process cutting, sanding, polishing, and engraving. There was also this cool plant in the jungle that produced seeds that were filled with a really sticky liquid that could be used as glue. My friend Tricia from Clemson decided it was her new favorite thing and glued flowers all over her and then stuck some in her pocket for a scrap book later. Our guide made her the hat out of toquilla.

The tourism industry in Dos Mangas is still at an infant stage but the people of the town have a lot of heart and perseverance. There is only one hostel in town and we paid for our lodging by each person donating a pair of rubber boots that cost about six dollars so that they would have shoes for future tourists to hike in. No one in the town can speak English but they have recently found a volunteer English teacher from a neighboring town. He is from Georgia and has agreed to learn how to guide as well as begin to teach the guides the English necessary for a hiking tour so that they can further extend their business. After dinner the guides sat around and told us a few of their old tribal legends. One of them was about an ancient spirit called the Tintin man that would carry women out of their beds in the middle of the night and then would return her before morning. She would be pregnant the next day with no recollection of what happened and the only way she knew it was the Tintin man was because you would find food in the bathroom…

I also got to talking with some local women. It was really cool to hear how passionate they are about what theyre doing and the progress they have made. One of the founders of the tourism organization told me all about her three children and how all three have been able to go to school instead of working with the family full time, which is what happens most of the time in Ecuador. She also explained how this was the first time that women have been able to contribute economically to the household.  I have never seen a lady look more proud.

Anyway the trip ended with a relaxing lunch staring at the ocean and a few good hours spent in the Ecuadorian sun on the beach.

But most excitingly I finally got my hammock to hang in my house next year! And it was only 12 bucks! And it made an excellent pillow-blanket on the ride home.