Tena, Ecuador

After my time in Lima, we caught a flight to Quito in Ecuador. From there, we immediately took a 5-hour bus to a town called Tena. Sorry for surplus of photos, it was just too good here. For ref, you can see Tena on a map:

It’s on the edge of the jungle, so if you were to move farther east on this map past Tena, it’s even more into the jungle.

We stayed at this Hostel that was awesome. $11 per night per person with breakfast included.

They had guides to take us on day tours into the jungle and throughout the surrounding area, which was really cool. They were young and fun to spend time with and Tena is a nice little town.

In the three days, we did a handful of really fun things.

• A day trip through a jungle hike that led to a Cascada (waterfall). Jumped off 30 foot cliff into the water (was super fun and scary)

• Underground journey through some tunnels that had water coming up to our waists. Had to use flashlights to get around
• Visited a traditional medicine farm/area where we got a tour of all the traditional medicines that are meant to help with injuries, pregnancies and other things. Many of the people there were Quechua (indigenous South American people with 2.5 million in Ecuador)
• Ate grasshopper and a termite
• Went to a Carnival celebration in Tena with an absurd amount of people. We were too tired to celebrate much, though
• Rode around a big river in the jungle and swam in it
• Went to an Amazoonica (like a zoo, but with local animals that mostly weren’t fit to be out in nature) and saw many cool animals (including tons of monkeys, birds, a boa and cheetah (funny story — one of the cheetahs was sold to a family as a cat and then it wrecked the house and they had to call animal control)
• Went to an area with Quechua people and saw alligators (or maybe crocodiles? idk the difference) and then learned how to make some traditional food, how they used to kill/injury chickens or other animals (this tiny like wooden point that is shot out of this long tube), and learned about their houses
• Slept at a different hostel without any power that was pretty much in the jungle. Never been in such darkness before I don’t think
• Went on an ‘easy’ hike the last day since we were a bit tired. We took the wrong way and ended up balls deep in the jungle and in mud. Eventually realized we were at the wrong place, found a little river and then the path and took it up to a cool waterfall

• Spent some time with locals

Thoughts

My time in Tena was probably the most special through my month of travels. I’ve never felt so present during a three-day period as I did when I was there. It was like as we were driving through the jungle with all of the trees that my heart knew that it was home. I felt so at home and easy. It made me want to just move there and live in the area for ever and ever.

I went to some other really beautiful and special places through my travels, but I never felt the way that I did in Tena. The beauty and serenity and untouched (at least relatively) nature of the area was so powerful. I felt so worry free. I’ll never forget those three days and I hope I get to return.

If I took a year off after graduation, I very well might come back.

• People are so happy

Quality of life (from an American perspective) is not as high. We had to sleep with mosquito nets, you have to wander around until you find a taxi, it’s more dirty, there’s not internet connection everywhere you go. Still, though, people seemed so happy in Tena.

There was this serenity and sense of presence there that was incredibly unique from America. It made me realize that we have been pressed to be so focused on work and social pressures and the next steps in life that it has created a real anxiety and depression issue.

I fully believe that the rises in anxiety and depression in America are real. It’s just that they are a byproduct of our culture. Because those things do not exist in Tena to the same magnitude.

People are in the moment. They are not always rushed. Two of our three days, we booked a guide 3 hours beforehand. Otherwise, they are just hanging out with their families and enjoying the life. It is just that they enjoy having money to support themselves when they can, so they take advantage of those opportunities.

There is less rush, people go with the flow more, and you feel more at ease.

Anxiety

There are some people that have diagnosed anxiety, but I believe it is so widely prevelant through the US on a smaller scale as well. Many people are taken out of the moment due to anxieties that they have about a host of things.

Are we safe right now? My face feels greasy. I can’t respond to that message. I have to take a photo. Should I be doing work instead? I’m not working on my paper and I might get a worse grade.

Those thoughts make each moment significantly less enjoyable. Attention is taken away from the experience at hand and put towards these negative and energy-intensive thoughts.

We can only harness so much attention at any one moment. So when some of that thought, even when it is subliminal, is focused some negative situation, it means you are living less in the positive ones.

In Tena, I felt such a lack of anxiety unlike anytime in my life.

I have come up with two big buckets of highly anxiety provoking things that we find in the US. There are probably more and these are broad and there’s some overlap and experts might totally disagree with me. Nonetheless:

• What other people think

People often lose positive thought because it is diverted towards the thoughts of other people. What is that person thinking about me right now? What would my parents think if they knew what I was doing? How is what I’m saying coming across?

Those things make people act differently than who they are. Really challenging, but, in a sentence, the solution is to love yourself and do what you want regardless of other’s opinions. If we don’t need external validation, then we do what we want and don’t worry about how those things affect other’s perceptions of us.

• Lack of security or comfort

When we are nervous about the situation at hand, we become anxious. Attention gets diverted to making sure we aren’t going to get mugged. To whether we might fall off the cliff or drown in the water. To the fact that our leg hurts a little bit or that we are dirty or our feet have blisters.

In short, the solution is just not to think about those things but take them as a given. Thinking about the fact that I have dirt all over my body isn’t going to ever help me. Worrying about the fact that I might drown when I jump in the water will not either.

There’s something to be said about preparing for negative outcomes, but we often do not need to. If you have a plan for any bad situation that is going to happen, you’re missing out on the moment while you are coming up with those plans. Instead, just going with the flow and trusting the process tend to work out.

There are times when it’s worth being thoughtful, though.

In Tena, there are fewer anxieties because maybe people aren’t raised to be worrying about them? There’s less pressure to look cool in front of friends it seems like, and there’s more focus on independence. If someone feels comfortable exploring through the jungle by themselves, where there is so much ambiguity and opportunity for problems, then many other new experiences will be easy to adapt to.

They learn to navigate new situations and deal with hardships as opposed to fearing them and it creates a heightened sense of presence.

Who knows, though, I got this impression from 3 days. And it’s naive to think that it’s super correct or full picture or anything. There’s something special about it, though, that my friend got as well and that people we talked to who live there described.

*Caveat: That also isn’t to say that Tena is perfect. There are opportunity and inequality and poverty and life-condition issues that are super real. I did not experience very much of that as I was likely in a relatively small bubble of experiences that I could have had.