White Water Kayaking in Ecuador

Rio Jatun Yaku - Tena, Ecuador
[pronounced Hatuun Yakuu]

I was blessed to be able to fulfill one of my dreams for this trip by going kayaking in Ecuador. Yesterday after church we took a bus from Quito to a little town called Tena. This 180km trip took a lightening fast 5 hours... LOTS of crazy switchbacks through the mountains and then jungles. It wasn't too bad a trip though, with only about 10 or 15 minutes where going over the edge seemed like a genuine possibility.

I was nervous and excited last night, and didn't sleep too good with kaykaing heavy on my mind. In the morning I got up and went to the Rios Ecuador shop to meet the raft trip I was supposed to kayak with. Upon arriving I discovered the raft group had cancelled, which meant for the same price ($59) I was going to get the trip anyway, but with a one-on-one guide! (this kind of thing normally costs $140 with Rios Ecuador). Sweet!

My guide Daniel was awesome: relaxed, professional, knowledagble. I couldn't ask for more. My rental gear which I was a bit nervous about really sucking, wasn´t too bad.

Boat: Dagger Redline - a bit older (late 90's?) but still a great 7 foot river runner. The outfitting was fairly old-school, but actually fit really well right with out much tweaking.

Helmet / PFD: Again a bit old school, but definetly meant for serious white water. My PFD was a nice Lotus Designs jacket - not the ghetto rafting PFDs I was a bit concerned I'd end up with.

Paddle: Crappy - a plastic Werner, which actually broke part way through the last serious rapid! I dropped into a fairly sizable hole to play around, and the paddle blade just bent away at the neck when I leaned into the low brace - no rocks or anything!

The River
The river has lots of names... Alto Napo, (Upper Napo) or Jatun Yaku (local name.) It means Big Water in Quechua, a dilect spoken by the indigenous people. The local name says it all! The river was a super fun run with big waves, wide lines and deep channels. Lots of catch-on-the-fly waves from 4-8 feet high, with hardly any really munchy holes to avoid. At different times it reminded me of the Ottawa Main Channel, Filo Bobos (Mexico), Lower Gualey (West Virginia), Pescados (Mexico) and Ruper (Quebec) rivers. There were moving flat sections after each big rapid and very few rocks. It's a perfect comercial run - safe, low consequence while still being fun and exciting. Since I hadn't been paddling in several months it was a perfect river to get back into kayaking with, a great big water class III.

Rio Jondachi and Rio Hollin
[pronounced Hondachii and Hoshin]

The night after paddling the Jatun Yaku with Daniel, I met a great guy named Tim who is actually one of the family members that pioneered the white water kayaking industry in Tena 15 years ago. At that time all Tena consisted of was a few dirt roads and thatched roofed huts. It turns out he that the next day he was running a river to test some radio gear with one of his senior guides (Victor.) The river would be a class III+/-IV and he invited me along for the cost of splitting gas - which I was super excited to take him up on!! So, I rented a Jackson Rocker (and a much better paddle than the first day) and was raring to go come morning.

The drive to the put in was gorgeous, and the hike down the canyon to the river was a steep, slippery 40 minute above-your-ankles-mud-stomp. The $3 employing one of the locals to carry our kayaks down qualifies as some of the best spent $$ of the entire trip!

It rained for most of the day, making the paddling more beautiful. There were all kinds of waterfalls coming down through the lush jungle vegetation on the canyon walls right into the river. In many ways the Rio Jondachi was like the Barrance Grande (Mexico) - a solid but not too crazy class III read-and-run boulder dodging river. The river was challenging enough to be interesting and low stress enough to be totally relaxing and enjoyable. The river's beauty is merely magnified by it's remote nature.

It is a minimum 2 hour hike from the few emergency exit points of the river to the nearest village, where there is usually cell phone reception. Then even farther before you get to the nearest road. River People - Tim's family's company - is the only company solid enough to run comercial trips here. From what I could tell, they are definetly the most pro company in Tena, with standards in many ways equivalent to Esprit.

When we met the Rio Hollin the river changed dramatically and became pretty solid big water. I didn't adjust quickly enough, and got pretty spanked through a couple big hydraulics in the first major rapid!! No swim, no harm done, just a pressure washing of my brain and some hoots and laughs from the guys! This clearly showed me I had to be more on my toes for this next section of river. It was a total blast. This section of the river was big water rapid after big water rapid - and definetly some holes you didn't want to go into! The best comparison I can make for Ottawa river folks is a river full of Normans & The Lorne with small flat sections in between rapids, with out the flat water paddling.

Kayaking in one of the most beautiful places on earth and spending time with a couple really cool, chilled out guys was an extreme blessing.This has definetly been one of my favourite days of our entire trip!!