Diablos Cave Ecuador

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Diablo's Cave Ecuador

It all started when a friend and I decided to go to a small town in Ecuador called Gualaquiza. My friend was a Czech named Tony, and I met him in Vilcabamba, Ecuador about a week before. I was traveling solo at this point and decided a little company for safety would be a good thing. I heard this was the main village for all the gold concessions in the surrounding area and that many of the rivers had quite a bit of gold in it. Unfortunately, this was still in the middle of the rainy season and many things were weather permitting.

After a grueling 6 hour bus ride heading NE, we finally arrived in Gualaquiza. It is actually a pretty cool little town with a population of about 8500. We studied our maps and decided to check out the Bombuskara(sp?) river. We hired a cab to take us to a specific dropoff point that appeared ideal from our maps. At this point we both were quite illiterate in Spanish and trying to show the cab driver exactly where we wanted to be dropped off, so it all came down to just pointing on the map. This map was quite basic, and the cab driver took us to the approximate area on the map which was a bridge. We noticed at this point that the water level was quite high, but way downriver we saw a nice beach area and even more beach much further down. This is when we saw the nifty dirt road heading West, so being the adventurous souls that we are...we pointed to the road. The cab driver looked at us quizzically and we insisted that we head that way. After many kilometers later, we see a footbridge over a small stream. You can continue driving on, but we decided to get dropped off here and to check out the stream. He dropped us off, and we set up a pickup time which was 2 days later. We then unloaded our heavy bags and bid the cab driver farewell.

About 5 minutes after the cab departed we see our first locals. They were walking by and simply stared at us in wonder. Eventually they pass and we decide to have one of us scout the stream a bit while the other watches our bags. He was to be the scout so we both dragged our bags over to the jungle. Cont...

 

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[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

So here i am, a relatively scrawny little gringo sitting in the middle of nowhere "guarding" our bags. After about 10 minutes I start to get a bit worried and I decide to unsheathe my machete. This is when i notice the fearsome......8 year old, or...10 year old staring at me. So i give him a little grin and put my machete away. Like the ones before, he eventually wanders off after he checks out the funny gringo. Now I know that the locals know about the gringos exploring nearby. Another 5 minutes passes and Tony finally shows up. I try to cover my relief when I see him, to no avail. He laughs and explains that you can follow the stream all the way to the main river, but the river is very high. We grab our bags and wander down the stream.

This steam is quite picturesque with very little litter which is fairly amazing for Ecuador. There are various trails leading off into the jungle and we decide to simply follow the stream to the end. Finally we see the Bombuskara and decide to do a little sampling for gold in both the stream and the river. In addition to all our camping gear, we also brought along my Minelab Sovereign GT metal detector. Both Tony and I pull out a couple pans and start sampling around a small boulder. A good 15 minutes later, we wash the pan and don't even find a single speck! At this point I go to the point where the stream joins the much larger river and i get as close as possible without getting swept in. This is a fairly large river and frequently you can hear large boulders clashing underwater. It is amazing just how much power some of these larger rivers have. I finish washing my first pan and find 2 tiny specks. Meh, not worth working. This is when Tony gives up and just takes a nap. So only after a couple pans and within our first hour my partner already quits on me, lol. Pretty disheartening and to top it off, he is one hell of a grumpy guy. Being the risktaker that I am, this is when I decide to crawl along the outer edge of the river to check out an interesting area covered in moss. I carefully make it over to the spot and i start pulling and washing moss. If there is gold in the river, then you would typically find flour gold in the moss which acts as a tiny sluice. Again I end up with a few specks, but nothing worthwhile. Cont....

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

After a few pans of basically the same results, i decide to head back and see what Tony was up to. I arrive to find the guy taking a nap, like he was when i originally left. Nice help, lol. This is the point where I notice we have visitors approaching. 3 younger males, about 18-20 years old. They don't seem to be too surprised to see us there so we decide to try and communicate. After a few minutes of gesturing and using our very basic Spanish, we manage to find out that they are Shuar and not Mestizo like the majority of Ecuadorians are. Shuar are infamous for being warriors and they shrunk their enemies heads up until around 1960. The only reason they were forced to stop shrinking heads was because it was considered illegal and basically murder. Apparently in warfare against other tribes the act is still done. One of the three guys seems a bit annoyed that we are here, while the other two are indifferent. They eventually wander off and once again the two of us are left alone. At this point we both have bad vibes, realizing we are right smack in the middle of a Shuar village and they typically do not like seeing outsiders. It is only a few hours before sunset so we decide to look for a place to set camp. We notice a really clear trail off of the stream so we decide to take it and do a little exploring for our campsite. A little ways down we see a really faint trail breaking off the main trail, so we carefully tread down it. After a few hundred yards we come across a really small clearing ideal for setting up Tony's tent, so we decided this is the spot. Tony commences to pitch his tent while i set up my Clark's jungle hammock. My hammock is specifically designed for the tropics and it is very quick to hang compared to pitching a tent. The entire time we are setting up our camp, i have the Shuar trio at the back of my mind. We will be vulnerable sleeping at night without a guard, but we decided to risk it.

After our camp is set up, i decide to break out my detector and do a bit of detecting back down by the stream. I wander around a bit and eventually unearth what ends up being a part of a rusty iron stirrup and it was very old. They don't make iron stirrups in Ecuador anymore and haven't for about 150 years. Even though it was fairly heavily rusted, it was a nifty find. At around 6:15 i notice I am losing light fairly fast, so I decide to head to camp. Cont....

 

[Crow]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Hello

Thanks for the interesting story, Please continue.

Crow

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Upon arrival at camp, I find Tony doing the usual...sleeping. This is why you don't go adventuring with basically a stranger, lol. Camping in the jungle is quite insane. The sounds of the night are nearly deafening, but quite magical. Even though we were a bit worried about being seen by the locals, we decided to build a small fire to have a warm meal. Building a fire in the rainforest is quite difficult, well....nearly impossible actually. Luckily I had my magic tinder...cotton balls and vaseline. You smudge the cotton into the vaseline and it will burn for around a minute. After numerous attempts at starting our fire, we eventually got it going. We had a quick little dinner, put out the fire and did what any sensible outdoorsmen would do....rigged up some tripwires using some twine we had.
It wasn't until a couple months later that I found out that it takes a heck of a lot to get a Shuar out after dark in the rainforest. They are extremely superstitious people. It is now time for us to call it a night, and I crashed with the jungle serenading me with a natural lullaby.

It took me awhile to actually fall asleep mainly out of paranoia that someone will come along and hack my hammock down. When you are hanging in the air, several feet off the ground in head hunting area, it is a fairly realistic fear. Even though I had to get up and out of my hammock at every sound, the night was uneventful. I kept expecting to hear a crash from someone falling over my rigged tripwire. morning arrived, and I decided to try a little more panning in a few different areas. I started following our faint trail out, when i see the old natives with unsheathed machetes....cont...

 

[jackrook]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

what happened??!?!?!?!?!?! the suspense is killing me!!!!!!


LOL not really but i hope you didnt get hacked to pieces with those machetes and i hope you found more then an old spur.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Ok vago gambusino, keep posting or I personally will cut the jungle hammock rope. Foot rope naturally, no sense you landing on your head. snicker . Excellent posts so far my friend.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Okay, okay. The story continues...

The three Shuar seemed to have appeared as if by magic right before my eyes. Two of them were elderly, while the third was a young buck, probably in his early 20s. Sadly, i don't remember their names. Here I was...... a lone, skinny very white gringo with my sheathed machete standing before the trio of mighty Shuar. After a good minute, the three realize they are making me nervous and sheath their machetes to my gratitude. I never unsheathed mine in fear that they might see it as an aggressive action. At this point I decide to walk back to camp to introduce my 3 new friends to Tony. We have made no attempt at communication at this point and I wasn't even sure if they speak Spanish or just their native tongue. As I enter camp, I notice Tony is off in the back of the camp adding a little more water to the ol rainforest. What a surprise the four of us must have been to him, lol. The 2 older Shuar didn't seem nearly as interested in us as the younger one did. Out of the three, he did most of the communicating. After a lot of gesturing, and some searching in our Spanish translation books we discover this...

-the two older gents are the village chief and the other is a true, native shaman. The younger guy is the grandson of the shaman.
-the chief is the physical owner of the land we are camping on and we did not get permission to camp here. He knew we were clueless, so no shrunken heads this time and he wouldn't even hack us into little pieces with his machete. Whew!

After about an hour of our pathetic attempt at communication, the three start trying to show us some various aspects of the rainforest. They walked around and collected some fallen fruits and showed us how to open them up and that we could eat them. They have a thin outer shell that you peel, sort of like an orange, but paper thin. I wasn't too impressed by the taste, but if it is all you have....well hey. Tony paid the shaman 50 cents for a few of the fruits and the shaman happily took it. Keep in mind that the average wage in Ecuador is about $12.00 a day. 50 cents is some serious change! After another hour or so of hanging out with the gringos, the 2 elders decided to leave us alone with the shaman's grandson. The young man seemed really fascinated by us. He noticed our gold pans and asked if we were looking for gold(oro).....cont...

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Of course we said yes, in hopes that he will show us some spots. We asked about gold in the area, and our answer was a disappointing no. As we stood there talking to him, we noticed his expression changed a bit. He was holding back, and we didn't like it. It was obvious he knew where to find gold. It took us about an hour to get a little info from him. After some general chatter, he finally spoke up concerning gold. We learned:

-there is a cave about a 2-3 day hike to the East
-it had a heck of a lot of water in it and it was partly submerged, and it totally depends on the weather which makes it unpredictable and dangerous
-it is in a remote location deep in the jungle and he isn't positive he can find it. It also has lots of wildlife dangers, especially the jaguar and anacondas.
-there is gold in the walls of the cave(we figured there is a chance it could be pyrite, but on the other hand it could be a gold vein.)
-he showed us a large baggie we had laying on the ground nearby and said "mucho oro". Much gold.
-even if it is only about 6-7 km to the east, most of it is serious bushwacking in the jungle which really slows you down.
-last, but definitely not least....the devil lives in it and he would not take us there without his brother.

It was obvious the Shuar are very superstitious people and the jungle at night, and especially caves really scares them. This cave absolutely intrigued us and especially me. I have heard about caves in the general area, but none are mentioned in the guidebooks for this area, which means they are probably unexplored for the most part. I am a very experienced spelunker(caver) and have expored about 15 cave systems over the years, so this is right up my alley. The jungle is serious stuff in these parts. You can literally only see about 2-3 feet into the jungle, then you have to deal with sting ants, spiders and the dangers of the numerous venomous snakes of the rainforests. But being the crazy explorer that I am, this sounds like a real blast!.....cont....

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

We asked our young friend to bring his brother here, so that we can speak to him about the cave. He agrees and disappears as quick as he arrived. Seeing as the guy can't be much older than 20, we were expecting his older brother. In comes our friend with an even younger man, maybe 15-16. So Tony and I chat with our friends and it turns out they are both absolutely terrified of this cave. Caves to most indians are very terrifying places. They as a whole are superstitious and seeing as the devil lives in this cave....well. We offer to pay each of the two young men $30.00 for the 3 day total journey and we see their eyes light up. It is agreed. They two Shuar invite us to their homes, which is only about a km away. We backtrack over familiar ground, heading up the creek, and take a trail going North. It is at this point that we realize just how large this village really is. We both thought it was tiny, with only a couple hundred people at the most but it turned out to be at least double that size. Their house was an amazing piece of architecture. Ecuadorians are poor people financially, and they build their house in stages, as money permits. We entered the front door to find half a roof, with a makeshift ladder heading up. Inside the house is really sparse furnishings consisting of only a chair and a chicken covered table, lol. Yes, their were 3 live chickens standing on the table with a couple under the table. Wildlife has free reign in this house and it was hilarious. We had some leftover food and we decided to offer it to our friends since we wouldn't need it. Tony and I decided to plan our expedition in about 5 days, after we got equipped for it. Our cab wasn't expected for another day, so we had our two Shuar friends call us one. In exchange for our gifts, they gave us some cocoa leaves....fun stuff and I will leave it at that.

We went back to Gualaquiza and started planning our trip. One thing that was mentioned was that we would need 50 meters of rope for a rappel down a cliff*gulp*. This trip is getting pretty serious, and we were both pretty nervous about it. So we will be bushwacking in pristine rainforest, a potential 150 foot rappel and to top it all off we have to deal with a cave that is partly filled with water. Fun stuff! Cont....

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

YOU, my friend, are as bad as I am in continuity. what happened after Gualaquiza ??

Don Jose de La Mancha (El procrastinating Saint in his cave)

 

[Crow]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Arrgh!...

Just when when it was getting interesting the story has gone cold...

Like a nice lucid dream and then the alarm clock goes off never quite knowing or remembering the end of the story?

I hope Alaskan adventurer has not been blow darted by natives

Crow

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Arrgh!...

Just when when it was getting interesting the story has gone cold...

Like a nice lucid dream and then the alarm clock goes off never quite knowing or remembering the end of the story?

I hope Alaskan adventurer has not been blow darted by natives

Crow

lol, no Crow. I am well. Just been focused on our mining project, and things are starting to roll. Things are going really well, but no time to spend writing at the moment. I will try to complete the story within the next couple of weeks.

AA

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Sorry guys, things have been somewhat crazy. Let's see if I can continue with the story.

So we spend the fives days preparing ourselves both mentally and physically as well as gearing up. I won't lie and say that I wasn't nervous. The rappel down the cliff was something they told us at the very end. It isn't the fear of heights, or the actual risk of falling. All it would take is a simple slice of a knife to send me to my death, and I really did not know these people. This was the most challenging aspect of the entire trip to me, trusting everyone in the party. The night before we were to start our expedition, i slept very little. I was flat out nervous and the last thing I wanted to do at this point was bring on negative energy. Finally I fell asleep and woke up to a new day.

We had kept the number of the cab driver who picked us up from the Shuar village, so we called him the day before to arrange our trip. We head out at 6 am, as dawn is breaking. Finally we arrive at the Shuar house to find our friends actually ready to go. The first thing they did was take a look at our rope to make sure the length and width was sufficient and apparently it passed the test. With everyone geared and ready, our voyage begins..

With all our geared packed up and ready to go, we start our voyage. Each of us was carrying from about 40-60 pounds of gear which included food and water. We will pass a few rivers, but depending on finding clean water can be a real gamble and can cost you your life. I do have a hand pump water filter, but it is relatively slow and is best for a single person. Still nice to have as a backup. Even if you discover a river with water that is drinkable, the chance of it being silt free is pretty slim. You have to fill a bucket with any silty water, and let it settle for an hour or so, then you use the clear water towards the top. That is the point where you can boil it for 2 to 3 minutes to make it safe to drink. We each had about 2 liters per day of water and sufficient food along with spare socks and an extra set of clothing. I had my hiking boots and my special just above the ankle rubber boots that i brought in from the US. These are used with rainpants. We also had our raingear/parkas for the rain the occurs almost every evening. Keeping your weight to a minimum goes a long way on a longer hike, especially when you have to expend a lot of energy swinging a machete. We start our journey on a well beaten path heading east. Since it hasn't rained for a good 24 hours, everything is relatively dry...for now.

To be continued....I promise.....might be a few days though......

 

[diggemall]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

tag

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

a a, YOU POSTE -->To be continued....I promise.....might be a few days though......



Alaskan A: You posted ---> To be continued....I promise.....might be a few days though......
*********************
sheesh, you are worse than me. I have several unfinished stories in the Tayopa section

I used two liter US forestry cateens, this gave two days between water finds on the trail.

As for potable water, ask oro, he, like me, has drunk water out of a cow or horse's foot imprint.

Also just why do you think that he sports that wierd mouth brush?? It is a built in water and sock coffee filter.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Alaskan Adventurer]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

There is a reason they call the Amazon rainforest, well...a rainforest! It rains a lot!!! Like clockwork, it seems to rain in the evenings which is a good thing, because it is relatively predictable. Part of our routine for setting up camp is to cover our hammocks with the black plastic you can easily find throughout Ecuador. You get a small rock, wrap the plastic around the rock and use that to tie up your "tarp". Do this on all 4 corners, tie it to nearby trees with a slant for runoff, and you are good to go. Tents don't work well in the jungle, mainly because of the constant evening rain and bugs.

So we commence to head East, following our trail. By the end of our first day we were doing some heavy machete work. A little note about swinging a machete. Having a nice pair of gloves to improve your grip is a good thing, due to your hands getting sweaty. The last thing you want to do is lose your grip while downward swinging a sharp machete. There have been many injuries due to this. You always want to swing your machete at an angle away from your leg. Seems like common sense, but it is not uncommon to hear of injuries from people mis-calculating their angle and slicing their leg. Having a serious injury like this a day into the rainforest can easily be the death of you. Infection reins supreme from serious injuries. Always have anti-biotics in your first aid kit. They can save your life!

The more we headed East, the more wildlife we saw. Animals are smart enough to get away from foul humans who do nothing but kill them. On our first day we saw a few snakes, including the magnificent anaconda. This one was only about 10 feet in length and he was contently hanging in a tree. They are so beautiful. We also saw a couple monkeys and were woken up from the wicked call of the howler monkey. If you haven't heard the roar of a howler monkey, I can't describe it. Definitely one of the loudest, and downright scarey sounds you will ever hear. You can literally hear them miles away.

After our quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee using my little campstove, we continue our journey. They made a guess and told me we should arrive out the rappel on the end of the second day, and will most likely have to wait until morning to make the descent. This still made me beyond nervous, but things had gone rather well so far. I am an adventurer after all, right? I kept telling myself that. When I was in Belize, I did a rappel of almost 200 feet and it was pouring rain. Another rappel of half that should be nothing....or so I kept telling myself that. The only problem with that theory was I had professional guides who spoke English, who had my best interest at heart, and had professional gear. This was absolutely NOT the case!!! Could I possibly trust my companions with my life? To be cont....

 

[Loke]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

tag!

I'm sitting here mesmerized!!
Plueeeeze - keep it coming!

 

[Crow]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

Hello AA

Ok we have been hanging on that rope long enough finish the story for us.

What happened in the cave?

Crow

 

[P.B. and Dylan]

Re: Diablo's Cave Ecuador

I've been following this story also.....please continue!!!!!