Trip Report : Ecuador
6 days, 6 runs , one good time

A few days later, at Small World’s rustic lodge on the Quijos, it has started to rain. The fat droplets are amplified as they drum on the metal roof. We discuss the plan for tomorrow. "Usually the question around here is not what’s running, but what’s low enough to run," remarks Darcy, raising her voice above the din outside. The next day, we head upstream on the Quijos toward Pappallacta Pass and a run known as Casa de Queso (Cheese House), after a house near the put-in where a wooden sign once proclaimed, "Se Vende Queso" (cheese for sale).

The house is still there, but there’s no sign and presumably no cheese. Just a swollen streambed the consistency and color of chocolate milk. The white vee’s in the river that appeared innocent enough from the road a few hundred feet above are a roiling froth at river level. At the put-in, my hands shake a little as I snap my sprayskirt. As we peel out, the amount of water pumping through the Quijos belies its seemingly manageable 130-foot-per mile description; we are going fast.

Clinging to the bank and sloshing against each other in the first eddy big enough to accommodate six creekboats, we exchange wide-eyed glances. This is when Don advises us to "rest on the fly" in the boogie water. This sounds like great advice to my adrenalized brain—I’m pulling on every stroke with all I’ve got just to maneuver in the stiff current--careening back onto the river’s silty tongue, however, I’m left with the impression that Don has a sick idea of what he considers "boogie water." More than one rogue wave has knocked me off balance, snapped me upside down, and promptly righted my kayak before I could even lift a paddle blade to the surface. A few rapids down I’m working on Don’s advice to "practice the art of zen boating." I’m still not quite sure what that means but it seems to work; I manage to catch a few breaths while bobbing over the brown peaks, throwing in a brace stroke here and there.

We pull out to scout a rapid called Piggly Wiggly. From our perch on the boulder-strewn outcropping high on river left, the line down the right channel looks a little like Iron Ring on the Gauley—a big V-shaped wavehole with at least two-thirds of the river’s flow whooshing through the middle. I’m certain of the line—hit that thing just a hair to the right of the jagged peak. Get too far right, just like at Iron Ring, and there’s a curler spinning off the right bank with the power to pick up an unsuspecting kayak and toss it directly into the left-side maw. I’d made that mistake on the Gauley and vowed never to repeat it, but standing here on a muddy riverbank far from West Virginia, I’m not so sure I can keep that promise. Darcy asks if I feel good about the line. I answer "yes" with as much confidence as I can muster, while inside my stomach sinks with the memory of how things played out after my last scout on the Mishualli.

It seems my luck is turning, however, or maybe I’m finally able to take Darcy’s advice from a few days ago. I line up between the entrance waves, crash through the big one, and get spit into an eddy at the bottom as planned. A creative sneak down the rest of the rapid involves penciling over a small lip and "lowsiding" through a crack, then we’re back to impromptu boofing over mid-stream boulders and taking waves in the chest. Casa de Queso crescendos into a final big hit at the bottom of a dicey chute in a rapid called Esquina (Corner) before the runout to our takeout at the next bridge. The run turns out to be nothing unmanageable (Don compared it to the North Fork Payette), though a few of the guys walk Esquina out of sheer exhaustion. That’s what they get, I figure, for paddling so hard all week.