Approaching Tena

I am currently in Tena, which purportedly is the rafting (and to some degree kayaking) capital of the world -- to vouch for Lonely Planet´s honesty in this, I can say that the city did host the Rafting World Championships last month!

The ride here was spectacular, and it felt SO good to NOT be in the mountains and SO good to not have any altitude (though I still am not sure what percentage that played in my rides, versus simply having to pedal around the Andes with a bike that is laden with approximately 867 million pounds.) I am not sure how long the ride was Friday-- 147 Mi by how the crow flies according to Google and Mike C, and the road here would close to qualify for a crows chosen flight I think, but I can assure you that I did no such ride. Somewhere between 80 and 140 Km is more like it. I know-- what a small window, eh? Darn broken bike computer ,) Though this way I can pretend I did the 140, so mayhap it is a blessing in disguise.

The first half was unpaved (as were various parts of the second half). Unpaved with about a million holes, and millions of rocks. Nothing too bad though. Kinda like China Camp, more or less, though not with the turns.

Though, my racks holding my saddlebags did break. Disappointing because, well, I guess because I didn´t expect it to happen since I bought the racks recommended by both bike shops. Incidently, never shop at Freewheel Bikeshop in the Mission. I hate them and think the owner is a total a**. I have thought this several times before, and stop shopping there, but then due to convenience, I return. But I highly discourage all to shop there andI never will again. The problem with the back rack was only that the screw came out(the hook at the bottom of the bag gives a bit too much, causing the bags on the really bumpy road to really thump around a lot and I guess eventually get the screw out. I had a spare, though it´s a bit too long so need to go to a bike shop before leaving Tena. Then the front rack broke. I whipped out a bit of ducktape, which helped. But then I had brought along a couple of bungee cords for this scenerio as well, so got to put those into use.

Lots of dogs marking their territory is the other thing that made the ride interesting, they follow you (surround you if high enough in numbers) barking until you make it past some invisible line marking thier territory. My plan for this was to fashion a type of leash/whip to scare them away (string or jungle vine with small rock secured at the end for weight purposes), but I was able to deal. I read about people carrying a bunch of rocks for this reason, but as I have mentioned many times, 867 pounds is the limit of my pedal power, hence my coming up with the idea of a whip. I never was driven to this though, thankfully. Once though, I think I had about10 dogs, that was a bit scary! These dogs do not seem or look too friendly, I assure you, and many wild dogs have rabies, I have read. It makes me feel better to yell at them as I pass.

It was all very lush, obviously, in as much as the road goes along side/through the Amazon. I don´t know how many times I stopped to take pictures. There were a couple little towns, which was really only evident by a bus stop, maybe a building, and a few houses every 5 minutes or so. Again, all wood with thatched roofs for the most part, lots of women doing laundry, some men working on building something or other, lots of chickens wanderng the yards.

I actually didn´t stay in Tena friday, but in Puerto Napa, which is about 5 Km south. I ended up talking to this guy who lives on the river there who offered me a room for the night (often has volunteers for an eco-project he runs stay with him, but none at the time). I think about 10 or 12 people (3 generations) live in the house, which is a couple stories, really open, and doesn´t seem all that crowded.

Friday night was the kickoff of the weeklong town festival --the opening event being the election of the Reina de Tena (Queen)...a beauty pagent. One of the family members was a candidate, so I attended with the guy and a bunch of the cousins. Pretty funny. --happening spot in town though, I can assure you.