With the arrival of Colonel Lucio Guterrez to power, the indigenous also arrived for the first time, who took over some ministries such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So community ecotourism, especially to indigenous communities, became a government priority. Ecotrackers signed an agreement with the Ministry of Tourism, to train international promoters of community tourism, who had to deliver photos, and reports on the attractions of the indigenous and black communities of Ecuador and in exchange the Ministry of Tourism would give them a card that registered them as promoters of community tourism to Ecuador in their country of origin.
Our volunteer work began in Cape San Francisco, where I had worked as a country doctor in 1982.
I arrived there with my wife Verónica, newlyweds, and with my grandmother, at that time you reached it by a summer road that disappeared or was interrupted in the winter because you had to cross some rivers that in the summer were not a problem for the rancheras but In the winter the story was different, you either had to cross waist-deep water or you had to cross by canoe.
In that year, 1982, one of the most intense and dramatic El Niño Phenomena took place, but the floods on the coastline were the origin of the cabin industry, which is now Ecuador's main export product after oil.
Just as now, there was a social upheaval because the country was opening a new government and a new constitution after a decade of military governments.
When winter comes, the rains don't stop until a year later. The town of Cabo de San Francisco lost the houses that were on the beach and on the banks of the river, which came down with trees, cattle, birds, and then the peasants had to go in canoes to rescue the animals in the sea.
The town was isolated, it had no fuel for the noisy motor that ran for two or three hours at night to generate electricity, and when two irons were connected at the same time in the town the electricity disappeared.
The subcenter was an abandoned house at the entrance to the town, in a neighborhood that at that time was the most secluded on a hill near the river. Full of enthusiasm, Verónica and I adapted the house for the doctor that was on the north side, facing the river, with our double bed, our kitchen, furniture, pots, chairs, and even a Sony TV from Verónica. The office only had a desk and a medical examination bed and a desk, a ., a stethoscope, and some tweezers, and almost at the end of that year, I received more furniture throughout that year, I could not count on the help of an assistant who was a problematic woman who owns a health post in the town that existed until before I gave life to the subcenter.
Our main collaborator in Cabo San Francisco was and still is Professor Jorge Santos, a romantic professor born in Quito, but who studied in Esmeraldas, and who received our volunteers at his home, and entrusted people and students of his College, the Agricultural College of Cabo to accompany the volunteers on their excursions.
The presence of General José Gallardo, who was 64 years old at the time, and David Tuckett, a 74-year-old English retiree who was a planner in cities like London, Sydney, and Hong Kong, whom I met when he was doing volunteer work in the Park Metropolitan of the north, at the time when Jamil Mahuad was mayor and sculptures were built in that park, at the same time that trees were planted. He would spend hours walking creating trails for walkers in that huge park located on a hill, but his work was not appreciated by municipal park employees.
The fundamental work of the volunteers was to gather information about the tourist attractions of Cabo San Francisco, which up to now has the first lighthouse built by the Spanish in South America, a tropical humid forest, one of the last facing the Pacific Ocean in the entire continent, In addition, in the summer the Humboldt Current arrives with whales, giant manta rays, defines, even seals, it has cliffs that are the refuge of marine species, in the winter the El Niño Current arrives and lobsters, sea cucumbers, and prawns abound. , the shells, including the spondylus shell that was sacred to the INCAS and the cultures of the South American coast.
David left us a small dictionary of extremely useful and important words that the Ecotrackers volunteers in the communities and schools had to teach the children and those who wanted to be local guides.
David Tuckett had been a World War II sailor on convoys carrying oil and supplies from the United States to England, harassed by German submarines, but perhaps the best thing about him was his generosity, his gentleman's word.
