ThePADDLER 38
Darcy with kids portaging the Malpaso Dam
Team with Tomas in Poyeni
The team near the source of the Amazon
Darcy with the locals in Brazil
HERE IN THE UK , A LOT OF WORK BY BRITISH CANOEING IS BEING DONE TO BRING MORE WOMEN INTO THE SPORT . WHAT ’ S BEING DONE IN THE US , AND BY WHOM ? As far as I know , we don ’ t have a single unified force or organization ( like BC ) to bring more women into the sport . Still , there are lots of individual companies , organizations , and people working towards this goal . A few that immediately come to my mind are Cali Collective , run by Melissa DeMarie ; Mind , Body , Paddle run by Anna Levesque ; and The Green River Takeover , organized by Laura Farrell . But many others are working towards this goal , like Diversify Whitewater , run by Antoinette Toscano and Lily Durkee . I feel bad as I know I ’ m leaving many folks out , but there are too many to mention !
WHAT FIRST DREW YOU TO ECUADOR AND KEEPS YOU RETURNING ? Random luck brought me there first . I had a ticket for a solo trip to Nepal ( I wanted to return after building up some more kayaking skills ), but it was when the Maoist insurgency was getting quite strong , and I wasn ’ t so sure it was a good idea to go .
A group of friends said they were going kayaking in Ecuador , so I changed my plane ticket and went with them . I had to look up Ecuador on a map , and I was pretty clueless about it . I did , however , immediately fall in love with the country . The people are incredibly friendly ; the landscape is varied and amazing – from sea level to 6,263 metres – and , of course , the rivers are amazing .
Now it ’ s our local staff – guides , drivers , and cooks – that keep me coming back year after year . We have such a solid team it feels like going home to family . We all still have the fire for showing people the rivers of Ecuador , getting them excited about South America , about kayaking , and hopefully about river conservation .
HOW HAS COVID AFFECTED YOU AND YOUR BUSINESS ? We chose to cancel our Ecuador winter season for 2020 / 2021 . Ecuador was allowing tourists to come , but we felt that cancelling the season was the most responsible thing for Small World Adventures ( SWA ) to do as to not encourage international travel ‘ just ’ for the sake of kayaking .
Our top concerns were causing a COVID outbreak in the small town we operate out of , as most people there don ’ t have many resources to deal with a serious illness , and we worried about the health of our clients while traveling internationally . We were devastated to cancel the season , but we were able to keep our Ecuadorian staff on the payroll for most of the winter thanks to generous donations from SWA ’ clients and some internal funding . To be sure , the entire SWA team is extremely fired up to get back to running trips in Ecuador this October !
SWA added more domestic trips in the USA for our clients who live here . Many of them were looking for river adventures they could access by car rather than by plane .
On a personal level , it ’ s meant more time in Colorado exploring my backyard . I ’ ve also dived head-first into the world of Zoom , webinars , and virtual speaking gigs , which has been fun and new , but I am certainly excited to get back to the point where I can do all these things in person .