Arrival in Peru and Chicken Feet Stew

Border crossing made easy.  This was my thought during our 3 a.m. arrival at the the Ecuador-Peru border.  Crossing consisted of everyone getting off the bus together, getting an exit stamp from Ecuador, walking across a bridge, filling out a form giving your name and such, getting an enterance stamp from Peru, getting back on the bus with everyone else, and continuing the journey South.  Not too shabby.  However, I´ve come to the decision that I must have pissed some sort of Ecuadorian Bus God off or something, because every time I got on a bus in Ecuador, the person in front of me inevitably leaned their seat back as far as it would go, which was generally just about touching me, because the seats were generally broken.  As you may imagine, this was rather uncomfortable during overnight busses through the mountains.  This border crossing bus was my particular favorite, as the man in front of me not only leaned his seat completely back, but also proceeded to reach his hands over the seat and creepily hold them within inches of my face for a solid two hours.  This made it a bit difficult to sleep.  Though I´m sure the laughing fit that it sent K.T. and me into made it a bit difficult for everyone else to sleep too...  It´s nice to have finally hit the bed busses in Peru.  Blankets, pillows, snacks, seats that lean back without getting all up in anyone elses business, and movies dubbed in Spanish.  They´re better than some of the hostels I´ve stayed in.

We hit the coastal towns of Chiclayo and Trujillo for the first couple days in Peru and did the super-tourist thing because we heard about some interesting museums and ruins that we just absolutely had to see.  It was interesting, that´s for sure, but I can only do so many tours with one guide for a huge group of people who are all taking the exact same photos before growing tired of it.  Now we´ve landed ourselves in the mountain town of Huaraz, where we did one more tour to see some more ruins, and then tried to spend our time with the locals instead of the rest of the tourists.

Everyday the same conversation takes place between K.T. and I.  It goes a little something like this:

Person 1: So, do you think we should actually leave tomorrow?
Person 2: I don´t know, what do you think?
Person 1: I mean, I would stay one more day. Maybe we´ll go climbing again.
Person 2: Yeah I´d stay another day too, but let´s buy bus tickets at some point so we actually leave.
Person 1: Ok, good idea.  I agree.

Yeah sooooo, we haven´t actually made it to the bus station to buy tickets yet.  Oops.  But you try leaving a place that´s surrounded by huge mountains, has crazy amounts of hiking and ruins around, and more than anything, where you´ve made local friends who climb all the time and take you with.  It´s a bit difficult.  And so, we´re still here in Huaraz.  We say that we are going to leave tomorrow, and I think we actually might this time, but we´ll see what happens.  I love this place.  I haven´t found many places in my travels where I could imagine myself living for an extended period of time, but I most definitely could spend awhile here.

And to close.  Since the principal wonder of humankind toward other cultures generally revolves around food, I thought I´d give you all a little insight into what I´ve been seeing and/or eating since arriving in Peru.  I think a good example story is one from the market.  K.T. and I made a lamb dish for dinner one night, and went to the huge market to get all the fresh ingredients that we needed, including the lamb, which still had a bit of fur left.  When K.T. asked the lady if she could take the meat off the bone, the woman grabbed her hatchet, put the leg of lamb on some sort of stool or table and hacked away at it until the hoof was severed off.  It was a pleasent experience, to say the least.  The photos this time are both the things we´ve been doing and seeing, as well as the food.  Enjoy.

Finally made it here.

The Chavin de Huantar ruins.

Our first and most likely last look at the Peruvian coast this trip.

The meat here is fresh. Real fresh.

The Laguna Churup hike.

Huaraz. Right now, the love of my life.

Lead climbing in Huaraz. Maybe only a 5.6 or 5.7, but I care none. It was amazing nonetheless.

A norm here. Not really my favorite.

Last Days in Ecuador

We spent our last days in Ecuador in the gringo valley of Vilcabamba, where the land is lush and the white people know it.  We got some insight about this from a 92 year old man sitting in the main park who claims that the people  from the U.S. have overtaken Vilcabamba, bought the land, and locked out the local people.  After seeing the mansions built on the rolling hillsides, I´m pretty positive this is true, whether the accused realize it or not.  We didn´t stick around too long, but long enough to hike a bit, do some horseback riding, and appreciate the insane natural beauty of the place.  I can see why people flock there.  During the last days, K.T. and I also picked up a random traveller named Harry, who when we couldn´t understand his name through his thick English accent, said´"you know, like Harry Potter".  So naturally, I immediately said he could travel with us.  Talk about a language barrier within the same language.  I possibly understood more of what the people here say than deciphering Harry´s accent and vocabulary.

After Vilcabamba, my visa finally expired.  It´s hard to believe that I spent three months in Ecuador, and even harder to believe that I had to leave.  I don´t know that in a three month period of time I have ever learned quite as much as I did beginning this last Ocotober.  I progressed from feeling lonelier than I´ve ever felt to feeling like I could do absolutely anything.  I thought that I could adapt before, but I am sure of it now.  More than anything, I´ve learned more about human relationships. Communication is not always done best through use of a common language.  I think that I´ve communicted more efficiently with some people in my semi-broken Spanish than I have with many people in English.  Perhaps it´s the simplicity of it.  I´m not entirely sure.  I have met people that I will forever keep in contact with, while simultaneously discovering just how fleeting human relationships can be.  Not to sound too much like Captain Cliché, but it all wraps up into one main thing.  This trip really has been the best experience of my life.  So thanks Ecuador- I´ll catch ya later.

In case you were wondering, you aren´t allowed to bring dogs or bikes into the bus station... or goats.

This is what happens when trying to take a picture in the dark, without a flash, at 3 in the morning.

Hiking a ridge above Vilcabamba.



Viewing the World through Polarized Sunglasses

When you wear brown polarized sunglasses, everything is warmed up.  Greens are greener, blues are bluer, and everything generally looks more colorful and beautiful.  Because of this, I sometimes look at the aesthetic beauty of a place based on the difference between wearing my sunglasses and not wearing them.  Yes, I know this is strange, but try it sometime and you might understand.  Anyhow, because I have to wear my sunglasses pretty much anytime I walk out the door in the insanely bright mountains here, I can make this judgement fairly easily.  There is hardly any difference.  In fact, it may actually be more beautiful  without the sunglasses.  Ok, now onto the stories.

A few words of culinary advice for travelling through a foreign country: when unsure as to the meaning of something on the menu, and if you are not 100% positive that you are willing to try anything, be sure to have the waiter or waitress specify past "una parte de vaca", or "a part of the cow" in English.  K.T. and I did not specify this until it was a bit too late, and thus, we ate guatita, or as you all would know it, cow stomach.  The peanut and potato sauce in which it was stewed was pretty delicious, so it wasn´t until I was spitting out all the pieces of meat because they all seemed to be completely fat, and K.T. stumbled upon a piece that slightly resembled some sort of animal tongue, did we ask a different waiter just exactly what we were eating.  "Panza de vaca", with a smile and a motion to his belly explained it quite well.  So yeah, we didn´t quite finish the whole dish.

This began the new set of adventures.  After a minor bump in the road involving K.T.´s bags and the Delta airline, we discovered we were going to have to stay in Quito for New year´s, which neither of us were exactly keen on.  Oh well.  Shit happens.  We were willing to make the best of it, and we did.  We were finally able to grab K.T.´s bags and make it back to our hostel by midnight with the help of a life-saving local friend who was stuck in Quito as well.  As the three of us went out to celebrate, K.T. and I were quite glad to A. be with a guy from Quito, and B. be with a guy from Quito who has a car.  We were slightly less than comfortable with the fireworks shooting every which way through the street causing and immense haze over the city, the flaming puppets the people burn representing their last year, and more than anything, the massive fight between twenty or so guys involving beating each other with bats and large sticks.  However, as disconcerting as it might seem, all was well.  We were safe and sound inside the car, and after a few strike outs with places to celebrate that didn´t have a soul inside, we found a second floor club in Mariscal playing salsa and danced until five in the morning.  It was  a good New Year indeed.

The adventures only continued from there.  The following day we made our way a bit further north to Mindo for some zip-lining.  I can definitely see why it´s so popular.  Sailing nearly carefree above the trees is somewhat addicting.  However, notice how I say nearly carefree.  Having somewhat of a climbing background, I feel that I know a few things about, oh I don´t know, locking a carabiner for instance.  But, since only the guides were allowed to adjust anything, I could only try to explain that I would like my carabiner fully locked.  They would then spin the locker that was holding my harness to the zipline once and send me on my way, only to have it rattle open half way through.  Oh well.  I decided it was pointless to miss the views worrying about a safety feature.  Besides, I was backed up on a slightly fraying runner with another wide open carabiner anyway...so I was, naturally, completely safe.  In addition to this, I probably should have gotten the hint when our hostel had mosquito nets over the beds, but I paid no attention and wore cropped pants and chacos, and now my ankles look and feel like some sort of war between various types of insects has taken place.  The ziplines were followed by a couple days of climbing in Baños, which for me, was better than anything I could have done there.  After the desert trip I took right before I left for Ecuador, I was craving some climbing, and it was presented to me on the ash covered rock along the river in Baños.  It was a bit difficult trying to follow the beta being yelled up at me in Spanish, but it was amazing nonetheless.  That´s one thing I miss about home right now.  BUT, I think the need for playing outside is going to be filled plenty with K.T. here.  Tomorrow we continue south to Vilcabamba for some hiking and horseback riding.

K.T. on the zipline at Mindo.

Second day of climbing in Baños.

View from the climbing area.

Man in Cuenca selling goat´s milk in the street...fresh...real fresh.

North to South, South to North, Repeat Repeat Repeat

Since I have been in Ecuador, I`ve realized that I have been leading at least three different lives.  The first is my Back Home Life, which involves trying to keep up communications with everyone in the States.  I also have my Travelling Life, which generally revolves around being care-free and rolling with the punches.  Finally comes perhaps the most important, but at times the most looked over life, which I like to call the Don`t Get Your Shit Stolen or Yourself Kidnapped Life, which as one can imagine, involves just that.  The balance between these three lives has proven itself challenging, and so here lies my excuse in the lack of communication, and the "don`t worry I`m still alive and well" emails as of late.

Darling K.T. has finally made it to Ecuador, but Mom and Georgia have departed back toward the land of not worrying about every fresh fruit or vegetable you eat and microbrews.  Yes, I do realize that this combination is a strange one, but trust me, it`s the things you start to think about when in a country that lacks both.  Naturally, my two visitors are on a higher level of financial stability that I, and thus for the past two weeks I was travelling on a slightly higher budget than before.  It was not only a vacation for them, but a vacation for me filled with good lodging, food, drink, and of course company. 

Before they arrived, I headed South to work on a farm for a bit, and while on the weekend break, I found paradise in a place called Vilcabamba.  And so, my plans changed, which NEVER happens to me, and I decided to spend the next few days there.  I have now decided to move on from the farming plan.  As it turns out, although I`ve heard rave reviews about the organization in the U.S. and Europe, WWOOFìng isn`t the strongest program here in Ecuador.  The farms that I have encountered thus far either aren`t completely organic, or are charging money to do hard manual labor, which in my opinion, doesn`t make a whole lot of sense.  In addition to this, many of the owners have been foreigners, so the cultural aspect gets pretty depleated.  Oh well.  Such is life.  It`s not like there aren`t a zillion other amazing things to do in this country.

Here´s one from my time in Vilcabamba.  When I asked the taxi driver what the bus was doing in the river, he told me it was getting a bath.

The spider above my door at a hostel in Cuenca.  I was not a fan.

Ricardo, our horseback riding guide up toward Rumiñahui from the Hacienda Porvenir.  This place was nothing short of spectacular.

Volcán Cotapaxi.  I will climb this, among others, when I return to Ecuador.

I feel as though this represents a standard situation during Mom and Georgia´s visit.  Absolute and sheer ridiculousness, and laughing until our sides hurt.

Exploring the ruins near Cuenca, squinting at the sun from ten or eleven thousand feet.

Thanksgiving at the Beach

Thanksgiving is without doubt my favorite holiday, so as you can imagine I was pretty bummed that I wasn’t going to be home in snowy Montana to celebrate with my family.  I had my Thanksgiving dinner with my Portland friends before I left, but I still just couldn’t help but think about missing the actual holiday.  However, rather than mope around Cotacachi completely by myself, a group of friends and I decided that the far better option would be to head toward the warm weather and roll around in the sand for a few days.  And so we did.

My friends Kayla, Taylor, and Sam are all in Ecuador doing study abroad internships at the moment, and Sam just so happens to be living with the mayor of Otavalo.  This turns out to be a major bonus when wanting to head to the beach, because all the government officials have private time-share style beach accommodations.  YES.  Sam’s host mom set up everything.  All we had to do was deposit 50 bucks in a random guy’s bank account, hop on a bus out of Ibarra, and get ourselves to a bus stop in the North where we would call a guy named Ramon to pick us up and take us to the cottage.   Ok, so it sounds a little sketchy, and I’ll admit, we were a little bit sketched out by the sound of it, but we figured if the mayor’s wife was setting everything up, it was probably pretty legit.  

On the morning of Thanksgiving we began our departure from the mountains toward the coast.  It was supposed to be an easy day of traveling mixed with a session of lying on the beach.  Sam’s host mom said the bus ride would be about two and half hours.  Being that we’re now on Ecuador time this of course turned into about four and half.  As the bus got further North, I entered into a completely different world.  I had previously thought that the condition of the Indigenous villages around Cotacachi had been rough, but they were nothing compared to the shanty towns strewn along the road toward San Lorenzo.   The houses were no longer made of concrete and brick, but of crumbling wood with numerous gaps in the walls and floor.  Most of the shacks were on stilts that looked like they could give way at any second. 

The area was populated by escaped slaves who were brought from Africa during the times of European colonization, but as privatization of the land has increased in modern times, they no longer have land to live on, and thus are living off the side of the road.  It is half heart-breaking and half inspiring.  Something that continues to amaze me as I spend more time in this crazy place is the level of survival and adaptation of the people.  The people living along the North Coast of Ecuador have survived the slave camps in Africa, the ship ride to a foreign land, and the horrendous conditions under which they were forced to live.  They now continue to survive under conditions of immense poverty and hardship, and they still wear smiles on their faces, and find a way to make life work… and I bitch about my car breaking down or the heat going out in my house.  I’ll have to work on that.

After finally arriving in San Lorenzo we discovered that we had to take another two hour bus ride to get to the place where Ramon would pick us up.  We were a bit frustrated at this point, and definitely wanting to get to our destination.  There was also about a 50/50 chance that we were headed straight toward the Northern Colombian border which is a definite no no for four blonde American kids a couple hours from dark.  Thankfully we finally came to a town that we knew was southwest of San Lorenzo, away from the border and toward slightly safer areas.  We arrived at our destination safe and sound and with all of our belongings, and were greeted by Ramon.  He loaded us into the back of his truck and we headed to the house to be greeted by his three sons, Ramoncito, Ramoncito 2, and Carlos, and his wife Mary, who he referred to as what basically translates to “Little Blacky”.  

The family was incredibly humble and hospitable.  We had our own separate building of rooms, and three amazing meals per day of fresh lobster, prawns, fish, and whatever other culinary masterpieces Mary cooked up for us.  In the mornings we got bowls of fresh fruit, and ate about a watermelon each in addition to that for snack time.  The house was literally on a private beach, but because it was a “virgin beach” we couldn’t swim in the water that was apparently heavily populated with manta rays.

   

So, I got my couple days of paradise before heading back to the mountains.  I haven’t made a final decision yet, but if nothing else comes up, I’m headed toward the western waves after I spend a few days with the study abroad crew in Quito…where I’m going to see Harry Potter in theaters…in English.

Here’s the normal dose of pictures from the trip.  I wasn’t entirely sure that it was safe to take out my camera in San Lorenzo and the other places that we visited other than the beach, but moreover, I just couldn’t bring myself to flash my fancy things to people who were living on so little.  So, I have pictures of the beach and the house, but not a lot else.  Hope you enjoy.  

 The fishing boat at daybreak.

 This is my ``I´m so happy to be in the waves, but so terrified that a ray is going to sting me`` stance.

 Breakfast. Fresh caught lobster.

 It´s not Thanksgiving without a couple awkward family photos!

 Saying goodbye to the beach- sorry for the crooked photo...

Ending La Calera

A combination of downtime and some sort of food sickness has forced me to relax for a couple days, and given me some time to do some updating.  I gotta say, I’d rather you all stay uninformed and be running around with my head cut off than have whatever has situated itself in my stomach, but such is life. 

My time in La Calera is officially done.  I’m going to go back to visit my host family and my students when my mom comes to visit, but other than that, I’m moving on. 

I feel as though now that I am no longer living in the community, I can divulge a few details that I kept suppressed to keep the worrying of friends and family to a minimum.  After arriving in the village, I found out that it has been labeled a “Red Zone” by the government due to gang activity, sexual assault, robbery, etc.  The people who live in the village claim that it is a perfectly safe place, and that the only reason this label exists is because whenever something bad happens in any Indigenous village around the area, La Calera is always blamed.  I wasn’t quite sure what to think about this statement.  Granted, there are far worse-off villages in the area, but after hearing about the danger from numerous people, I started to feel a little bit concerned that the lock on my door was the push kind that people put on bathrooms, and that just about every male in the community had seen where I lived and slept.  My unease increased a little more when a taxi driver was decapitated in one of the nearby villages simply for the money he had.  I hate to admit it, but I definitely got a little more paranoid every time that I heard noises in the night.  However, this being said, I must also relate that outside a few cat calls here and there (which I receive on a daily basis due to the nature of my hair color no matter where I am in this country), I never ran into any problems whatsoever with the people of La Calera.  They were nothing but friendly and helpful, and appreciative of my presence.  So who knows, maybe all the bad stuff does happen elsewhere, and the people of Calera are forced to take the brunt of it.

So, now I’m back in Cotacachi at the apartment for a few days trying to sort out my plans and my stomach.  It’s a little bit like a just stepped back into the U.S.  A part of me misses my way of life in La Calera, but another part of me really enjoys being able to walk down the street without fearing that an angry dog is going to attack (an everyday issue in the village for me).  You win some, you lose some I suppose.

A few pictures of my last days:

 Alison and her birthday cake.

 Making banana bread for the fam.

 The kids at Alison´s third birthday party.

 Quinoa drying

La Calera

So. Much. Rain...everyday.  I write to you all bundled up in my warm clothes because Ecuador decided it would go ahead and have freakish amounts of rain this November.  To all who advised me against bringing my puffy to save space in my pack- I am so, so glad I chose to maintain my stubornness and not listen.

I have now been living in the community of La Calera for about three weeks.  I lucked out with accommadations once again.  I´m pretty sure I´m living with one of the two wealthiest families in the community.  They dove into tourism the minute foreigners started flocking to Ecuador,  and have done generally well with it.  They also have a convenience store inside the front of their house, a  paper/school and office supply store, and sell vegetables at the market in Cotacachi.  I have my own private room in a seperate building from the main house, a private bathroom attached to my room, and three delicious meals everyday, although, as delicious as the food is, I´m pretty sick of soup, bread, potatoes, and rice.  I never thought I´d see the day when I wanted to turn down carbs, but it has arrived.  The mix of potatoes and noodles, potatoes and rice, or potatoes and everything is standard for every meal.  My host family is great, and does all they can to make me as comfortable as possible.  I am currently living with seven other people (more when groups of tourists come through), six of whom are female.

I split my days between teaching English classes at the school in the community and helping out at what is basically the community daycare.   The classes are going generally well.  As to be expected, there are plenty of little shits that don´t want to learn anything, and make a habit of being generally disruptive, but there are enough kids who really want to learn to make it worth it.  My fourth grade class always saves my mood.  They pay attention with only a few gentle reminders, and come to the room I hang out in to ask a million questions and beg me to teach their class.  As for the daycare- I think that the conditions would make every mother from the United States that I  know cringe.  They most definitely have a different standard of hygeine here, and independence is taught at a very early age, generally by necessity.  However, that being said, the kids get warm meals and a safe place to spend their days, which is much more than some would be getting otherwise.

So this has been my life, and will continue to be for about another week.  Afterward I´m moving on.  I´m pretty well on my own right now, as the people I arrived with headed to Peru, so improvisation is pretty key.  A couple of my farming options also fell through, so I´m strongly considering totally changing my plans and  heading to the coast to be a surf bum for a couple weeks until my mom and Georgia get here for Christmas.  I could use some sun.

 Quinoa fresh after harvest before the cleaning process.

 So much corn in my diet

 Right outside my room.

 Entrance to my room

 Gatitos

 Me and my "sisters", Sinai, 5 and Alison, 3

 The family chancho

 La Calera

 My room