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

IMBABURA- What a Mountain

3:30 a.m. Wake up, still a little bit tired
4:00 a.m. Get served amazing toad in a hole/grilled cheese breakfast by Aaron
4:45 a.m. Leave Cotacachi with 9 people packed into one truck
5:50 a.m. Start hike up gigantic mountain
6:10 a.m to 11:30 a.m. Mixture of many feelings and thoughts such as: I want to die right now. My lungs hate me. Wow those guys can climb mountains really fast.  My Spanish is really improving today. Dear god I hope it doesn't rain and make this more slick than it already is. I'm going to make it to the summit even if it means I can't walk tomorrow. 
Sometime around 11:30 a.m. AAAHHHHHH FINALLY- Give me some of that chocolate
Sometime around 12:30 p.m. Losing elevation really does feel better than gaining elevation
1:30 p.m. Losing elevation no longer feels good. It only hurts my toes.
2:30 p.m. Seriously considering ruining my puffy by using it as something slick on which to slide down the mountain.
3:30 p.m. I have never been so happy to see a car in my life.
6:30 p.m. Back at the condo. Ecstatic. Endorphins finally kicking in. Did that day just really happen?

A couple days ago I decided that on Saturday I would go ahead and do the biggest hike that I have encountered thus far in my 20 years on this planet.  Imbabura's summit sits at over 15,000 and from the place we parked the truck to the top we gained roughly one mile of verticle elevation.  Yeah, it was hard, like real hard.  I would even go so far as to say it was arduous.  Thanks for the vocab word junior year English.  Nonetheless, it was amazing.  Amazing views, amazing people, amazing Spanish conversation both on the way up and at the top.  One of the better parts? I can walk today, without too much difficulty.  Apparently it wasn't actually the relentless climbing that slowed me down, but the lack of oxygen from the ridiculous elevation.  As far as big mountains go, living at sea level for the past two years has done nothing for me. Whatever. I made it up. I'm happy.

Today was a glorious day.  Sunshine all day, which has been rare, and beautiful views of Imbabura towering over Cotacachi.  Now I'm sitting in the tile-floored, concrete-walled condo and blaring the Postal Service through my headphones, bringing back some pretty nostalgic memories of driving over the Fremont Bridge during the rainy nights of Portland, and I feel completely content.  I wanted to sit on top of Imbabura from the minute I saw it during the crazy taxi ride from Quito to Cotacachi, and I did it.  But, as much as I love them, the mountains aren't the main reason I came to Ecuador, so I'm going to move toward my next adventure.  Goldi and Aaron came to climb mountains, and they are going to continue to do so, which means it's time for me to go off on my own.  Come Wednesday I'm throwing myself into this crazy place head first.  I'm going to live in the Indigenous community of La Calera, speak English only when I'm teaching it, and study an entirely new way of living. The grace period is over- no more time for settling in, no more nice condo among all the other gringos, no more turning to Goldi for the translation when I can't understand what someone is saying.  For the next month and a half I'm going to utilize a skill that I have had to build at rapid pace during the last two years, adaptation.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Alright, now for the pictures.  There are a few more than usual.  Click on the photo if you want to see it larger.

The starting point of the hike, above the clouds.

We had to park a bit lower than we wanted when we hit this road block.

Cayambe

Kerry saved my life and my ankle with the extra set of trekking poles.

Cayambe again, the afternoon clouds starting to move in.

Self timer shot from the top.  Our hiking crew minus Aaron who is napping in the background.  The guys behind me all live in the villages around Cotacachi.  They made it up the mountain at least an hour, maybe two before the rest of us.

Angel telling us the legends of the volcanoes around the area from atop Imbabura.

The morning road block turned into this.  They build all these roads by manual labor.  No machines except hand tools.

From the car ride back to Cotacachi

Cotacachi

Those of you who know me somewhat well know that I generally despise going for runs unless I have more energy than I know what to do with or I've landed myself in overanalytical Lanie mode and can't sort anything out in my head otherwise.  Plain and simply, I am not a runner.  So imagine my surprise when I drug my ass out of bed at 5:15 this morning to go for a run with Goldi and our local friend Luis.  I definitly didn't have excess energy to get out because who in their right mind has too much energy at five in the morning, and I'm not feeling like a crazy person, so it would appear as though I just went to run.  Apparently it helps your lungs get in shape for climbing the big mountains, so I guess I'll try it for awhile and see what happens.  I gotta say, if nothing else, I love being up that early, and to be honest the run didn't kill me.  Here it goes.

Everything is starting to fall into place quite nicely here in Cotacachi.  It's looking like I'm going to be sticking around the area for longer than I expected.  Luis, one of the local grocery owners and our morning running buddy, is setting me up with quite the deal.  For a ridiculously low price I am going to be able to live with an Indigenous family in one of the small villages around Cotacachi, learn about growing food and medicinal plants, and teach heart meltingly adorable kids.  Everything I want, all in one place.  I'll give the details when the plans are concrete.

Alright, now for pictures.  No pictures of mountains and such this time, as I've spent the majority of the last week in towns, but by request I've included a me picture.  As always, I hope that you are all doing well in your various locations.  Keep the emails coming- even though I'm in a foreign land I still want to keep up on your lives.

The broken glass that replaces barbed wire on everone's walls

OH MY GOD THIS WAS ONLY $8.50!!!

OK, a nice one for mom and dad. 18 bananas, 6 oranges, 8 passion fruit, 6 apples, 6 kiwi, and a pineapple for $4.50.

There odds continue to grow that I will smuggle a dog back to the US with me when this trip is over.

Fuya Fuya

I spent the day in the clouds.  Literally, I was between 12 and 14 thousand feet completely engulfed by clouds.  We decided that another adventure was in store for Saturday, so we packed up our rain gear and our camping gear and called a cab to head to Lago Mojanda.  Above the lake Fuya Fuya calls to be hiked.  1800 feet in 1.2 miles.  Now that's some elevation gain when your end summit is at 14,000 feet, but damn does it feel good at the top.  Well, it feels good until the hail/ snow mixture hits.  Although we were shooting for the longer hike, taking the saddle to the peak of Mojanda, we used our better judgement against the class 3 scramble in a hailstorm up slippery volcanic rock.  Instead we headed back down the mountain, sliding down some of the steep and muddy chutes, voluntarily or not. 

Next came our first Ecuadorian camping experience.  Oh yeah, as stated previously, it's the rainy season.  Luckily, we positioned our tent on thick enough grass that the water wasn't seeping in through the bottom.  Unluckily, we positioned our tent on thick enough grass that it was impossible to find a position that didn't have some sort of lump digging into some part of the body.  Once it got dark around six, Goldi and Aaron decided that they weren't going to risk the effects of elevation, and popped half a diamox to fight off insomnia.  I held true to my "screw you I can sleep anywhere" attitude and held strong, no sleeping pad and all.  I'll admit, it was somewhat of a restless night, but after about 12 different sleeping positions and 10 sets of generally goofy dreams morning hit, and morning at Lago Mojando is worth a restless evening.  Photos of the outing below.

Fuya Fuya

Lago Mojanda with Cerro Negro

Cerro Negro

If I was a mule, I'd want to live here

Laguna Cuicocha

Did I mention that it's the rainy season in Ecuador?  We were thoroughly reminded of this on our first hike around Laguna Cuicocha, a beautiful lake about 15 minutes outside of Cotacachi.  We had thought that the walk  was going to be somewhat of a stroll, perhaps with a few rolling hills here and there.  This was not the case.  Starting at about two, we took a taxi to the lake.  Ivan, our taxi driver, charged us $15 to drive us there, make the four hour hike around the lake, and drive us back to the apartment.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the agreement to accompany us on the hike may have been due to my blonde hair and lack of boyfriend, as he spent about two of the four hours asking me whether I had plans to move to Cotacachi, inquiring as to whether or not I wanted a boyfriend, and probing me for information about what I like in my men.

As wet and freezing the hike was, it was a much needed outdoor excursion, and beautiful nonetheless.  The flat hike that we were planning on turned into quite the trek through the mountains around the lake, but it wouldn't be us if something wasn't straying from the original plans...

Slowly working our way around the lake.

Goldi and Ivan in the back of the truck that took us back to our taxi.

Arrival!

Estoy en Cotacachi, Ecuador.  After a couple life threatening taxi rides I have arrived in the place where I will spend at least the next week and a half or two weeks.  My flight got in on time Monday night, and after about 20 minutes of waiting, and about 20 different taxi offers, Goldi and Aaron arrived to pick me up.  I feel as though I should preface the next few sentences by stating that they hold no element of dramatization.  As we told the taxi driver where we needed to go, he proceeded to drive somewhere around 70 miles an hour down a main street of Quito to the tunes of and American 80´s music mash up that he put in the cd player as soon as we got in the car.  He then proceeded to run 5 or so consecutive red lights, sans a decrease of speed.  We had no seatbelts.  But don´t worry, he gave ample warning by beeping his horn through each of lights.  Hello South American cities.  I think I probably should have been fearing for my life at least a little bit, but I figured I should just sit back and enjoy the lack of traffic cops who would ever think of pulling us over. So that´s what I did.

I could tell stories for hours about my first two days here but I´ll try to keep things short and sweet.  Goldi´s parents condo is beautiful.  Food is about a doller a meal.  Everyone is friendly and willing to help.  Life is good. I am crossing my fingers that hiking some of the eight gigantic volcanoes around is in my near future.  After that, it´s off to learn how to grow my own food.  I´ll send some pictures as soon as I can.  I have to find somewhere that I can upload them to the internet first.  Keep in touch! I would love to hear about all of your lives while I´m here.  Email me whenever.  I can´t guarantee there will be a prompt response, but I´ll get around to it at some point in time, when internet availability permits.

Here are a few pictures of my first days here.

The taxi ride from Quito to Cotacachi

Cayambe

Imbabura- I think the mountains are calling me

Sun room in the condo

Main room in the condo