Our hut in the jungle

Wow, what a difference a day can make. Well, we´re finally in Puyo!!! We made it! And our first impression of our future home has been extremely positive. No, actually, it has been great!!! But, I´m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up. Many of my faithful readers are waiting with baited breath to learn about the fate of our hero, the science king. Well, I´m very happy to report that Jeremy is among the living again. His surgery, well, it went okay I guess. It certainly wasn´t fun for him...and he was in quite a bit of pain, but he´s alive and well.... and totally doped up on painkillers. His face is a little hinchada (swollen) pero, no mucho. Anywho, we were glad to finally get out of Quito. While it offered many of the creature comforts of the States, this fact was accompanied with many of the same annoyances: lots of traffic and pollution and greater threats of crime that comes with just about any large city. Sooo.... we pulled out of Quito yesterday morning about 8:15 and made the long drive to Puyo with Chela, one of the Peace Corps staffers. It was nice for Jer (and me) to have the ´luxury´of riding in a car, versus a bus, so we were able to pull over at the scenic overlooks and take pictures, stop when we had to go to the bathroom, and the ride forced us to speak Spanish (otherwise it is much too easy to talk English when we´re alone). The drive out of Quito was beautiful... the patchwork of verdant mountains...dramatic snow-capped volcanoes .....the more arid almost desert-looking mountains around Ambato...the evidence of lava flows from the past eruptionso fo Volcan Tungurahua... and most impressive of all was the drive from Baños to Puyo (just as the guidebooks say)... it was absolutely spectacular!!! I have to say it was one of the coolest vistas I´ve seen. We must have passed two dozen waterfalls. We drove through (literally...in tunnels) probably 5 or 6 different mountains (behind a pickup truck with 3 super cute little girls in the truckbed) and had spectacular views of this immense river valley (Rio Pastaza). Baños is famous for their hot springs from the volcano. The town looks supercute (one guidebook says it is pretty close to Shangri-La) with a dramatic backdrop of huge-onic, green mountains and spectacular waterfalls. For those planning on visiting us, this will be a must-see place (plus you more or less have to go through it to get to Puyo!). One of the tourist attractions is riding mountainbikes (downhill almost the entire way) from Baños to Puyo. It would take most of a day, but looks totally worth it if you take your time...which there are so many amazing overlooks along the way, you couldn´t possible ride by without stopping to gape at the incredible views. Okay, so we finally roll into Puyo, which, like any city has its grittier aspects, but it also has some incredibly charming aspects as well...based on our 27 hours or so that we´ve been here so far. Like most Ecuadorian towns, the roads aren´t marked very well, so of course we had to ask around to find out where we had to be. We just so happen to see Jeremy´s counterpart, Bolívar, while we are driving around asking for directions to the Waorani women´s group office. He helped us find it and I got a quick tour of the little storefront where the women sell their jewelry and handicrafts and their offices and meeting space. The women were welcoming and gracious...and gorgeous! My counterpart, had to meet with another person for a while, so she let me flip through photos that were on her computer. The organization is evidentally receiving support and funds from USAID and right now they are offering a number of workshops for the communities on the "interior" (in the jungle) to improve their marketing and quality of their handicrafts...and to teach small business skills. All in all, it was a very positive first impression and first meeting, I thought. It is going to be super challenging for me, for sure, but I think it will be a very rewarding and rich experience. For starters, I´ve got to try to learn the language of the Waorani......but before even that, Peace Corps is trying to find an instructor for me...so that I can learn some basic phrases before we return to Puyo exactly one month from today! While Manuela speaks Spanish, it is her second language as well! So, between the two of us, we do a good job of butchering the language at times. Jeremy´s counterpart organization, CODEAMA, seems very well organized and sophisticated---at least from my superbrief first impression. His counterparts seem extremely nice and I am pretty confident it was a good match for Jer.
So, we were supposed to stay with a family this week we are in Puyo, but that fell through, so we are shacking up at this SUPER super super cute little hotel. It is right on the edge of the river...has cute little thatched huts over colorful tables for alfresco dining...superclean and airy rooms and bathrooms. hammocks outside each door. Beautiful tropical flowers all around. It is called El Jardín (as Chris Farley would say, "that´s Spanish for the Jardín.¨ okay, really, it is spanish for "the garden." A beautiful garden tropical paradise indeed. It is WAY over our regular PC budget...but, after the crazy week we had, I´m happy to splurge on this place for the next three nights!

Okay... so for those of you dying to know about our housing in Puyo..... Well, all of you with visions of us living on a hut in the middle of the jungle...squatting in a pit toilet...drawing water from a well... and fill in the blank_______ with whatever stereotypical third-world living conditions you might envision.... yeah, well, nothing couldn´t be further from the truth. This is not your parent´s Peace Corps experience, my friends. Here´s the skinny: nothing is set in stone yet, but Peace Corps has tentatively approved an apartment outside the downtown area of Puyo...that is brand new. Two bedrooms. Nice bathroom and new ceramic tile floors. Huge sitting room kitchen area. All new!!!! I really afraid I´m going to jinx oursleves by typing this, but I´m hoping that all the pieces fall into place and that it gets finalized (there are a lot of hoops to jump through with the landlord I guess...and the only other alternatives for housing available next month are pretty icky I guess). Soooo...we´re crossing our fingers that it all works out. Of course, we have absolutely nothing to furnish it--or any other house---with, but Puyo seems to have just about anything we could possibly need or want to furnish our ´hut´and spend our moving-in allowance on!!! woo hoo!