shelly arrives...

I’m really going to have to back up a bit in order to get caught up on all my recent adventures. I guess, I’ll start with the volcano. On January 10th, all the Peace Corps Volunteers were notified that Volcan Tungurahua was starting to act up. This screwed up two sets of immediate plans that we had. First, we were supposed to have a nice dinner that night with my friend SBC and her parents who were visiting (from the U.S….and Mongolia, where her father is currently serving as Peace Corps Country Director). So, she and her parents had to abandon their outing to hike near the waterfalls, check out of their hostel in Puyo and get back on the road to get past the volcano (otherwise they would have been forced to take about a 12 hour detour to get to Guayaquil). Secondly, Jer and I had arranged to hitch a ride to Quito with one of his counterparts the next morning in order to get our mid-service medical appointments. But because we were prohibited from going the main paved road to Quito, we had to scramble to make alternative plans. That meant trying to catch up a bus that night and go the long way to Quito. So, around 11 p.m. we venture out to the bus stop. Around 11:40 we finally catch a bus. Long story short, we don’t get to the Peace Corps office until 9 a.m…by which time we had to rush off to our dentist appointments, get the annual exam (I’ll spare the details on that one) meet with various Peace Corps staff, etc. We checked into our hostel, took a nice long hot shower (only after almost flashing the maintenance man who came to figure out why our water wasn’t getting hot right away. Mystery solved: the knobs were reversed) and then rushed off to the airport to meet Jer’s cousin Shelly and change some euros into dollars (some German-Columbian dude bought a bunch of artesania at the Waorani store and only had euros because none of the banks in Puyo would change them. So, fair readers, even though euros are like the “in” thing right now in rap videos and piggy banks in the U.S., they aren’t really haven’t caught on down here). Shelly’s first taxi ride in Ecuador was one to remember. They dash board had forest green shag carpet and the driver drove like he was on crack. I was almost scared…and I thought I was finally used to the crazy drivers here.

The next morning, after storing stuff at the PC office and one false start (no one sent us a memo telling us that all the long-haul buses had been re-routed to a different thoroughfare) we headed to Otavalo, South America’s biggest and most famous outdoor market. We checked into the Hostal and then hit the market. Shelly went crazy (it’s hard not to) and bought lots of great stuff, including jewelry, art, a handmade wool sweater, alpaca poncho, scarves, etc. I worried that this was a bad way to start out her trip, because this meant hauling all the goods after purchasing them…and well, she didn’t pack very light to begin with. We ducked into a little hole in the wall to introduce Shelly to some typical lunch fare which included a slab of meat, mote, “tortillas” which are sort of like fried corn mush, all covered with a fried egg…paired exquisitely with the typical drink, Pilsener, the National Ecuadorian beer. My purchases were confined to a cool embroidered belt and headband, a bracelet and a scarf to replace the one that I gave to my mom. We picked up some wine, then went back to the hostal to chill out, read and have a glass. We took a break to get dinner and take in some local music. We returned to the hostal for a night cap in front of a wonderful wood fire. We ended up getting into quite an interesting discussion/debate with a Canadian guy and his 18-year old daughter and her punk rock boyfriend. They happened to be the type of travelers that you often run into in places like this (this being a nice, but cheap hostel in a pretty touristy town), people I would describe as self righteous travel braggers. They obviously have money and time to burn…and they like to talk about all the great places they’ve been and how long they’ve been travelling, blah, blah, blah. Well, the teens actually earned some bragging rights for having DRIVEN from Canada to Ecuador. They planned on driving all the way to the Patagonia and back to Canada.. Which would actually be a more fascinating story if the protagonists weren’t so self righteous and frankly naive. And if their dad wasn’t such an arrogant dork. I am being pretty harsh, but he immediately turned me off by grilling me with unfriendly, borderline accusatory questions about the Peace Corps. My personal favorite: “so what skills do you actually have to offer these people?” Before I could really answer his questions, he went off about how much older he was than us… and that he had been to 33 countries…and that he had just been in (fill in the blank with another foreign country…preferably the middle east or southern asia)… and that he was (fill in the blank with some important sounding business.) Oh and that he also worked with the wine industry, he said, as he sipped on cheap rotgut scotch (and, to be fair, while I slurped down cheap Chilean vino). By the end of the night we had worked through our international differences and he actually said in parting, “I really admire what you and your husband are doing with Peace Corps. And I wish you the best of luck in all you do.”

The next morning we had fun re-hashing the high and lowpoints of our long fireside chat with the Canucks en route to Cotacachi, a quaint town just 11 km north of Otavalo. Our guidebook raved about it being a thriving eco-city with a great leather industry (oxymoron?) and Sunday leather market. Well, there were leather shops…one right after another after another along one of the central streets (again, how the heck to all of them survive…see previous blog on my musings of the copycat factor)…but no leather market. The stores themselves were beautifully and thoughtfully laid out with gorgeous (but bargain priced) high-end leather jackets, boots and purses; they looked more like elegant European boutiques or SoHo storefronts rather than the typical hodgepodge Ecua-stores that are the norm. We wandered around the town (which really was tidy), strolled laxidazily through the uninspired Casa de Culturas, peered in the cathedral, and then took a tour of the Museo de Culturas with an enthusiastic and informative local guide. After lunch with the locals we headed back to Otavalo.

That night while Jer and I waited for Shelly to make some phone calls, we met a friendly Ecuadorian guy who struck up a conversation with us. He invited us to check out some music. We thought we were going to end up in a seedy bar, but instead found ourselves in the beautiful central park where the local brass band was belting out some tunes. He said that the band plays there every Sunday night…and that they bring much joy to the pueblo. When asking us our travel plans, he suggested that we consider hiking Laguna Quicocha rather than Lagunas Mojanda, as we had originally planned. He said Quicocha was closer and more beautiful. And that he could have one of his taxi driver friends take us. I think Jer was originally skeptical of my new friend Marcelo (that, or maybe jealous, because he happened to be quite handsome) and worried that he was a little sketchy. Which I suppose he was maybe a little…but he seemed harmless enough. Marcelo told me that had lived in Europe (Antwerp and Amsterdam) for a while, but overstayed his visa and essentially got deported. He had a girlfriend in Antwerp, but although she was beautiful, “she didn’t have anything inside...not like Latina women, anyway.” He has a kid that is 1 who he adores and a girlfriend (and cannot believe that Jer and I don’t have kids…and then proceeds to try to peer pressure me into having kids…with Jer not him of course!) …and then proceeds to ask if Shelly is married and if she is travelling alone. All fairly typical trains of thoughts for Ecuadorian men.

The next morning Marcelo introduces us to his taxi driver friend Bolivar who then drives us the half hour or so to the entrance of Laguna Quicocha (which he said is Kichwa for the place where the cuy (guinea pigs) bathe) and the Cotacachi-Cayapas reserve. Our drive was pretty quiet until the last 10 minutes or so when we revealed we were Peace Corps volunteers…and he proceeded to get very animated. He knew a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960’s and went on and on about how great he was and all the good work he did. Once again, it is these types of moments that make me proud to be part of the Peace Corps.

I came back from E-commerce conference in Quito (the long way, of course, to avoid getting close to the volcano that is threatening to erupt, which makes the trip 8-10 hours instead of the usual 5.) with grand plans of catching up on my blog and scratching off a dozen other things on my 3-page to-do list. Yeah, well, Puyo is out of power. It turns out that all of Pastaza AND Napo provinces are out of power. We're talking about vast expanses of the country here... so that foiled my plans of vegging out on the couch with the laptop to write and curling up in bed to watch Charlie Wilson's War with my hubby. So instead, I read a really cheesy book with my headlamp. And now I am back in Quito. Yippy skippy.

oh yeah, I forgot to add...

FYI... Yes, we know that a volcano is threatening to erupt (thanks mom!) (http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/4247 ) and no, we are not exactly in the lava path, but we have our ash masks ready just in case.

and...most importantly GO BUCKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Las dos marias

New Years Day

Jeremy and I get up early to catch a bus to Latacunga where we were planning to meet a few friends before heading to a crater lake called Laguna Quilotoa in order to hike. Jer and I caught a 7 a.m. bus headed to Quito, which would pass directly through Latacunga where we were to meet our pals. Two unusual things happened en route. One, the ayudante (bus driver’s helper) was a woman, one of the few I’ve seen here. And two, the bus wasn’t going where it said it was going. Or at least as far as was advertised. As the ayudante made her way through the bus to collect the bus fare, she asks us where we were going. After we replied, she basically said, “Well, we may not go there.”

What? Why? I had been worried about irregular bus service on New Years Day…chuchaqui (hungover) or still drunk busdrivers not showing up to work… or maybe half finished road projects blocking access… but this was definitely a new one. So why? I ask

“Because we don’t have enough passengers,” she said.

Huh? I looked around the bus. All the seats were full but two. Sensing my skepticism, she yells to the back of the bus, “Who is going to Quito?” No one says anything, or they were ignoring her. “See? No passengers to Quito. We’re just going to go to Ambato. You’ll have to switch buses there,” she says as she hands us our change for the suddenly abridged bus ride. Despite this supposed proof that they didn’t have enough buses, I still cynically suspected the driver really was chuchaqui and just wanted to end his day early so he could party with his pals.

Luckily, switching buses in Ambato was relatively easy, although it did force me awake from a nice little nap. We got off our bus and got on another headed to Latacunga. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads, so the buses flew. We arrived in Latacunga a full hour ahead of schedule. Jer and I decided to walk around town to kill some time. We happened across one of the city’s big marketplaces which was slowly coming alive with activity. We walked through an area that had stall after stall after stall of shoes. It is a fact that never ceases to amaze me about Ecuador: the copycat factor. As you drive into Puyo or Banos, you’ll see stall after stall after stall selling cana (sugar cane) products (mostly pieces to suck on and cane juice) and guayaba sweets. Hardly a diversified product line. Along the riverfront strip in Puyo, every little bar and restaurant offers volqueteros, a fun, local food concoction. You can’t get them anywhere else in town, but every place along the river sells them. In the town of Pelileo, dozens and dozens of stores sell jeans. How do they all survive? I don’t get it. Okay, I digress….back to my story.

We meet our friends Jay, Roger and Roger’s two kids who are visiting from Ohio at the bus station. We get on a very old bus headed toward Chugchilan where we would be staying. The fare was only $2.50…so we anticipated the route being around 2 ½ hours. I sat with Roger’s daughter, Tia, for the ride. Tia is a student at Wright State and spent eight months in Chile last year studying and volunteering. Chile is near the top of my list of countries I want to visit in my lifetime (sooner rather than later) so I had lots of questions for her. Our conversation rekindled my fascination with the country and set in motion (at least mentally) my plans of visiting maybe at the end of our service. I’d love to travel with another couple to check out their wine country and Patagonia (who’s in???)

Our bus slowly creeped up the steep, narrow dirt roads that hugged the mountainside. Tia and I had a few freakout moments where we reflexively grabbed the seats in front of us to brace ourselves when the bus came dangerously close to the edge of the road, which is to say the edge of a very steep cliff. Visibility was limited as we literally were driving through the clouds. It was surreal. At one point the bus stops and everyone is told to get off. We climb over bags filled with potatoes, grain and other produce and gather near the group of Kichwa clad in typical dress, which is to say the women have brightly colored pleated skirts, brighter colored fringed shawls wrapped around their shoulders and the baby or toddler they are carrying on their back, multiple gold necklaces around their neck and felt hats adorned with peacock feathers. The men wore thick woollen ponchos. As they filed past us, I note that they have a distinctive smell that I associate with damp wool and freshly turned soil. Not unpleasant, per se, but distinctive. Trabajadores. As we assembled in front of the bus, we watched in awe as the bus driver whipped out a tool and basically started hacking into the mountainside in order to make the road wide enough for the bus to pass. The other side of the road had totally eroded away and was not really wide enough to drive on. As we waited, a little boy around 4 years old climbed partway down one of the banks, dropped his drawers and started to take a dump.

We were eventually given the signal that it was safe to get back on the bus. We made it past the narrow part in the road, but not without everyone holding their breath. We kept asking Roger how much further until we get to the community. His pat reply was “20 more minutes.” This little game went on for a couple hours. Finally, we pulled into the town of Chugchilan almost four hours after leaving Latacunga. It was completely cloudy and misty as we walked to the Cloud Forest Hostal where we would be staying the next two nights. We had a few beers, played some Espeed Escrabble with the crew (read the ScienceKing blog for more commentary on the games) and turned in early for the night.

The next morning we ate breakfast, then caught a ride in the hostal owner’s truck that had the longest truckbed I’ve ever seen. He threw a mattress and a thick pleather couch cushion in back for us to sit on, which was very kind because boy was it bumpy. The morning was almost totally clear; just a few puffy clouds in the bright blue sky. The view of the valley from the truck bed was absolutely incredible. The mountains were a patchwork of different shades of green. The hillsides then dropped off steeply forming jagged cliffs that plunged down into a deep valley. Off in the distance we could see a couple snow capped volcanoes, the Ilinisas. It was simply stunning.

As we rode, we watched women in typical dress working in the fields of potatoes, onions, chochos and myriad other crops. The slopes of the hillsides where they planted were staggeringly steep. The verdant green landscape was interrupted periodically with small specks of brilliant colors. Surrounding each humble house were bright skirts, shawls and sweaters strewn out on bushes drying in the sun. Few homes had actual clothes lines, and even those that did, didn’t have clothes pins to prevent the clothes from blowing off with the frequent gusts of wind. Most families pragmatically used shrubs or the ground itself to dry their clothes. Roger’s son remarked that he felt he walked into a National Geographic magazine. We saw women trying to direct small herds of sheep, women hoeing the steep fields with babies strapped on their back, families leading llamas loaded down with sacks of potatoes. While we gaped at the landscape, kids along the route gaped at us and waved their hands enthusiastically to greet us. Some unsuccessfully tried to chase the truck to catch up with us. The kids didn’t have coats. Rather, they were bundled up with what looked like multiple layers of thick wool sweaters. They all donned little felt hats which only partly shielded their chapped red cheeks from the wind, cold and brutal sun.

The truck dropped us off at the entrance to Laguna Quilotoa, a breathtakingly beautiful lake that lies in the crater of an extinct volcano. It is definitely up there, at around 3,800 meters, which adds to the breathlessness. The laguna is a brilliant emerald green and is surrounded by jagged cliffs and a few sandy saddlebacks. After many photo moments, we started our hike back to the town where we were staying. It seemed like most of the trails were narrow paths worn by the farmers walking between their fields. There were several points where paths crossed, leaving us scratching our heads wondering which way to go. We almost had a mutiny within the group when we got to a point where we felt lost and we were divided about deciding which path to follow. Although Roger had hiked the trail before, we got to a place where he didn’t recognize where we were. He offered to reduce his “guide fee” by 50%. We stopped by some small hobbit houses with thatched roofs to debate which way to go. Three kids came out to gawk at us, one of them with a plastic bag inexplicably on his head like a hat. Two young boys wanted us to pay them to guide us. Roger’s stubborn, stingy streak came out and he rebuffed their offer. They then asked us for money anyway. I wanted to give them some, but my companions were sticklers about not giving out money.

The hike was a lot of fun, I’d have to say it was definitely a top 5 lifetime hike. Our self guided tour led us through a narrow, claustrophobic crevasse, through dried up gullies, across small streams and along some really narrow hillside paths. Along the route, we had to squeeze past a variety of animals that were essentially parked on the path, including a horse, a donkey and a pig, which all added to the adventure. As we neared a small village, we heard a kid strumming traditional Andean tunes on a guitar. Later, we heard the lilt of a trumpet being played in the distance. When it stopped, we applauded and yelled to the group of people assembled in an open field to ask them to keep playing. At one point we needed to make a strategic decision on which trail to follow to get back to the village. As we stood and contemplated our options, two young Kichwa girls approached us and offered to guide us. Roger balked at first, but after some ribbing from his kids to go for it he finally gave in. After some negotiating, Roger agreed to pay them $1 each to guide us. They took off down the path we probably would not have instinctually chosen. We followed their flowing skirts and whispered giggles. At stopped at a beautiful lookout point, and I asked the girls what their names were. The first one said Maria, and then whispered to the other to say Maria, too. I sensed that they were lying. Oh well. “The Marias” as we called them, walked at quite a little clip, which was amazing given their footwear—black leather shoes with little wedge heels. I had good hiking boots on, but still my toes felt cramped from so many hours of steep downhill trekking. I can’t imagine doing it in dress shoes… Finally we got to a point were Roger was confident he knew where we were and how to get back, so he paid “The Marias” and then they headed back along the path in the opposite direction.

Most of the first four hours of the hike was descending into the deep green canyon. Eventually, however, we had to make the steep ascent to the road to Chugchilan. Not long after starting our climb back out of the canyon, however, it started to rain. The last 40 minutes or so of our hike in the rain was not nearly so pleasant, especially for poor Tia who was sick. I somehow got a second wind and kicked into a higher gear. I didn’t want to stop because if I did, I feared I would get really cold. Going uphill kept my heart rate going despite being wet. Jer, Jay and I booked it back to the lodge where we hung our dripping clothes by the wood fired stove and got warmed up and waited for the second wave of hikers.

That night we played more eSpeed eScrabble, introducing some other guests to the our addiction. We also were treated to a little show by some local girls who did a traditional dance for us, which was entertaining. At the end of their routine, they dragged a bunch of us to dance with them, which was funny and cute. After dinner, we played Texas Hold’em and my beginner’s luck of winning was ground to an abrupt halt. I played with real poker chips for the first time, which I blame for some of my illadvised betting. I had previously played with scrabble squares which all had equal values. Having chips that were suddenly worth 2 – 4 times that really screwed my strategy (not that I really had much of one before). I lost to a somewhat arrogant and annoying player which made my loss all that much harder to take (again, read scienceking blog for more game details). Despite this minor setback, it was a really, really, really fabulous trip.

These are photos from our recent trip to hike Laguna Quilotoa. I have a whole long blog entry written up about it, but had some technical difficulties...so it will have to wait until tomorrow. Until then, you will just have to stare at the photos.