piñatas and tarantulas

Sorry for leaving my blogstalkers hanging. I haven’t had much time or energy to write of late. Let’s just say it has been a bit of a rollercoaster of a month. I will spare you the lowlights and instead recap some of the unusual or otherwise noteworthy (at least for me) highlights.
· My birthday. Gift #1: A HOT SHOWER! My hubby treated me to a night at a hotel in the quaint town of Rio Verde. It was the first hot shower I had had in quite a while and it felt GREAT. So great, in fact, I had to take two showers. Because I could. Gift #2: An hour long massage in Baños. Ahhhhh. It was awesome. To: me. From: me. Thank you very much. Gift #3: A penis shaped piñata. This was among the creative, funny and random gifts given to me by 15 Peace Corps pals who surprised me with a big party in Ambato (the revelers included my dear friend Andrea who traveled 10+ hours just to get there). It was an elaborately laid party plan that also involved a “Sra King Jeopardy” game. Three teams competed fiercely to answer deep questions about my life, like, what night of the week did I used to bartend in Columbus? (Wednesday). How many of my friends or family have gotten pregnant or had a baby since I’ve been in Ecuador (15). What candidate did I switch political parties to vote for in the 2000 Ohio Primary (McCain). What was my first car? (1979 Pontiac Grand Prix: the Green Pepper, pues!). It was a hoot. Gift #4: A 27 candle on my birthday cake. Complimented by multiple happy “27th” birthday signs decorating the house. It was awesome! I think I successfully convinced my pals that I was turning 27, rather than…well, rather than my actual age. Or at least they were kind enough to entertain my delusion that I am 27 again. I just love those guys!!! It was a great party and a great time. I was reminded why I am doing what I am doing: even through the really rough patches of my service I can count on my fellow volunteers to lift me up. They are all amazing people and I adore them all and am grateful for their sense of humor, their generosity…and their gullibility. : )
· Lazy Sundays. Anyway, after a late night of celebrating my “27th” birthday, the next morning we pigged out on Pumpkin Pancakes (the last batch we had been guarding for a special occasion) and watched a good part of season six of Sex & the City where I kept saying “they totally didn’t show that scene on TBS”. I was a late convert to the show since we never had HBO at home. I did catch a few rerun episodes on TBS, however, but it had to be censored so much for its lude content that it edited out too many pertinent plotlines and one liners more than anything. The SATC marathon got us (okay all the women and only one of my guy friends who was man enough to admit he liked the show) excited to buy the movie that just came out in theatres…and our friendly neighborhood pirated dvd store. No worries CT, we bought Indiana Jones, too, just to even out the estrogen and testosterone balance.
· Loja Province. Jer and I made our first trip to the southern part of the country last week. He was collaborating with two volunteers on the creation of an Environmental Education guide. I was tagging along to meet with my Gender and Development Committee Co-Prez to prepare for our next meeting where we will hold our raffle. Have you bought your tickets yet????? http://www.friendsofecuador.org/ (hint). The town of Catacocha where we stayed was really great. Clean. Quaint. Great Climate. Colorful, colonial-style buildings with small balconies. Beautiful views of the mountains. It happened to be the town’s fiestas , so we got to take in some local flavor while we were there. We attended a baile (dance) that took place in the street. It was sort of like a big block party. We befriended a group of middle aged ladies that were cutting a rug and forcing mini shots of Zhumir on everyone in our dance circle. We danced for hours on end…into the wee hours of the night/morning. The next day we all complained of sore legs from our gringo-style salsa moves (among other things). See the scienceking blog for more detailed information about the baile.

Two of the big events for the fiestas were motocross and a road rally…neither of which interested me much, but we watched for a little bit just to see what all the hype was about. We learned the motocross moms are every bit as intense as soccer moms. The PeeWee category (yes, they use that word in Spanish) of motorists consisted of what looked like 8 year olds. (8 year olds on motorcycles, god help us!) And men were drinking Budweiser at the race. I never know that was such an international sport either. Interestingly, the most popular spot to watch the rally was sitting on gravestones on the hillside above the road where little Mitsubishi or Suzuki or (heck I don´t know what brand) hatchbacks with souped up mufflers careened down the city streets. Hummmm… yeahhhhhh….

The highlight of the trip was taking a hike out into the countryside to try, albeit unsuccessfully, to scale one of the mountain peaks that overlooked the town. Once we got off the main dirt road and onto a narrow trail, we saw only one other human being: a lone campesino who plodded slowly on his horse across a wide green field in order to check on his cows. The scenery was strikingly beautiful…bright green pastures framed by dark green densely wooded mountains contrasting by a brilliant blue sky and occasional wispy bright white clouds. There was no official route to this peak, so our ascent involved crossing some fences and staring down some one-horned cows. As we dodged cow pies (some more successfully than others: Jer) we ran across a very large, very hairy tarantula. Whooooaaaaa. It was BIG. We of course whipped out the cameras to chronicle our wildlife encounter. Our friend Akul threw a coin next to it in order to provide prospective of how big it was. In his haste to capture the photo moment, he reached in his pocket and tossed the first coin he found. He happened to toss a Sacagawea dollar rather than, say, a dime. Possibly hoping to pocket this tip, the tarantula immediately moved towards it until it was basically on top of the coin. “Hey, you b*stard, I want my dollar back,” cried Akul. So, Jer, always the gentleman, grabbed a short stick and tried coaxing the tarantula onto the twig. Rather than casually crawl onto the twig, however, the tarantula jumped toward it, and him. Jer reflexively jerked his hand and stick away, throwing the tarantula through the air…and straight toward Akul’s crotch. We all let out a collective scream and quick stepped back away from the creature before doubling over in laughter once we were safely out of reach of the tarantula. Thankfully, Akul’s spidey senses were honed and he was able to jump back fast enough to avoid a pretty nasty bite to the balls. After its little flight through the air, the tarantula landed in the grass and immediately reared up on its back legs, baring its fangs, set poised to strike. Seeing a window, Akul darted around him and quickly grabbed his Sacagawea. The whole thing was captured on video…well, sort of. Andrea jerked the camera off the tarantula when it—and she--jumped, and mostly just got shots of the grass plus great audio of our screams and howls of laughter. Even so, it is good You-Tube material. Working title: the stupid things we do for a dollar.

Another highlight of the trip was experiencing my first real zipline. There is a little zipline park just outside of Catacocha that features a series of lines, some whizzing over the canopy of the trees. Other lines buzzed over some grazing cows. It was a very inexpensive adrenaline rush: incredibly, it was only five bucks. We got some awesome photos of us flying through the air on the zipline (to be posted later)

So, all in all, a great trip.
See photos!
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Jer and I were able to refresh our batteries after an otherwise draining and discouraging month. I also got to finish two really excellent books that I would recommend to anyone: Into the Wild (Thanks Toni, you’re the best!!!) and Water for Elephants. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

In more mundane news I thought I would report that …
WATER! WE HAVE WATER in our apartment! And lots of it!!! Yes, after almost 6 straight weeks without water, our landlord actually had some sort of tank with a pump installed so that we have a steady source of water (albeit cold, but I’ll take it! It is wet!) at all hours of the day and night…well, at least so far. I even had to turn down the pressure in the kitchen sink because it was gushing so hard it was splashing me. Never thought I’d see that happen. But, oh how exciting!!! (hey, it’s the little things that get me through the day!)

NEW LAUNDRY LADY! So on the domestic front, I now have a new laundry lady…and I LOVE her! She washes, dries, sorts, folds and wraps my clothes in plastic bags so they don’t get wet…all in one afternoon! And all without pestering me to go to her evangelical church with her, as my old laundry lady did. Plus, my new laundry lady is just at the end of the street…and she only charges 30 cents a pound…and my clothes smell good. I realize that this is cheating, that a real Peace Corps volunteer would wash their clothes by hand…but screw that. It is a little luxury that I am happy to indulge in.

PAVED ROAD! Yes, for some reason the local government decided to pave our road…not with asphalt, mind you…with nice octagonal pavers! Why they would choose our lame street waaay outside of town, when say there are streets in the center of town that aren’t even paved…well, that is just another mystery of this place we call Puyo.