King International B&B

Jer and I now officially run a B and B. We had no less than four guests stay with us last week, including one that stayed an entire week. This week we will have four more guests, from at least three different countries.

Here’s the breakdown: last week we had a young couple from Spain doing work with Jer’s organization who crashed on our floor. In exchange for the floorspace, they cooked us an authentic Spanish tortilla. Jason, a PCV from our group in town to work on a fish pond project also stayed one night. We put him to work doing dishes after dinner. He crashed in the hammock. Finally, Casey, a Peace Corps trainee, stayed with us all week in our guest bedroom. She will be working in Puyo starting in September doing work with the Ministry of Health on a malaria prevention project. We were of course a little nervous about sharing Puyo with yet another volunteer (we Peace Corps volunteers get territorial) but our worry was all for naught. She is awesome. She is smart and witty and she can deftly drop quotes from all the best movies into any conversation. We are going to get along swimmingly. In fact, while she was here we organized our first “Craft Night” Ecua’style. We made a bunch of wallets and change purses out of recyled drink boxes while we watched a movie. Our creations are rad. I am already looking forward to many more nights hanging out drinking wine and making crafts.

This week the King International B&B will hosting a girl from Bulgaria, a guy from Poland and two girls from Switzerland. Our guests from Poland and Switzerland contacted us through CouchSurfing a website which networks people looking for a place to crash while they are traveling, with people like us who like to meet new people and are willing to host backpackers from across the globe. It is what us Peace Corps Volunteers do…we host wandering souls. We have already hosted a couple of other people…one from Michigan and one from Ireland. It was kind of fun. In fact the girl from Michigan and I stayed up late chatting like we were old friends from elementary school. I hope to take advantage of being the guest when we travel to other parts of South America…

Speaking of couch surfing, last weekend Jer and I decided to take a little trip to see our Peace Corps pal, SBC (the other Susan). She has come to visit us numerous times, yet we had yet to visit her in her town of Guaranda in the Sierra. With one other volunteer in tow, we explored her cute town, played Speed Scrabble, watched Juno (again) and then had a slumber party (all four of us crammed in her room). The next morning, we headed to Salinas de Guaranda, a tiny town in the mountains famous (at least in Ecuador) for its cheese, chocolate and hand knit wool sweaters. What’s not to love? Sign me up! It was waaaaay up in the mountains…walking up the steep, quiet streets took my breath away (“Jer, macchu pichu is going to kill us” I kept saying). Even though it was cold and the air was thin, it was a refreshing change from the jungle. It is just so incredibly different. One of the really amazing things about Ecuador, really---that in a few hours you can leave the sweaty jungle and be bundled up with a scarf and hat gasping for breath in the mountains. Salinas was very tranquilo. Very pretty. Lots of striking images. Campesinos and their llamas and donkeys loaded down with shiny steel milk cans walking from the countryside to sell their milk to the cheese factory. A little girl in red rubber boots and a big pink hat walking with her equally cute black and white fluffy dog using a thick blue rope as a leash.

At the women’s weaving cooperative, I tried on at least a half dozen sweaters. They were gorgeous. I was prepared to buy two, but of course having that good taste that I do, I chose the hand-knit ALPACA sweaters, which were twice as expensive as the wool sweaters. I couldn’t afford both so I was forced to choose just one…and even that was difficult, as it was a lot of money on a Peace Corps budget. But, I rationalized (with the peer pressure of my pals) that it would be a good memory from Ecuador…plus a hand-knit alpaca sweater in the states would cost three times as much and very little would actually go to the artisan who labored for days on it…so I sucked it up and bought it. So far, I have zero buyers remorse. If anything, once I get home I will probably regret not buying more when I had the chance.

The ironic part is that we ended up spending almost as much on cheese as I did on the sweater. Good cheese I should add. Never will I ever take for good cheese for granted again. So... I donned my new alpaca sweater and we left Salinas with a backpack full of cheese and chocolate. A good day indeed.