Baños!

If all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you do it?

YES.

Monkey reserve in Puyo.

Driving in Ecuador. NOT a car. So its okay.

Paisaje

Only photo I got of the Chiva. Six rows of at least six people. All family. And then Emily and in the back!

Diaper

Rappelling

Local taffy

Sugar cane

Celebrating a goal.

The Police allow fiery torches in the stadium but not emergency exits. Hmmmm.

NOTE: Upon re-reading this, I have decided that this is not a good blog post for parents or other adults who worry about me. My apologies in advance. I realize some of this may have been a bad idea.

Baños!

So it has been kind of awhile since I last posted here. I hope you have all been doing well! I have, for two weekends in a row, stayed in Quito. Lots of homework, projects, and productiveness. Blegh. I did venture out for a day trip to the “real” equator. Apparently Mitad del Mundo is just a tourist trap based on the equator calculated in the 1700s. The “real” Mitad del Mundo is very careful to point out that they used a GPS when calculating the coordinates.

I also made it to another fútbol game. I left this out of the last blog, not wanting to focus on negatives, but my two angriest moments in Ecuador have been at these two soccer games. The Policía Nacional, in an attempt to prevent riots between the fans of opposing teams, only opens two exits for the entire stadium to exit after the game—one on each side, for each team’s fans. It is seriously the stupidest and most ridiculous system I have ever seen. Thousands of people are angry, pushing, and shouting all trying to get through a single door (actually they didn’t even open up the entire door. We were pushing to get through ¼ of the available space). I seriously felt anger rising in my chest, especially when I saw one police officer standing atop an overhead with a rifle like a sniper. The police LOCK the emergency exits. If there was an emergency, a stadium full of people would have been trapped. Outside the stadium as we were leaving, I saw a huge formation of officers just standing around (Perhaps we could open the rest of the doors and these guys who are just chilling out could maintain security?), so I went to ask them what their logic was. They really did think that this system was PREVENTING fights and riots. If sober, non-fanatic fútball fan Pam can feel anger rising in her chest, I wonder how the intoxicated men whose adrenaline is running will react. Just saying.

But anyway, to get back to something positive and cheery, I was getting super antsy to get out of the city. Emily and I headed to Baños, which was number one on my to-do list. I would have been really sad if I left Ecuador without getting there. It’s a beautiful little town nestled in the mountains and is pretty much geared toward tourists. Gringos everywhere. But seeing as I AM a gringo, I felt pretty at home.

One of our major goals for the Baños trip was to make it to the monkey reserve in Puyo, about 40 miles away. At first we were planning on riding bikes there, but once we realized that bikes would not get us there in time for the 5pm closing, we decided to rent a little stick-shift ATV/mini-jeep type deal. Luckily, Emily knew how to drive stick shift, so we road-tripped through the beautiful mountains of Ecuador down the famed “Ruta de las Cascadas.” It may not sound that exciting in blog format, but it was seriously one of my most content moments in Ecuador. During our drive, we made a little stop to go “puenting” or jumping off some bridges (I posted a video of my jump at the end). It’s kind of like bungee jumping, but the rope isn’t elastic. It was actually scarier than I thought it would be…maybe because I went head first.

But eventually we made it to the monkey reserve and it was a blast. The monkeys were really friendly and just climbed all over us. One monkey was a big fan of hugging my face and another sat on my shoulders, wrapped his arms around my head and started pulled my mouth apart with his hands. Yes, I had monkey hands in my mouth. Gross. The reserve was really amazing, though. So much fun.

On the way back to Baños, Emily taught me how to drive stick. (I learned how to drive stick in Ecuador! Maybe not my best idea). Also, our jeep broke down twice. I think little vehicles like that aren’t meant to drive 80 miles a day. The first time, we flagged down a car and out hops COL Edgar of the Ecuadorian Army and his silent, intense high ranking NCO with a huge tattoo on his head. COL Edgar was super friendly and got our jeep back up and running in no time. The second time we broke down, we were just ten minutes outside of Baños so we called Rene to come retrieve us but he didn’t answer. Then, some random man in a car offered to drive me to Baños to get Rene while Emily stayed behind with the jeep. Not only is that super sketchy, but there was no way I was separating from Emily. Baaad idea. Then he asked who rented us the jeep and I said Rene, but that I didn’t know his last name. “Rene with the long hair?” he asked. Why, yes, Rene did have long hair. “He’s my friend!” he said and without another word, he sped off in his car towards Baños. About 15 minutes later we get a call from Rene saying that he was on his way. So, the random man was trustworthy after all. But I still wasn’t getting in that car.

The next day we went canyoning, or rappelling down waterfalls. When we were in the van on the way to the waterfalls, we randomly stopped and our driver started chatting with the driver of a chiva (party bus). Next thing I know they tell us to get out of the van and into the Chiva, which just so happened to be full of an entire extended family on their family vacation. “Why are we getting in the Chiva?” I ask. “Don’t worry. We’re just getting in the Chiva to get past the police.” What?!?! You are SMUGGLING us past the POLICE?!?! They even told us to hide our wetsuits. This is looking promising. Eventually we found out that it wasn’t nearly as sketch as it looked. Our driver had forgotten some sort of document needed to get past a toll booth type thing for free and was trying to save some money. But seriously, not cool. And Emily and I did not fit in enough to look like we were on a family vacation.

Canyoning was really cool. After we got suited up in the wetsuits and harnesses, our guide told us it was just a “pequeña caminata” to the waterfalls as he pointed to the top of an immense mountain. Pequeña caminata, my rear. Halfway up, huffing and puffing, we came upon this little falling-down shack. I asked why anyone would build that so high up on a mountain. Our guide told us that the owners were in town but that it was a family’s house. That was a slap in the face. It was tiny, had broken windows (nothing more than small, thin squares of glass), and walls that appeared to be made of sheets of plywood less than an inch thick. A whole new level of poverty. It didn’t even dawn on me that that structure could be a family’s home.

After rappelling down the waterfalls, and some of them were really tall, I managed to fall down a little 3ft. waterfall and landed on a huge rock. My knees were bloody and bruised. Classy. But regardless of my fall, my weekend in Baños was just what I needed. I am content. I’m enjoying life without focusing on things in the future (something I generally struggle with). I’m enjoying the here and now and having a blast. I think I’m starting to realize how priceless this experience is and how little time I have left here.

That afternoon, after canyoning, we headed home and Sunday I went with the family to a fanesca lunch that the Ibarreñas were hosting (think: fish fry dinner hosted by the Knights of Columbus. Pretty much the same deal. It’s a Lenten thing). Marcela, Jose, Daniela, and two of Marcela’s friends went. Marcela’s mom is a member of the Ibarreñas. After that I did homework. Now for a few….

FACTOIDS!

• It is legal to marry your cousin here.
• Walking down 6 de Diciembre, I saw this HUGE cardboard box. Then, I see that there is a man sitting in it, changing his pants. I seem to be pretty skilled at encountering pants-less Ecuadorian men.
• I was sitting at a café, working on some homework, enjoying a chocolate chip pancake when Nigerian Dr. Kingsley O. Ikenegbe MB.BS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) sat down at my table and asked if I realized that chocolate chip pancakes are unhealthy and how often I eat sweets. He then told me that “I am what I eat” and implied that I was getting fat. He said that he wanted to be my doctor and that if I stopped by his office he would let me sample some free “vitamins” and gave me his Herbalife business card, demanding that I set up an appointment immediately. Seriously? I realize that there is a difference between chocolate and broccoli. But thank you.
• Another word for “nerd” is “zanahoria” (carrot). I know this because one of my professors called me a carrot after I said that I spent an afternoon in a coffee shop in the Mariscal (party district) studying and that I was still there, typing on my laptop, when the nightlife started picking up. I mean, who parties on a Sunday night? Don’t we all have places to be Monday morning?

Tomorrow morning, I fly out to the Galapagos for five days. Everyone keeps telling me that they are “preciosa” but I’m trying to go in with no expectations so I’m pleasantly surprised and not disappointed. Though, I doubt it’s possible to be disappointed by the Galapagos Islands.

Here is a video of me jumping off the bridge. The good stuff (my screaming) is all in the first 15 seconds.

Okay, ¡nos vemos! Que le vaya bien.

Papallacta and Liga Madness

Juice with Samantha

Very cold river

Antisana. You can only see it on a clear day and there aren't many clear days. We were really lucky to have the fog clear for a bit to catch the view. Beautiful.

Tree with some really cool flowers.

Waiting for a bus back to Quito in the middle of nowhere, literally.

Emily snapped this photo when I wasn't paying attention. Kind of like it. I was enjoying the view.

Game

Go Liga!

Estadio Olimpico. I always just tell Taxi drivers to take me here. I live right behind it. Super easy. Everyone knows Estadio Olimpico.

Hello, everyone! Hope you are doing well! I am doing just fine. So today marks the halfway point of my days in Ecuador. It’s all downhill from here. It’s crazy that it’s already been so long.

Well, this past weekend I went to Papallacta, natural hot springs located in the colder, upper parts of the Andes. Emily, Samantha, and I hopped on a bus and were relaxing in the hot springs about three hours later. There were about twenty different pools of various temperatures and a really cold river. Later we got massages at the Papallacta spa, but only because they were such a good deal. Pretty hard to pass up. Anyway, Samantha left early so Emily and I were on our own for the evening. There was a really nice hotel in Papallacta but it was super expensive (the price of typical hotel in the States) so Emily and I stayed in a hostel and pretended we were staying in the hotel. We had dinner there and chilled in their lounge until we were ready to head back to our hostel to sleep. I think we confused the hotel workers when we left at 10pm after being snuggled up on their couches all night.

We returned to Quito just in time for the Liga v. Quito Deportivo fútbol game. Both teams are from Quito and it was one of the games in the “Classic Series.” It was intense. The stadium is just a block away from my house (kind of like living in Wrigleyville) and everything was just crazy. Emily and I scalped some tickets and bought some Liga jerseys (a mistake, I didn’t realize that I lived in a Quito Deportivo house). Just getting into the stadium was intense. Emily and I were cutting it close on time and were unaware that all of the entrances into the stadium, save one, close once the game begins. People were going crazy.

Do you know that scene from Titanic when the ship is sinking and the crewmen, scooping coal in the lower levels of the ship, are freaking out because all of the doors are shutting and trapping them? This was EXACTLY like that (minus the sinking ship). It was chaos. People were frantically running from door to door pounding and screaming to be let in. People in the stadium were lowering ropes for bags and buckets of beer. Police on horses. Fire extinguishers (but no fire). It was a madhouse. Eventually everyone got in through the one door that was open and made their way to their unassigned seats. Just our luck, another near-riot broke out in our section of the stadium. The fight was so big, the entire stadium could see it (we had friends on the other side of the stadium). People all around us were fighting and pop bottles were being hurled so that they would explode all over whoever they landed near. I was legitimately worried at one point. Ecuadorian SWAT team members came and calmed the situation. Regardless of the commotion, the game was fun. Liga won.

The next day was Sunday so I went to mass with Marcela. She arrives to every mass a half hour early to say the rosary and she prayed the rosary aloud for us both. After mass we went to the hospital (the best in Quito) to visit Daniela and her new baby (not the Daniela who is my host brother’s girlfriend but the Daniela we hosted the baby shower for). He was lovely and doing well. Afterwards, we met up with some of Marcela’s friends to go out to lunch for Fanesca, a traditional Ecudaorian Catholic meal typically served during Holy Week but because it’s so delicious you can now get it throughout Lent. It was really, really good. It was kind of like soup and stew, but cheesy and it had all sorts of stuff in it. Way too complicated for me to ever make though. Que lástima.

I am on the hunt for a rope to climb (I have to climb a rope to pass Air Assault in August) so I visited Quito’s sport complex, Concentración Deportiva de Quito, where all of Ecuador's Olympic athletes for nearly all sports train, including squash, speed skating, and jujitsu. Although they didn’t have exactly what I needed, they got me set up on some climbing structures and gave me all sorts of tips. They recommended I talk to the military high school here in Quito. Not sure how I feel about that. We’ll see how desperate I get.

Other than that, I’ve mainly been going to classes. I can’t get out of Quito this weekend because I have way too much homework. Club de Andinismo didn’t have any one day excursions going on this weekend so it looks like I’ll just be doing some mini-excursions around the city in between working on my two presentations, essay, project, and studying for an exam. Joy.

Anyhow, here are some FACTOIDS!

· The Condor, a vulture and Ecuador’s national bird, is near extinction. There are only somewhere between 17 and 27 remaining in the world (all along western South America). Needless to say, they are extremely rare. But I saw one when I was in Papallacta! Pretty cool.

· At the fútbol game, after the ref made a call that angered Liga fans, the men behind us began repeatedly screaming, “Homosexual! Homosexual!” at the ref.

· Rebe’s annual salary is $3,740. Marcela told me; I didn’t ask. Rebe’s monthly salary is a below-poverty line weekly salary in the States. Things might be cheaper here, but the cost of living in Quito is definitely not that much cheaper.

· I achieved my goal of winning all of the records for Buscaminas (Minesweeper) on all of the computers (6-7) in the IES computer lab. Sadly, it didn’t even take that long. I played way too much Minesweeper in middle/high school. But in my defense it’s been years since I’ve played.

· Ecuador has only ever won two Olympic medals, one Gold and one Silver, both by the same man, Jefferson Pérez. He won them in the speed walking event. Pérez is a national hero. He can walk twelve miles at a sub 6.5 min mile. Embedding was disabled on the best YouTube clip I found but here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2urNVmKnEaQ Check it out! His skillz are ridiculous. This isn't his Olympic win but after this 20km race his whole body seized up and he had uncontrollable spasms. Extreme.

Well, I should probably get to work! Blogging is so just much more enjoyable than psychology projects, though. Meh. ¡Hasta luego!

Canoa and the TSUNAMI (warning)!

Beach sunsets. I'm a fan.

Tree house hostel.

Cliffs.

Friends

Wow! It’s already March! It’s going to be time to fly home before I know it. I’ve already been here almost two months. I hope everyone back home has had an excellent two months, as well!

This past weekend Marcela went to a wedding. I was really hoping I was invited, but alas, I wasn’t. It would have been super cool to see an Ecuadorian wedding though. I did, however, get to help Marcela and her friends make THOUSANDS of tiny candies for the reception. My hands were red from rolling so much dough.

So instead of the wedding, I went to a beach called Canoa for a few days. We left late Thursday night and spent the night on the bus. Friday morning we took a boat across the river and then another thirty minute bus ride to get to Canoa. Our hostel was really cute. It looked like a tree house. Friday went really well. I got a little sun-burnt but nothing too painful. I did lots of wave crashing, my favorite beach activity. I tried surfing but soon realized it isn’t the sort of activity you can pick up without instruction and I wasn’t too interested in paying for lessons. We had pancakes and spaghetti again and watched the sunset over the Pacific.

Saturday, however, I awoke up to a 6:30am text message from the Embassy’s Alert Service saying, “A massive (8.2 to 8.8) earthquake in Chile has caused a Tsunami warning for Ecuador’s Coast from 1200 to 1330. If you know anyone there you should warn them.” Why, yes, I do know someone on Ecuador’s coast. ME! Like 300 yards away from it! Our group was assessing the risk when we got text messages from Gladys, our program advisor, saying “The students at the beach should return to Quito immediately.” Definitely didn’t freak us out. I called Gladys to see what was up and told her our tickets out weren’t until the following morning. She said that we should be fine and to go ahead and stay put but be sure to keep our phones on us. Four of the fourteen decided that they would rather be safe than sorry and left for Quito anyway. I decided to stay because, after doing some research and talking to locals, we determined that there wasn’t any real risk along our stretch of beach. Staying was definitely the right decision. The waves were stronger than the day before but they were nothing dangerous. I’m still going to say that I survived a Tsunami (warning), though.

That night, after another sunset on the beach, we went out for dinner at a little seafood place and one of the guys made a really good homemade torte for dessert. Later a few of us went on a midnight walk along the beach down to the cliffs and came across a little fresh water lagoon that feeds into the ocean. Really neat. Plus we found the oar that one of the guys lost earlier in the day kayaking which was good since it would have cost $100 to replace. All in all, a very successful walk on the beach.

The next morning we woke early to catch the bus and boat back to the bus station and we were back to Quito by 4pm.

Exciting news from the USA: I got a slot to Air Assault School! Looks like I’ll be at Ft. Knox for the first two weeks of August. I have to say, joining the Army seems to have been a pretty good move. So many of the experiences I most value were provided to me by the Fire BN. Ecuador. Airborne. Bataan. Norwegian. Not to mention all the people I’ve met and paying for my crazy expensive tuition. And now Air Assault. Thank you, Uncle Sam. It’ll be useful to remember how much I am enjoying all of the perks of being in the Army, especially this trip, because the next foreign country the Army sends me to will likely be Afghanistan.

It’s crazy how varied a single life can be. I feel like profoundly lucky to be living the life I am. Why do I get to vacation through Ecuador only visiting extreme poverty instead of growing up with it? My life and accomplishments can’t be explained by my hard work or anything I’ve done on my own. There is something bigger than myself at work here and I feel luckier each day. And I am definitely feeling some pressure to make something of myself and do some good in the world with all these opportunities I’ve been given.

Okay, now for a bit of a jump. From a sort of serious moment to….

FACTOIDS!

• While running in Parque Carolina, I saw a fleet of men in wheel-chairs, all wearing orange jumpsuits. There were about ten of them and each one had an identical sign attached to his wheel-chair like a billboard, sticking up about eight feet in the air, promoting a special offer from a cell phone provider. They just rolled around the park in a line to show off the signs. Seriously one of the more bizarre things I’ve seen. Still not quite sure what to think about it.
• Walking home from my night class at PUCE, I saw a guy about my age strapped to a stop sign being thrashed by three of his buddies. The scene was accompanied by both screams and laughter from the victim. And confusion from me.
• On the Ecovia, two guys my age were passing boxed wine back and forth and drinking it out of Dixie cups. Classy wine tasting on Monday night public transportation. I’m kind of concerned as to why no one was concerned.
• Today, I found out that babaco, a delicious fruit that we really don’t have in the US, is illegal to import. Something about fruit flies. I’ve pretty much decided that I have to spread the babaco love and am plotting ways to smuggle one into the country. Marcela is providing me with tips, garnered from first hand smuggling experience. They are pretty giant fruits but there will be a babaco in my suitcase, I guarantee it. USA, prepare yourself for dulce de babaco! (Update: After reading about invasive species in my Biodiversidad class, I have aborted the Babaco mission).

So I’m getting ready for another weekend outside of the city. I’ve come to the realization that Quito is one of the lamest parts of Ecuador. If you live in one of the most beautiful and bio-diverse countries on the planet, why would you want to live in the city? But I have to balance my desire to get to know the country with the treacherous bus rides that accompany weekend traveling. You can’t travel anywhere without hours of winding mountain roads. I never got carsick in the states, but then again, most highways in the states are straight and flat. This weekend I’m headed to Papallacta for a night. It’s not too far away and it promises to be super relaxing.

Con amor, chao! (Not to be confused with the Italian “ciao.”) ¡Hasta luego!

Fuya Fuya

Pre-mountain climbing adventure. We had no idea what we were in for.

Club de Andinismo

Beautiful view!

(Sort of) Action shots.

Climbing! Fer let me use one of her high-speed mountain hiking sticks.

Still climbing! But almost to the top!

Another beautiful view!

Emily, Elisabeth, and I.

You might not be able to see those tiny dots, but they are people. This was the final segment of the descent.

Pooped. But pleased.

I have tons of homework this week. So of course the natural solution was to flee the city and climb a mountain. But I figure I’ll forget about the copious amounts of homework and sleep deprivation in a few days but I’ll remember climbing this mountain for the rest of my life.

And if I’m going to climb any mountain, it’s going to be Fuya Fuya. It just sounds cool. And it’s beautiful. There are lagoons at the foot of the mountain so the view was “preciosa.”

I went with Club de Andinismo, PUCE’s (The Catholic University) mountain climbing club. They do all sorts of adventuring though, not just mountain climbing. A group of about 25 went, and only four English speakers, so that was good. I spoke lots of Spanish and made lots of new friends.

The mountain was about a two hour bus ride away and I have to admit that, as we drove past mountain after mountain, I wondered why we didn’t just get off the bus and climb up one of the random mountains along the side of the road. But it seems that adventurers in the area like to “collect” mountains for lack of a better word. Everyone’s constantly checking mountains off their list. Plus our mountain was gorgeous.

So to start off with, I feel I should mention that climbing a mountain, in theory, sounds a lot easier than it actually is. It was way harder than I was expecting. Fifteen minutes into the hike, I was struggling to breathe. It felt like I couldn’t get enough air unless I just stopped entirely, which obviously isn’t very conducive to climbing a mountain. The process implies forward progress.

So anyway, I just took it slow so I didn’t get too out of breath and kept trucking. I knew better of myself than to consider quitting but I did wonder, “Why on earth am I on this mountain? I’m not a mountain climber!” But then I realized that I was on a mountain and I was climbing, so that kind of makes me a mountain climber. So I kept going.

After what felt like ages (it took about two hours), we reached the top. It was really foggy so we couldn’t see much. I felt like I was in a cloud. We ate lunch atop Fuya Fuya and then headed over to the peak of a neighboring mountain, Cochasqui, I think. To get to the summit of that mountain there was some bouldering and rock climbing involved. And when you are clinging to the side of a rock face, without equipment, hoping you don’t fall, and all you can see are mountainsides plummeting down on either side of you, it dawns on you that it’s hard to define the threshold between cool and dangerous. I was definitely into dangerous. Sorry, Dad. But I survived, if that’s any consolation.

On the hike down, we took another route. A crazy steep route. I had to walk really, really slowly but all in all the descent was less painful. Breathing got noticeably easier as I went.

At the bottom of the mountain, we chilled while we waited for our taxis (read: pickup trucks who let us ride in their truck beds) to take us to the bus station and then we took the bus back Quito. The whole adventure lasted 14 hours, from 5:30am to 7:30pm.

Okay, now I’ll go ahead and take a crack at…

FACTOIDS!

· Abortion is illegal here.

· My EcuaMami has two authentic sculptures by Caspicara, a famous 18th century Ecuadorian sculptor who is well known for sculpting little baby boys with teeth, glass eyes, and penises (most other sculptors just sort of left the penises out). The sculptures used to belong to Marcela’s father but were gifted to her upon his death. They are worth a lot of money. She was telling me that she went to Museo Banco Central to get one of the sculptures appraised and a curator told her that unless she had official papers declaring legal ownership (which she didn’t have), the Museum was going to confiscate it as property of the state. She protested and as the guide went to get his manager, Marcela wrapped the sculpture in her jacket (it is rather small) and fled the museum, running down ten flights of stairs and out the door as guards shouted after her. It now sits in the foyer inside a glass case.

· Today, I was the only student who showed up to my Psychology of Sexuality class (does my taking that class explain some of the factoids?). It was just me and the professor. Class went on as usual. Don’t worry, it wasn’t awkward.

· When I was descending Fuya Fuya, I saw what I thought was a large moss covered boulder but when I stepped on it, it was kind of springy. Not a boulder. Turns out it was some sort of highland grass that grows so tightly together it forms a huge mound. They best way I’ve heard them described are as looking like giant, green brains.

So I think I’ll stop here. I hope everyone is doing well. You are all in my thoughts. I’m headed to the beach again this weekend, but a different one this time. I’ll try to write again soon. ¡Hasta luego!