Quito, Ecuador

La Ruta del Sol

Canoa: Fishermen bringing in their catch.

me: Doing handstands in Mompiche for the sunset and remembering Karyn and her hand stand obsession.

After about a month of being nothing but a beach bum, I am back in the city. A big city. Quito, the capital of Ecuador. At first I was sad to leave the tranquility of the beaches, but arriving last night and driving through the streets of a very European feeling city, was cool. There are so many people here; the cobblestone walking streets, cathedrals and churches all remind me of a mix of Spain and France, in a weird way. There are Christmas trees in windows, with lights and Christmas music. I forgot that it´s December. On the coast it was hot and so tropical feeling I felt like I had never left August.

Canoa at sunset.

But here in Quito, I have taken out my jeans again after a month of not wearing them. Yes, they´re much tighter. Yes, I love the Panaderia´s here. Bread stores. Yummmm. Pan de chocolate, pan de carne, pan de leche, pan de sal, pan de.....oh there so many choices. Sadly, along the coast, the panaderías were limited. Usually one or none in each little village I was in. But maybe that was for the best, as far as my pant size goes.

Ruben.

I met Ruben, a guy from Argentina in Montañita. Actually, I met him first in Baños about a month before. Shay had bought a bracelet from him. He´s an Artisañia. He makes jewelry and sells it on the streets to fund his travels. The jewelry is made from thread or "hilo," similar to what I used to make friendship bracelets with, except it has a durable waxy covering. He finds seeds, shells, trades for stones and crystals and incorporates them into his work. I´ve been learning the trade and have started trying to sell some of my own work. Ruben has been travelling for about nine years now. He lived in Colombia for three years at one time and in Brazil for another three years.

El Gato.

I also met Gerardo, or Gato, in Montañita. He´s from Chile, also an artisañia and has been travelling for about six years now, going back to Chile every so often to visit his family. Ruben and Gato met several months ago in Peru, went separate ways and then met up again in Montañita.

Gato and Ruben walking ahead of me on the long trail to the deserted beach.

Before I met these guys I was planning on going to Colombia. I had a little fear though about travelling up there solo. After hanging out with Ruben, Gato and other artisañian friends in Montañita, I thought I´d be fun to tag along with Ruben and Gato up to Colombia. They´re kind of like big brothers, which is really nice to have, especially now that Shay is gone. It´s also awesome because they don´t speak English. All we speak is Spanish, so my spanish is getting SOO much better.

So after leaving Montañita, a partying gringo-ville, we went to Canoa, another beach town further north of Montañita. Canoa was a little smaller than Montañita. Only one panaderia there, which only occasionaly had bread at random times. There really wasn´t much to do there except walk the beaches, looking for shells and sharks teeth, talk with locals, and swim. We had a kitchen at the hostel we were staying at for $2.50 a night, which was really nice because everyday, the guys would go down to the beach, help the fisherman push their boats back onshore and then come back with hands full of fish, gifts for helping. The family that owned the hostel, let us use their kitchen and then we would pull a table from off the porch and put it in the middle of the dirt road in front of the hostel. There we would feast. We made many good meals in Canoa. One night, after walking all day, without any food or water, getting lost and finally finding the secluded beach we were looking for to hunt for sharks teeth, we made it back to Canoa, bought 3 pounds of chicken, 2 packets of spaghetti, a bag of tomatoes, onions and peppers and cooked a grand meal. Each of us ate about a pound each of chicken and all the spaghetti. I think I ate the most out of the three of us. "Newton John," Gato said, "comes como un hombre."

My name here is no longer Libby. After 2 months of people butchering the name Libby, (Leeebee, Libya, Lydia) I have adopted the name Olivia. It sounds pretty in Spanish and it´s a lot easier for everyone to remember for some reason. Gato calls me Newton John, as in Olivia Newton John.

The three pound chicken spaghetti feast.

Mancha: "Mi" mascota de Canoa.
She and her mom followed us everywhere. There were so many dogs in Canoa. They were always roaming the streets and beaches fighting, playing and begging.

This picture was taken for you, Sean.

La playa escondido: Where we hunted for sharks teeth.

Mompiche: The little village was so small and wonderful. Every night at 7:00, the power would go out for the entire village. You could see every single star and hear everything so much clearer.

After a week in Canoa, we went further north to Mompiche, an even smaller beach village with no panaderia and hardly any gringos, which was awesome but not so awesome for the guys because there was no one to buy their stuff. Our feasts dwindled to sandwhiches of cheese, some weird meat, cucumbers and sardines. We didn´t have a kitchen in Mompiche which also hindered our creative cooking abilities. On Thanksgiving, the fisherman came back to shore with two boats loaded down with the biggest stingrays I´ve ever seen. Two of them were each probably five feet wide. It was sad to see them on the beach, bloody and dead, vultures circling around above them, but we walked away with a huge bag full of stingray. We wandered for awhile looking for a kitchen to cook in. Ruben asked a woman working in her empty restaurant if we could use her kitchen to cook the ray. So my Thanksgiving dinner this year was stingray, one big beer between the three of us and some salt. Stingray is a little weird. Tough, but fishy flavored. Rico! I tried not to think about the pies I imagined my mom cooking back home.

Thanksgiving Dinner.

Two fishing boats came back with sting rays.

We left Mompiche yesterday in the back of Jeep, dust flying everywhere, eyes closed and took a seven hour bus to Quito. We are headed to Otavalo within the next couple of days, where the largest street market in South America is, and then from there, we´re going to the border. My family is nervous. With reason, I suppose. But everyone I´ve spoken to that has been to Colombia, has nothing but good things to say about it. I think going with the guys is good too. We stick out as tourists still, but they have an advantage in dealing with people here because they´re South American. I´m excited for Colombia. Ecuadorian set meal lunches of rice, beans and chicken are getting a little old. I´m ready for some Colombian cuisine.

We´re going to Cali, Colombia where Ruben lived. His brother and his wife and children live there and Ruben still has friends in Cali also. He and Gato are planning on passing Christmas there with friends and family and as for now I think I will too.

Gato and some of the gigantic sting ray.

Canoa.

Reservations

Baños

As usual Shay and I have found it extremly hard to leave yet another town. In 2 months of travelling, we´ve been to just 4 towns. We´re travelling extremely slow. I like it that way though. After a week in a small town, I go places and people know my name and I have a sense of belonging. Sometimes travelling is lonely. Being in new towns all the time and not knowing anyone, you never get truly comfortable. In Baños and in Vilcabamba both, I have friends and people I know I could go to if I had a problem. It´s a good feeling.

Riding a cable car to catch some trout, with a Bañeno, William.

Some nuns taking the day off.


The trout we caught. Best meal in Suramerica so far.

Man taking empty Pilsner beer bottles back across the river valley for deposit.

Girls playing in the street during the month long celebration of a Virgin. Every day, for the entire month of October, different barrios (neigborhoods) in Baños take turns hosting the celebrations for the different Virgins.



The streets were crammed with people. Lots of dancing, music, food and drink.


One neighborhood band. They played all day long. Seriously, all day and into the night.

People watching.

White water rafting. This is as far as my camera got on that trip.

Rock climbing at the zoo. For 30 cents on a 10 minute bus ride, we´ve been going climbing in the valley under the local zoo. It´s kind-of in someone´s back yard so we have to pay $1 to get in, but it´s so worth it. It´s challenging and a really good way to spend the days.

Rapelling.

View from the climbing spot.

Oscar climbing, Paulo belaying. We met Oscar on our white water rafting trip, he was one of the guides. Since then, we´ve been rock climbing so much with him and his friends. Last week, Oscar, Paulo, an Isreali girl named Mor, Shay and I all went camping in a little pueblo near Quito. We camped underneath a cool rock face and climbed all day for 2 days.

Paulo, way high up.

A view of the hot baths. These baños were closed for a while when the volcano erupted a couple years ago. They´re still repairing the place and so for now, it´s free to get in. The pool on the far left (the one that looks the dirtiest) is the hottest. The clear one is straight river water, for a cold dip. The trick is to go back and forth from the really hot to the freezing cold. If you don´t you get dizzy and dehydrated.



We went with our friend, Oscar, to his grandparents house to bring them lunch. He showed us how to make sugar cane juice. He´s cutting up the sugar cane here, then he put it in this huge juicing machine, added a little sweet lime and yum.


Robertito and I. The smallest 27 year old in Ecuador, maybe.

Going canyoning with two couples from Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Canyoning. Rapelling down waterfalls.


Rapelling down a huge waterfall.


Gorgeous.

The country side of Baños, just a 10 minute bikeride out of the center of town.

The day we rented these four-wheeling-go-cart cars. It poured down rain, got really muddy and then the sun finally came out later on.

5 hour bike ride adventure

Shay and I started the morning by hitching a ride in the back of a truck up to the top of a mountain and the plan was to have just an easy ride DOWN. Oscar, an Ecuadorian guy we´ve befriended here, took us and he led us the wrong way. We got lost and rode UPhill much more than I had anticipated, but it was so worth it. It rained and we got muddy, wet and cold and then the sun came out again and we rode through gorgeous country side, stopping to talk with people and pick fruit from the trees.

Me, Oscar and Shay, eating fruit and enjoying the smells of cows and horses.

Two women we stopped to talk to. They are packing up their fruit (tomato de los arboles, a tomato like fruit that is excellent for making juice with) for the next day´s Saturday market.

A mama donkey and her adorable baby donkey.

We brought some bread from a panateria (delicious fresh bread stores, where they make fresh bread every morning) and a little water. Jay, a guy from Korea we met when we went white water rafting went with us too. He is a really funny Korean travelling for a year or more (so far 104 days, according to him). He started in Cuba, went to Mexico and has been working his way south since then. He was very optimistic and laughed a lot. He´s 32, left his job at an oil refinery in Korea after 6 years of working there, sold his house and the majority of his possesions and is now travelling alone throughout S. America.

Burro Burro.

Workers we asked directions from.

Riding in the clouds. Cold, wet and muddy.

Jay, Oscar, me and Shay, gearing up.

Everywhere down here there are fruit trees, fruit I´ve never seen or heard of before. This is a fruit which I forget the name of, but you crack it open and then suck down the the seeds which are covered in something like a sack of fruit. You can either just kinda drink down the seeds or suck off the fruit off of each seed. Refreshing

The last stretch of the ride was ALL down hill on a paved road, no potholes. I was riding so fast and singing and zooming past all this beautiful countryside. It was so cool. It felt so good to use my biking muscles again. Today, I´m super sore, partly from riding and partly from dancing my butt off the other night. I was dancing with this nice (a.k.a. respectful) guy named Paulo and he kept dipping me back and now my neck muscles are aching. It feels like I was in a car wreck or something.

Volcanos, Orchids and Baños, oh my!

I am still in Ecuador, Baños, to be exact. It is a little town in the central highlands of Ecuador surrounded by gorgeous green mountains and volcanos. The volcano,Tungurahua, makes the water underground REALLY hot and the town has several thermal baths. We went to the baths last night and I felt like I was in ancient Greece, bathing in huge pools with tons of people. The water comes out of the ground a little yellowish brown because of the minerals in it, and I found myself glad that it was dark out because of all the people in the pools and all the pee and what-have-you that I am sure help contribute to this coloring. Entire familes were all in there together talking and teaching their kids how to swim. Old men sat in lines around the edges, watching the young beauties and gossiping together. It was super crowded but with both Ecuadorians and gringos. The water was super hot and it was a cool experience.

Yesterday, Shay and I were invited to go hiking with a Ecuadorian we met at the bus stop coming into town the other night; a true casador de gringas (gringa hunter), as they are called. I will explain later. We took a bus into the mountains and then went hiking all day through pueblitos and jungle-lish trails. The mountains here are cloud forest almost like a jungle. There are a ton of orchids, air plants (which I LOVE!), ferns, mosses, fruit trees and vines growing all over and in abundance. There are waterfalls everywhere. From the center plaza in town, even, you can see a waterfall coming down one of the surrounding mountain sides. Its really quite gorgeous. Shay, William (the Ecuadorian) and I took a cable car across a valley and river to some other trails. We walked to a house where a family that William knew lived. They had a little pond FULL of trout. William handed us a stick with a piece of fishing line and hook tied onto it. We put a tiny little piece of bait on the hook and dropped it into the pond. Within seconds, the trout were attacking the hook and I had a big trout in my hands. The woman who lived there and who kept calling us "Mi vida", then scaled, gutted, threw the guts to the dogs and cat and then cooked the trout for us. She fried plantains in my favorite way and gave us some jelly that looked like apple butter but was made from guava fruit to dip the plantains in. It was the best meal I have had in S. America. The mosquitos were really bad there and I am now covered in red, itchy welts, but it was all worth it. The best days I have had on this trip so far are the days that we go against everything the guide book says not to do.

Today, Shay and I rented a four-wheeler/go-cart and looked like really stupid tourists as we bounced around mountain roads. It poured rain for the first half of the trip and we got soaked and covered in mud. We stopped for lunch, more trout and un grande cerveza, and the sun came out. We laughed at ourselves for being bad tourists as we zoomed past others on their bicycles, but it was really fun. Tomorrow, we are planning on going white-water-rafting.

It is really great to be out of the city. We were in Cuenca for about three days and I was very happy to be out of there. It´s a pretty city, but I´m sick of cities, partly because of one particularly creepy guy who kept turning up at our hostel and asking for us and mostly because of how wonderful open people are in smaller towns. We always meet more locals in pueblos and have really good interactions. The pueblos are safer and much easier to get to know than cities. In the cities, I´m much more wary of everyone.




* * *

Los Domingos: las dias de descansar

Sundays: the days of rest. I love them. No one works. Or many people don´t. Stores are closed. Little girls all wear their fancy white dresses and prance around like little princesses. Their brothers wear their blazors seriously, which are usually a tad bit too small or big. The parks and plazas are packed with families and old men, strolling, gossiping and sitting, people watching. In Peru, the schools practice all week for their weekly parades on Sundays. Parents crowd the streets to take pictures of their children in the marching bands. Old men with old cameras come out to take pictures of people who don´t have their own cameras. They take down their names and addresses and send the pictures to them later.

The markets are in full force on Sundays. Farmers and artisans come from surrounding pueblos to sell their art, fruit and vegetables. Music blares from windows and parked cars. Men gather around volleyball courts, take off their shirts, exposing bulbous bellies and play volleyball in an anything but Olympic way. They cradle the ball for far too long in their calloused hands and never allow the women to play.

Oh Domingos. How I love them here in America del Sur.

Mid-trip Crises

Vilcabamba

On one of our horseback riding trips. Hmmmm. How lovely it was.

River running through the cloud forest outside of Vilcabamba.

"Bridge" crossing.

On our porch in Vilcabamba.

Sunset over Mandango. I heard many tales of UFO sightings above Mandango. Laying down in my bed, I could see Mandango and I waited for strange lights or something. This was the strangest lights I ended up seeing.

We left Vilcabamba yesterday, after almost 3 weeks there. It was really hard to leave, especially since we kind of signed a one month lease the day before. However, after some careful thought we decided that we didn´t want to spend our last weeks in one spot, without seeing more of Ecuador. Shay flies out of Lima on Nov. 14 or something like that. We told the Carpios (the landlords of the house we moved into) that we would be staying there 3 weeks, helping Christina at the Community Center. I was really excited about helping her and working with kids, however, I also realized that I wasn´t ready to settle down for that long. Vilcabamba was awesome. Leaving there was almost as hard as leaving home. I felt really safe and comfortable there. That´s part of the reason I started thinking I should leave.

So, yesterday, we got on a bus to Cuenca. We´re here now. It´s kinda a big city. Very different from what I´ve become accustom to, but I like it. Just a lot less impersonal. I loved Vilcabamba because after just 2 weeks, I knew so many people in town. Everywhere I went, I was waving, being honked at and got smiles from most everyone. I hope I can find another place like that.

I´m starting to plan what to do after Shay leaves. She has to get back down to Lima so I think we´re going to go a little further north into Ecuador and then we will part ways somewhere around Quito probably. I think I will go into the Amazon in Ecuador probably or maybe just head north to Columbia. I was "talking"/listening to these two old obnoxious Americans last night, one straight from New York (accent and sleazy haircut and all) and the other, a non-spanish-speaking Minnesotian that wants to move here. The New Yorker was telling me how dangerous Columbia is and how I shouldn´t go there, but everyone else I´ve talked to have said that Columbia was their favorite place in S. America. Everyone says that because of columbia´s bad reputation, the people do everything they can to disprove that. So I think I will check out Columbia. I met a German girl in Vilcabamba that had flown from Bogota (where I could stay with a friend of a friend), to Leticia, which is in the Amazon right on the Brazil, colombia, Peru border. I could then (as the German girl recomended), take a cargo boat down the Amazon from Leticia to Iquitos, Peru. There are lots of jungle trips I could take around these areas to see small villages and wildlife. There are fresh water dolphins in the Amazon River. They are pink. And they don´t look at all like the dolphins we´re used to seeing.

Cuenca, Ecuador.

Cuenca: Storm coming in.

El Rio de Cuenca.

Cuenca has a real European feel to it.

Una casita....

After two weeks in Vilcabamba and many attempts to leave, we have decided to stay here. For a little while at least. Shay and I met a young woman named Christina from California who has been living here in Vilcabamba for nearly three years. She started a Community Center here and has dedicated much time, energy and a little of her own money into this community and Cultural Center. The center is located in a house which she rents out and is beginning to transform into a community center for the people of Vilcabamba. She created a newspaper in which the local youth contribute to and write articles for, she´s opening a cafeteria catering to locals (as far as prices and food goes), she hosts english classes and tutoring sessions and in general, she is doing EVERYTHING she can to promote environmental and cultural awareness. Her plate is overflowing with things she needs and wants to do and she has been nothing but grateful for the work we have offered her so far. Of all the extranjeros (foreignors), I have met in Vilcabamba, she has appeared to be the least egotistical and most community-centered. I sympathize greatly with her cause and goals and have decided to stay here and help her.

Entonces, Shay and I found a little house to live in for $120 a month, which breaks down to being about $2.50 a day for each of us. It´s located a short walk outside of the center of town and on the hill above Alonzo and Lacy Carpio´s house. They own a restaurant in town and work with an English program called World Teach. This program accepts English speakers and gives them room and board in exchange for a commitment of teaching English. They do not need any more volunteers at this point, so Christina has us in full. At our house, we have a little front porch with a fabulous view of the surrounding mountains and village, a kitchen!!, a bathroom and two separate bedrooms.

Beginning tommorrow, Shay and I are going to help Christina at the Community Center, building tables and chairs and painting them for the new cafeteria. Next week, we are going to start offering tutoring sessions with school children to help them with their homework and whatever else. I´m really excited to have a purpose here in South America. I think it will feel good to be doing something here a little less self-centered than simply travelling around. It feels really good to have una casita and a place to call our own and of course our own KITCHEN! We are quite tired of eating only at restaurants, especially in a pueblo as small as Vilcabamba.

Shay has about four more weeks until she has to fly back to the U.S., so until then, more or less, the plan is to stay here, IN OUR HOUSE! After she leaves, depending on how this experience turns out, I will either continue staying here or continue travelling. Time will tell. My camera broke in the missing backpack episode, so as of now I have no pictures to show, but I´m hoping to buy a new camera in Loja on Friday, so.....