Thursday, September 20, 2007
Back in the States
I'm back. In the United States. But I am way tired and I am starting grad school tomorrow, and I am starting a job maybe, and I am moving.... So, yeah...
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Arequipa and the Nazca Lines
Well, we made it across another border, this time no one thought we were drug traffickers or illegal immigrants. We went to the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa that is surrounded by beautiful peaks of the Andes. The weather is warmer as we are entering spring, and it is good to see the sun after the freezing cold of Bolivia and the Chilean coast.
After Arequipa, we made it to Nazca and we... flew! in a tiny little plane, over the Nazca Lines. They are shapes made in the desert by ancient people. Some people claim they were made by aliens, but that is a pretty ridiculous theory. The huge shapes form animals and humans when viewed from the air... so there are a billion tourist angencies selling 30 minute flights in tiny bouncy planes to see the lines in the desert. You have to wait in the airport because they organize the flights according to weight, so two little people like us were balanced out by two big heavy people.
Now we are on to our last adventure, climbing Cerro Blanco, supposedly the highest sand dune in the world, where we will camp, and then SANDBOARD miles down to the bottom. We are leaving in two hours.
Then it´s on to boring dreary Lima, and the long ride to Ecuador, which we should reach by the weekend. The grand adventures coming to an end...
After Arequipa, we made it to Nazca and we... flew! in a tiny little plane, over the Nazca Lines. They are shapes made in the desert by ancient people. Some people claim they were made by aliens, but that is a pretty ridiculous theory. The huge shapes form animals and humans when viewed from the air... so there are a billion tourist angencies selling 30 minute flights in tiny bouncy planes to see the lines in the desert. You have to wait in the airport because they organize the flights according to weight, so two little people like us were balanced out by two big heavy people.
Now we are on to our last adventure, climbing Cerro Blanco, supposedly the highest sand dune in the world, where we will camp, and then SANDBOARD miles down to the bottom. We are leaving in two hours.
Then it´s on to boring dreary Lima, and the long ride to Ecuador, which we should reach by the weekend. The grand adventures coming to an end...
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Salar de Uyuni and on to Chile...
Well, after the adventures of Lake Titikaka, we headed down to La Paz, the Bolivian capital. It´s an ugly place with commercial districts filled with the usual... food, cheap plastic stuff, and dessicated llama fetuses for your own homemade witchcraft.
We wasted no time and headed south on rough roads and no roads to the remote town of Uyuni where we arranged to go by Jeep through the largest salt flat in the world, the Salar de Uyuni. We had to buy hats, gloves, and jackets, because the measly clothes we had brought with us, back when the plan was Venezuela, felt like paper against the biting cold.
That region of Bolivia looks a lot like Death Valley or Nevada, except for the fact that it is FREEZING COLD! The Salar is a mystical land where all you see is white, a flat plane of white white white... like being on another planet. We even slept in a refuge made of salt with furniture made of salt. The first night we shivered in the cold, the two of us on a tiny bed huddled together trying to keep warm.
The next day we visited a chain of tiny high altitude lakes, the water frozen, and the surfaces crowded with... FLAMINGOS! Yes, flamingos! I had no idea flamingos lived at that altitude. We went to a very basic shelter at 4500 meters (meters, not feet!)... and the temperature dropped to 20 degrees below zero ... but in Celsius!!! not Fahreinheit... and I got sick and had to run to the bathroom outside four times! Talk about roughing it!
We got up early in the morning to see the sunrise above geysers that spouted boiling water hundreds of feet into the air. Crazy landscape! And we were freezing to death, despite the extra clothes we bought in Uyuni. So the hot springs close to the geysers were very welcome, soaking our cold bones in the hot water right next to ice and snow!
After passing by a frozen volcano, we reached the remote border with Chile, where we crossed, without problems!! We climbed into a bus, ready for a long bumpy ride through the high Atacama desert to the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama... but five minutes later, to our great surprise, we reached a great paved highway that took us smoothly to the town.
We are now in one of the most developed countries of Latin America. The roads, the infrastructure, and even the businesses remind me of the States... unfortunately, so do the prices! So we are resting up in a cold foggy coastal city called Iquique for two nights before rushing on back to Peru tomorrow!
We wasted no time and headed south on rough roads and no roads to the remote town of Uyuni where we arranged to go by Jeep through the largest salt flat in the world, the Salar de Uyuni. We had to buy hats, gloves, and jackets, because the measly clothes we had brought with us, back when the plan was Venezuela, felt like paper against the biting cold.
That region of Bolivia looks a lot like Death Valley or Nevada, except for the fact that it is FREEZING COLD! The Salar is a mystical land where all you see is white, a flat plane of white white white... like being on another planet. We even slept in a refuge made of salt with furniture made of salt. The first night we shivered in the cold, the two of us on a tiny bed huddled together trying to keep warm.
The next day we visited a chain of tiny high altitude lakes, the water frozen, and the surfaces crowded with... FLAMINGOS! Yes, flamingos! I had no idea flamingos lived at that altitude. We went to a very basic shelter at 4500 meters (meters, not feet!)... and the temperature dropped to 20 degrees below zero ... but in Celsius!!! not Fahreinheit... and I got sick and had to run to the bathroom outside four times! Talk about roughing it!
We got up early in the morning to see the sunrise above geysers that spouted boiling water hundreds of feet into the air. Crazy landscape! And we were freezing to death, despite the extra clothes we bought in Uyuni. So the hot springs close to the geysers were very welcome, soaking our cold bones in the hot water right next to ice and snow!
After passing by a frozen volcano, we reached the remote border with Chile, where we crossed, without problems!! We climbed into a bus, ready for a long bumpy ride through the high Atacama desert to the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama... but five minutes later, to our great surprise, we reached a great paved highway that took us smoothly to the town.
We are now in one of the most developed countries of Latin America. The roads, the infrastructure, and even the businesses remind me of the States... unfortunately, so do the prices! So we are resting up in a cold foggy coastal city called Iquique for two nights before rushing on back to Peru tomorrow!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Machu Picchu, Lake Titikaka... and we are in Bolivia
A dark night in Cuzco and we pass towering bamboo structures with effigies hanging from them... ÷The castles... the castles that they light on fire÷ Santiago proclaims excitedly. ÷When are you burning the castles÷ he asks the señora who is putting the last touches on a shaky tower. At nine, we return. The castles are pyrotechnic displays that are apparently pretty popular throughout the Andes, and I am pretty sure they would be completely illegal in the States.
The first activity of the evening, fireworks, set off.. from the ground.. from a barrel.. all of us running for cover in case it explodes into the crowd, killing people, as happens now and then. Next, the ÷Vaca Loca÷ or Crazy Cow. ÷Aggggh, the crazy cow, run for it, Elizabeth÷ Santiago screams, dragging me behind him as I look around, bewildered. Apparently, the Crazy Cow is a papier mache cow filled with fireworks. Some idiot puts the cow on his head and runs around making the people scatter, running for their lives as the cow explodes flaming fireworks and rockets into the crowd. Santiago tells me that children have lost fingers in fire castle fiestas before as they try to escape the Crazy Cow... Talk about.. fun ???
Then the castles, as they light them on fire, they explode from every side, shooting fireworks into the sky, and, when they misfire, which is about 1 in 4 times, into the crowd. People screaming and laughing and drinking hot mate. The Latin American idea of a great night in the plaza.
The next day we were off to the overpriced tourist attraction that is Machu Picchu, now proclaimed as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Incredibly expensive, full of gringos, though a lot less because a lot of Europeans and Americans fled, scared off by the earthquake, leaving the Peruvians to live in the devastation.
It was worth it. Once. Very expensive. An incredibly expensive and not very nice train ride in a train owned by a foreign company to arrive at the bottom of the montain. The first day we climbed the whole mountain, hundreds, maybe thousands of steep stone steps, to avoid paying the expensive bus. We went up to look for an illegal way in. We searched all around, but there were guards everywhere and we didnt feel like getting caught by the police and deported. We climbed back down the mountain, exhausted, and decided to cough up the dough to enter the ruins legally.
The next morning we got up at 4 am because we wanted to be in the lucky few who get to go to Wayna Picchu. Wayna Picchu is the mountain you see in the background in photos of Machu Picchu. Well, they only let in 200 people in the morning out of the thousands who want up. We arrived at the ticket window, bought our tickets, and took the bus, so exhausted from the day before we could hardly walk to the bus, much less up the mountain again. We arrived and the line was already huge! The ruins open at 6 am, we arrived at 6 05 and the line was huge!!! We entered the ruins and didnt stop for photos, running past old bewildered gringos to the far end of the ruins where another long line was forming... but... we made it! Numbers 167 and 168 of the 200. I could barely drag myself up the towering mountain but at last we arrived and found ourselves at the top of a mountain covered in ruins with an unbelievable view of Machu Picchu spread out below us.
Later in the day we climbed down and paid a local guide a few dollars to walk us through the ruins themselves. We took the overpriced train back to the town of Ollantaytambo, too tired to continue to Cuzco. The problem with Machu Picchu is that the money does not go to the local communities. It goes to foreign companies. We talked with the women who sold us empanadas in the street. She says, fortunately, in ten years the foreign companies are supposed to turn control back over to the local people. The bad thing is, gringo tourists are not conscious of anything, they dont think to question where their money is going or how they are affecting the local population. It is kinda sad how ignorant people can be.
A few days later, we found ourselves in Puno, on the edge of Lake Titikaka, the highest lake in the world. We heard something about some floating islands in the lake and decided to make our way out to some islands. The islands are called Los Uros and they are literally handmade by Aymara indigenous people so that they can live on the lake. It was used as a defense mechanism to protect them from the old Incan Empire. The islands are made of reeds, and on them our houses made of reeds, with reed furniture. The fuel is reeds and the boats are made of reeds, and the crafts are made of reeds... and the people eat... you guessed it, the roots of the reeds. Wait til you see the pictures, or Google it! It is crazy.
Afterwards we went to the Island of Amantani, a Quechua island where we stayed with a local family who was surprised when I blurted out the little Quechua I know. We talked with the señora about tourism and indigenous communities. Good discussions. The next morning to the Island of Taquile, another Quechua island where the men supposedly dress like the men on the Spanish island of Mayorca because a Mayorcan conquistador had bought the island in colonial times.
Lake Titikaka is incredibly blue and so large it looks like the sea. It is cold but beautiful.
Yesterday, after more problems at the border where the police suspected Santiago was an Ecuadorian drug trafficker and the immigration said his passport was fake (all this as twenty gringos passed by without any hassle or problems)... we entered Bolivia, and made it to the small town of Copacobana. We were supposed to go to the Isla del Sol, or Island of the Sun, today, still on Lake Titikaka, but we woke up to a torrential downpour, snow on the hills, and Santiago with a horrible cold, so we are waiting til this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Afterwards, La Paz and the Uyuni Salt Licks!
The first activity of the evening, fireworks, set off.. from the ground.. from a barrel.. all of us running for cover in case it explodes into the crowd, killing people, as happens now and then. Next, the ÷Vaca Loca÷ or Crazy Cow. ÷Aggggh, the crazy cow, run for it, Elizabeth÷ Santiago screams, dragging me behind him as I look around, bewildered. Apparently, the Crazy Cow is a papier mache cow filled with fireworks. Some idiot puts the cow on his head and runs around making the people scatter, running for their lives as the cow explodes flaming fireworks and rockets into the crowd. Santiago tells me that children have lost fingers in fire castle fiestas before as they try to escape the Crazy Cow... Talk about.. fun ???
Then the castles, as they light them on fire, they explode from every side, shooting fireworks into the sky, and, when they misfire, which is about 1 in 4 times, into the crowd. People screaming and laughing and drinking hot mate. The Latin American idea of a great night in the plaza.
The next day we were off to the overpriced tourist attraction that is Machu Picchu, now proclaimed as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Incredibly expensive, full of gringos, though a lot less because a lot of Europeans and Americans fled, scared off by the earthquake, leaving the Peruvians to live in the devastation.
It was worth it. Once. Very expensive. An incredibly expensive and not very nice train ride in a train owned by a foreign company to arrive at the bottom of the montain. The first day we climbed the whole mountain, hundreds, maybe thousands of steep stone steps, to avoid paying the expensive bus. We went up to look for an illegal way in. We searched all around, but there were guards everywhere and we didnt feel like getting caught by the police and deported. We climbed back down the mountain, exhausted, and decided to cough up the dough to enter the ruins legally.
The next morning we got up at 4 am because we wanted to be in the lucky few who get to go to Wayna Picchu. Wayna Picchu is the mountain you see in the background in photos of Machu Picchu. Well, they only let in 200 people in the morning out of the thousands who want up. We arrived at the ticket window, bought our tickets, and took the bus, so exhausted from the day before we could hardly walk to the bus, much less up the mountain again. We arrived and the line was already huge! The ruins open at 6 am, we arrived at 6 05 and the line was huge!!! We entered the ruins and didnt stop for photos, running past old bewildered gringos to the far end of the ruins where another long line was forming... but... we made it! Numbers 167 and 168 of the 200. I could barely drag myself up the towering mountain but at last we arrived and found ourselves at the top of a mountain covered in ruins with an unbelievable view of Machu Picchu spread out below us.
Later in the day we climbed down and paid a local guide a few dollars to walk us through the ruins themselves. We took the overpriced train back to the town of Ollantaytambo, too tired to continue to Cuzco. The problem with Machu Picchu is that the money does not go to the local communities. It goes to foreign companies. We talked with the women who sold us empanadas in the street. She says, fortunately, in ten years the foreign companies are supposed to turn control back over to the local people. The bad thing is, gringo tourists are not conscious of anything, they dont think to question where their money is going or how they are affecting the local population. It is kinda sad how ignorant people can be.
A few days later, we found ourselves in Puno, on the edge of Lake Titikaka, the highest lake in the world. We heard something about some floating islands in the lake and decided to make our way out to some islands. The islands are called Los Uros and they are literally handmade by Aymara indigenous people so that they can live on the lake. It was used as a defense mechanism to protect them from the old Incan Empire. The islands are made of reeds, and on them our houses made of reeds, with reed furniture. The fuel is reeds and the boats are made of reeds, and the crafts are made of reeds... and the people eat... you guessed it, the roots of the reeds. Wait til you see the pictures, or Google it! It is crazy.
Afterwards we went to the Island of Amantani, a Quechua island where we stayed with a local family who was surprised when I blurted out the little Quechua I know. We talked with the señora about tourism and indigenous communities. Good discussions. The next morning to the Island of Taquile, another Quechua island where the men supposedly dress like the men on the Spanish island of Mayorca because a Mayorcan conquistador had bought the island in colonial times.
Lake Titikaka is incredibly blue and so large it looks like the sea. It is cold but beautiful.
Yesterday, after more problems at the border where the police suspected Santiago was an Ecuadorian drug trafficker and the immigration said his passport was fake (all this as twenty gringos passed by without any hassle or problems)... we entered Bolivia, and made it to the small town of Copacobana. We were supposed to go to the Isla del Sol, or Island of the Sun, today, still on Lake Titikaka, but we woke up to a torrential downpour, snow on the hills, and Santiago with a horrible cold, so we are waiting til this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Afterwards, La Paz and the Uyuni Salt Licks!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Earthquake! Bacterial infections ;( and Cuzco...
I thought I must be really really dizzy. I mean, I was pretty sick, but I could have sworn the room was shaking. I am opened my eyes and sat up. Santiago said ¨Elizabeth, we gotta get out of here¨ I followed him, confused, to the staircase. We were on the fourth floor of the hotel in Lima where we had arrived a few hours before, me barely able to stand with a horrible bacterial infection.
We reached the staircase and as we raced down it the building swayed back and forth knocking us around like pinballs down the stairs and out on to the street. As we ran out into the dark road and the earth moved like an ocean wave under my feet, I finally understood.
Earthquake. Strong earthquake. Santiago dragged me into the middle of the intersection far from the electricity poles. Women screaming and babies crying.
Two interminably long minutes later the earth stood still, but it wasnt over. For the next few days strong aftershocks shook the building and sent us running down to the street, me sometimes wrapped in a blanket and fighting a fever.
With no other options in Bogota, we decided to make a dash across Ecuador and travel south into Peru. We travelled four days straight without stopping and along the way I picked up a horrible illness that landed us in the hotel in Lima for five days after the earthquake. I didnt leave bed except to call my family and tell them, to their surprise, I was in Peru and not Colombia as all had thought.
Well, finally, two days ago, I was strong enough to leave Lima, and we headed south to Cuzco. In the night we passed Ica and Pisco, where the epicenter was and where hundreds of men, women, and children perished. The second floor of houses were on the ground. The poorest neighborhoods were the hardest hit due to the poor construction of their adobe houses. It looked like a war zone. Twisted remains of furniture in squashed apartment buildings. Children sleeping on the ground with a thin blanket in the cold. Fires in tires to ward off looters. Apocalyptic. Passing through in the bus, like seeing it on the news, except so much more real.
Now we are in Cuzco, off to Machu Picchu, accompanied by our constant complaint about ignorant gringo tourists. There are no tourists in Colombia. Southern Peru, on the other hand, wow.
Well, I am safe and sound and relatively pretty healthy now.
We reached the staircase and as we raced down it the building swayed back and forth knocking us around like pinballs down the stairs and out on to the street. As we ran out into the dark road and the earth moved like an ocean wave under my feet, I finally understood.
Earthquake. Strong earthquake. Santiago dragged me into the middle of the intersection far from the electricity poles. Women screaming and babies crying.
Two interminably long minutes later the earth stood still, but it wasnt over. For the next few days strong aftershocks shook the building and sent us running down to the street, me sometimes wrapped in a blanket and fighting a fever.
With no other options in Bogota, we decided to make a dash across Ecuador and travel south into Peru. We travelled four days straight without stopping and along the way I picked up a horrible illness that landed us in the hotel in Lima for five days after the earthquake. I didnt leave bed except to call my family and tell them, to their surprise, I was in Peru and not Colombia as all had thought.
Well, finally, two days ago, I was strong enough to leave Lima, and we headed south to Cuzco. In the night we passed Ica and Pisco, where the epicenter was and where hundreds of men, women, and children perished. The second floor of houses were on the ground. The poorest neighborhoods were the hardest hit due to the poor construction of their adobe houses. It looked like a war zone. Twisted remains of furniture in squashed apartment buildings. Children sleeping on the ground with a thin blanket in the cold. Fires in tires to ward off looters. Apocalyptic. Passing through in the bus, like seeing it on the news, except so much more real.
Now we are in Cuzco, off to Machu Picchu, accompanied by our constant complaint about ignorant gringo tourists. There are no tourists in Colombia. Southern Peru, on the other hand, wow.
Well, I am safe and sound and relatively pretty healthy now.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Stuck in Colombia
So we thought we were going to Venezuela on Saturday. We thought...
And before leaving Ecuador I got information from the Venezuelan embassy in the United States that said Ecuadorians and Americans dont need visas to enter the country. So Santiago and I arrive, after paying a car to take us all the way to Maracaibo, a city in Venezuela. We stop to get our border stamps. And... Santiago cant enter Venezuela...
´´But we checked in the embassy and it said Ecuadorians dont need visas...´´
´´Yes, if they arrive by air´´
What the freakin arggh??? It never said that ANYWHERE. Then the officials were all wanting me to hand over my passport, get my stamp, and enter the country, and I am like ´´No way, you think I will just leave my friend here??´´ So I got pretty pissed off, and the border guy was incredibly rude and Santiago said ´´well, what can i do´´ and the big bully was like ´´enter by plane´´ and basically threw his Ecuadorian passport back at us. Stupid ugly border pigs.
So we cant enter Ecuador, because of me. And we cant enter Venezuela because of him. We are stuck in Colombia. We went to a consulate in Riohacha and they wouldnt help us get Santi a visa... So we have spent the pass two days on a smelly bus travelling up into the mountains to Bogotá. Tomorrow we are searching for the Venezuelan embassy to see if he can get a tourist visa. And if he cant we have more problems... because he only has the permission to enter Colombia for thirty days, whereas they gave me 60 because I have an American passport.
So I havent been communicating because weve been in consulates and borders and stinky buses fighting for a way not to split up while not being illegal in any country. And of course traveling to my country is out of the question because how the heck is an Ecuadorian going to enter the U.S. legally and quickly???
To sum up, BORDERS FREAKIN SUCK HARDCORE... I AM INCREDIBLY ANGRY AT WHOEVER INVENTED IMMIGRATION RULES AND BARRIERS SO THAT PEOPLE CANT JUST BE TOGETHER WITH THEIR FRIENDS OR FAMILIES ... and anybody in the States that argues stupid things about Latinos and immigration can freaking shut the heck up in front of me because I know what these immigration rules and laws and borders do to people... what borders are making me go through right now... and its upsetting, incredibly upsetting
And before leaving Ecuador I got information from the Venezuelan embassy in the United States that said Ecuadorians and Americans dont need visas to enter the country. So Santiago and I arrive, after paying a car to take us all the way to Maracaibo, a city in Venezuela. We stop to get our border stamps. And... Santiago cant enter Venezuela...
´´But we checked in the embassy and it said Ecuadorians dont need visas...´´
´´Yes, if they arrive by air´´
What the freakin arggh??? It never said that ANYWHERE. Then the officials were all wanting me to hand over my passport, get my stamp, and enter the country, and I am like ´´No way, you think I will just leave my friend here??´´ So I got pretty pissed off, and the border guy was incredibly rude and Santiago said ´´well, what can i do´´ and the big bully was like ´´enter by plane´´ and basically threw his Ecuadorian passport back at us. Stupid ugly border pigs.
So we cant enter Ecuador, because of me. And we cant enter Venezuela because of him. We are stuck in Colombia. We went to a consulate in Riohacha and they wouldnt help us get Santi a visa... So we have spent the pass two days on a smelly bus travelling up into the mountains to Bogotá. Tomorrow we are searching for the Venezuelan embassy to see if he can get a tourist visa. And if he cant we have more problems... because he only has the permission to enter Colombia for thirty days, whereas they gave me 60 because I have an American passport.
So I havent been communicating because weve been in consulates and borders and stinky buses fighting for a way not to split up while not being illegal in any country. And of course traveling to my country is out of the question because how the heck is an Ecuadorian going to enter the U.S. legally and quickly???
To sum up, BORDERS FREAKIN SUCK HARDCORE... I AM INCREDIBLY ANGRY AT WHOEVER INVENTED IMMIGRATION RULES AND BARRIERS SO THAT PEOPLE CANT JUST BE TOGETHER WITH THEIR FRIENDS OR FAMILIES ... and anybody in the States that argues stupid things about Latinos and immigration can freaking shut the heck up in front of me because I know what these immigration rules and laws and borders do to people... what borders are making me go through right now... and its upsetting, incredibly upsetting
Friday, August 03, 2007
Dispatch from the Colombian coast
So, yes, I am on the Carribbean coast of Colombia right now and it is hot and sticky, but we finally found an internet cafe with good fans and a place to write you all since I´ve heard you´ve been worried.
At the Ecuadorian-Colombian border, I went to get my exit stamp and the officials say to me, ¨Um, you didn´t enter Ecuador¨ What??? Apparently, even though I had the entry stamp in my passport it was never entered into the national computer system, so officially I didnt exist in Ecuador. This caused a pile of problems because since I never officially entered, I couldnt legally leave. But I couldnt stay in Ecuador either because of the aforementioned 6 month limitation thing. So it was illegal for me to stay and illegal for me to leave. I asked them over and over again what to do and they just shrugged their shoulders and motioned for the people in the line behind me to approach. Ecuadorian officials are incompetent beepity beep beeps (CENSORED).
I was on the point of tears and our only thoughts were to go to Quito and try to get me legalized. So finally we got a number for the Quito airport and a police woman there said that she would legalize me the next day but that I should go ahead and leave the country and not take the 7 hour bus back to Quito. So I went and told the officials that. But no one would give me a legal exit because everyone wanted to pass me off on to someone else. So we called the police in Quito again. And they said that the border control could call them. We told the border patrol to call the Quito police but they refused to. Why? Because they were simply lazy pigs that didnt want to get off their fat butts and call. So we called Quito again, and the police there called a corporal and the corporal called the border patrol, and we saw them get the orders to give me the exit stamp but they still wouldnt. Then we demanded the exit several times, and finally, 7 hours in to this ordeal, I left Ecuador, hopefully legally.
We walked across the bridge to Colombia to get our entry stamps and a line was forming. Ten minutes before the electricity went out. So there was no computers to do the entry procedures. After hours of waiting, they decided to take our names nationalities and passport numbers on little slips of paper, supposedly to be entered in the computers whenever the electricity came. So we will see when we try to leave Colombia. Maybe there will be no record of me here either.
We travelled first to Cali and later to Medellin. The buses are incredibly expensive and very different from Ecuador. They say that in Ecuador the buses are so cheap because they have so much gas in the country. Here, on the other hand, gas is more expensive and transportation is killing us. We travel by bus at night to not pay for hotels, and we have finally arrive in Santa Marta on the coast.
Well, that is the very fast summary of our Colombian adventures, but we are already about to go to Venezuela, perhaps even tomorrow, I will let you know how I am doing.
At the Ecuadorian-Colombian border, I went to get my exit stamp and the officials say to me, ¨Um, you didn´t enter Ecuador¨ What??? Apparently, even though I had the entry stamp in my passport it was never entered into the national computer system, so officially I didnt exist in Ecuador. This caused a pile of problems because since I never officially entered, I couldnt legally leave. But I couldnt stay in Ecuador either because of the aforementioned 6 month limitation thing. So it was illegal for me to stay and illegal for me to leave. I asked them over and over again what to do and they just shrugged their shoulders and motioned for the people in the line behind me to approach. Ecuadorian officials are incompetent beepity beep beeps (CENSORED).
I was on the point of tears and our only thoughts were to go to Quito and try to get me legalized. So finally we got a number for the Quito airport and a police woman there said that she would legalize me the next day but that I should go ahead and leave the country and not take the 7 hour bus back to Quito. So I went and told the officials that. But no one would give me a legal exit because everyone wanted to pass me off on to someone else. So we called the police in Quito again. And they said that the border control could call them. We told the border patrol to call the Quito police but they refused to. Why? Because they were simply lazy pigs that didnt want to get off their fat butts and call. So we called Quito again, and the police there called a corporal and the corporal called the border patrol, and we saw them get the orders to give me the exit stamp but they still wouldnt. Then we demanded the exit several times, and finally, 7 hours in to this ordeal, I left Ecuador, hopefully legally.
We walked across the bridge to Colombia to get our entry stamps and a line was forming. Ten minutes before the electricity went out. So there was no computers to do the entry procedures. After hours of waiting, they decided to take our names nationalities and passport numbers on little slips of paper, supposedly to be entered in the computers whenever the electricity came. So we will see when we try to leave Colombia. Maybe there will be no record of me here either.
We travelled first to Cali and later to Medellin. The buses are incredibly expensive and very different from Ecuador. They say that in Ecuador the buses are so cheap because they have so much gas in the country. Here, on the other hand, gas is more expensive and transportation is killing us. We travel by bus at night to not pay for hotels, and we have finally arrive in Santa Marta on the coast.
Well, that is the very fast summary of our Colombian adventures, but we are already about to go to Venezuela, perhaps even tomorrow, I will let you know how I am doing.
Friday, July 27, 2007
On the road again...
So I got back to the school after the bug attack incident and the days of fever, and I said my goodbyes in Salasaca. But I will go back there in September to tie up some loose ends and say my real goodbyes.
Thanks Robert! You have made my time in Salasaca amazing and have introduced me to a whole community of friends!
Now, it is time to go before the evil immigration charges me lots of money I don´t have. And it looks like it´s going to be Venezuela, first going through Colombia. Caribbean beaches, here I come!!! That will be luxurious after being in the Andean winter! I´ll try not to walk into any cocaine-producing plantations on my way to Venezuela, but they are pretty widespread... Don´t worry, though. Good Spanish, good sense, and a good friend will keep me, relatively, safe!
Mom, I´ll give Santiago contact information, good idea.
Next dispatch from Colombia!
Thanks Robert! You have made my time in Salasaca amazing and have introduced me to a whole community of friends!
Now, it is time to go before the evil immigration charges me lots of money I don´t have. And it looks like it´s going to be Venezuela, first going through Colombia. Caribbean beaches, here I come!!! That will be luxurious after being in the Andean winter! I´ll try not to walk into any cocaine-producing plantations on my way to Venezuela, but they are pretty widespread... Don´t worry, though. Good Spanish, good sense, and a good friend will keep me, relatively, safe!
Mom, I´ll give Santiago contact information, good idea.
Next dispatch from Colombia!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Attack of the killer ... whatever-they-weres
So this weekend we decided to have a nice relaxing time going fishing out in the forest with some friends. While there, I got bitten by something that I didnt really see over 100 times. We realized when I got back to Baños because my back swelled up with countless insect bites as well as many other places of my body, including some places where I dont know how the bugs got there. Well, some of the insects in Ecuador arent your garden variety bugs and these turned out particularly nasty.
In the middle of Sunday night I woke with a raging fever that reached hallucinatory heights. Groaning, tossing and turning. Over the next two days, Santiago hovered over me with cold rags, trying to bring down the fever and pounding headaches. Every part of my body was on fire and the pain was everywhere. I could hardly leave the bed or eat. One time walking to the bathroom I just fell over because of the vertigo. Luckily I fell on the mattress instead of down the nearby staircase. I didnt make it out the door, much less to Salasaca to teach, which made me feel endlessly guilty. I think I actually tried to convince Santiago to drag me to the bus station a few times, but I really dont remember much.
I woke this morning and the fever broke. But I had no energy from not eating much and from sweating with an insect-induced fever for two days. The swelling around all the bites has gone way down, and I think I am about to be better. I gotta get to school tomorrow. I wanted to go this morning, but my body screamed NOOOOOO, NOT YET. So I am taking it easy so that I can go to Salasaca to say my goodbyes...
Damn bugs!!!
In the middle of Sunday night I woke with a raging fever that reached hallucinatory heights. Groaning, tossing and turning. Over the next two days, Santiago hovered over me with cold rags, trying to bring down the fever and pounding headaches. Every part of my body was on fire and the pain was everywhere. I could hardly leave the bed or eat. One time walking to the bathroom I just fell over because of the vertigo. Luckily I fell on the mattress instead of down the nearby staircase. I didnt make it out the door, much less to Salasaca to teach, which made me feel endlessly guilty. I think I actually tried to convince Santiago to drag me to the bus station a few times, but I really dont remember much.
I woke this morning and the fever broke. But I had no energy from not eating much and from sweating with an insect-induced fever for two days. The swelling around all the bites has gone way down, and I think I am about to be better. I gotta get to school tomorrow. I wanted to go this morning, but my body screamed NOOOOOO, NOT YET. So I am taking it easy so that I can go to Salasaca to say my goodbyes...
Damn bugs!!!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
What to say?
I dont know what to say, but I havent been very good at updating. Next week, I am heading off to God knows where. I am sad to leave my friends here in Ecuador, but happy to be traveling. And, um, lots of stuff is happening but it involves grants and scholarships and boring financial things so I wont get into it, but I am trying to help arrange my return to Ecuador to work on a traditional health center.
We´ll see what happens...
We´ll see what happens...
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
I havent been to the Internet so...
The entry below was from a week ago, but I havent been to the Internet in forever.
Update: Some Irishmen and a Canadian moved into my house. Baños is still depressing although the road is no longer pure landslides. Argentina is freezing to death in the coldest winter in 89 years so I am re-thinking my travel plans. And, only two weeks left in Ecuador for now!
Wow...
Update: Some Irishmen and a Canadian moved into my house. Baños is still depressing although the road is no longer pure landslides. Argentina is freezing to death in the coldest winter in 89 years so I am re-thinking my travel plans. And, only two weeks left in Ecuador for now!
Wow...
Alternative bilingual school
A week ago, I went to the Escuela Fray Bartolome in the town center. This is the largest school in Salasaca, where there are hundreds of students, real classrooms, a load of teachers, uniforms, and all the typical stuff. The front of the school says “Foundation for the Ecuadorian Indians, Switzerland” so I guess maybe it was built by Swiss people or something. Most students in Salasaca attend this school.
My school, Katitawa, is an alternative school that receives no government funding. We only have one paid teacher who teaches all grades. The school is bilingual and instruction is in Kichwa and Spanish. We also have a strong focus on environmental education and the students learn as much about traditional medical plants as they do about math. We have 30 students in the whole school. I think we are kind of like Montessori schools in the US, in that we don’t have structured classes. Students learn what they want, when they want, and we are there to guide them, not to lecture.
I was invited by Padre Carmelo, the priest who is the director of Fray Bartoleme, to come to the graduation ceremony at his school to invite the whole town to take English and biology lessons during the vacation months. I was impressed at how different their school is compared to ours. It feels almost like jail, with dark classrooms with barred windows and a concrete playground. The students lined up to do their physical education, like jumping jacks and other boring stuff. At Katitawa, our physical education is growing the plants outside and hiking the miles to and from school, not jumping jacks. There is no concrete at Katitawa.
Two weeks ago in Katitawa, we celebrated Inti Raymi, the sun festival, and had our final presentation. We had invited the Fray Bartoleme School to come observe. Their students lined up in their uniforms watched in awe as our students, clad in ponchos, bayetas, and anakus, showed off the fields of medicinal plants and the lamb meat hanging from the volleyball net. Later, we cooked a whole lamb in the hole filled with volcanic rocks that the men had dug. We danced around it as a friend’s band played traditional highland music. That was our ceremony.
Tuesday, in Fray Bartolome, the teachers wore suits and the students formed lines. So different from Katitawa. The funniest part of the day was when it was my turn to announce the vacation classes. They were using a microphone to talk to hundreds of students and their families. Padre Carmelo handed the microphone over to me, and once it started working, I began to talk.
AND IT WAS WEIRD!!! I mean, obviously, I’ve heard myself speak Spanish. But it’s one thing to speak Spanish to your friends and students and quite another thing to hear that Spanish broadcasted back to you from several loudspeakers in the school and even across the whole town. You know how it’s weird to hear yourself in home videos and stuff, now imagine that, except shouted across a village, amplified, and in another language. And I have an Ecuadorian accent. It was like an Ecuadorian woman had stolen my voice and was making town announcements. I could hardly concentrate I was so distracted by my voice booming out fluent Spanish, which turned not so fluent once I heard myself chattering away from every direction. The women looked up from spinning their wool, and I just thought how strange the whole situation was. The small Kichwa women sitting on the concrete spinning their wool, listening to the voice of a tall white foreigner booming across the village, all of us listening and talking in our second language, Spanish.
Maybe Ashli has some comments… Ashli, perhaps you’ve spoken Russian via microphone to hundreds of people? Was it weird for you?
My school, Katitawa, is an alternative school that receives no government funding. We only have one paid teacher who teaches all grades. The school is bilingual and instruction is in Kichwa and Spanish. We also have a strong focus on environmental education and the students learn as much about traditional medical plants as they do about math. We have 30 students in the whole school. I think we are kind of like Montessori schools in the US, in that we don’t have structured classes. Students learn what they want, when they want, and we are there to guide them, not to lecture.
I was invited by Padre Carmelo, the priest who is the director of Fray Bartoleme, to come to the graduation ceremony at his school to invite the whole town to take English and biology lessons during the vacation months. I was impressed at how different their school is compared to ours. It feels almost like jail, with dark classrooms with barred windows and a concrete playground. The students lined up to do their physical education, like jumping jacks and other boring stuff. At Katitawa, our physical education is growing the plants outside and hiking the miles to and from school, not jumping jacks. There is no concrete at Katitawa.
Two weeks ago in Katitawa, we celebrated Inti Raymi, the sun festival, and had our final presentation. We had invited the Fray Bartoleme School to come observe. Their students lined up in their uniforms watched in awe as our students, clad in ponchos, bayetas, and anakus, showed off the fields of medicinal plants and the lamb meat hanging from the volleyball net. Later, we cooked a whole lamb in the hole filled with volcanic rocks that the men had dug. We danced around it as a friend’s band played traditional highland music. That was our ceremony.
Tuesday, in Fray Bartolome, the teachers wore suits and the students formed lines. So different from Katitawa. The funniest part of the day was when it was my turn to announce the vacation classes. They were using a microphone to talk to hundreds of students and their families. Padre Carmelo handed the microphone over to me, and once it started working, I began to talk.
AND IT WAS WEIRD!!! I mean, obviously, I’ve heard myself speak Spanish. But it’s one thing to speak Spanish to your friends and students and quite another thing to hear that Spanish broadcasted back to you from several loudspeakers in the school and even across the whole town. You know how it’s weird to hear yourself in home videos and stuff, now imagine that, except shouted across a village, amplified, and in another language. And I have an Ecuadorian accent. It was like an Ecuadorian woman had stolen my voice and was making town announcements. I could hardly concentrate I was so distracted by my voice booming out fluent Spanish, which turned not so fluent once I heard myself chattering away from every direction. The women looked up from spinning their wool, and I just thought how strange the whole situation was. The small Kichwa women sitting on the concrete spinning their wool, listening to the voice of a tall white foreigner booming across the village, all of us listening and talking in our second language, Spanish.
Maybe Ashli has some comments… Ashli, perhaps you’ve spoken Russian via microphone to hundreds of people? Was it weird for you?
Monday, July 02, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Landslides and the Great Depression of Baños
We reached a dead end. A cliff of mud after climbing in the dark over hundreds of feet of falling volcanic debris, which continued to roll treacherously around us. I felt the rocks and dirt start sliding out from under my feet. The university student from Riobamba and his aunt sliding next to me, as we flew down the landslide in the cover of night, when the police would not be there, the headlamp bouncing uncontrollably as we caused an avalanche of mud to fall down hundreds of feet with us.
In my province, Tungurahua, a state of emergency has been called. The worst rains in 45 years have devastated the countryside and absolutely destroyed the infrastructure. Thursday, the road between Salasaca and Baños simply crashed into the swollen flooded river hundreds of feet below. I managed to edge around the side of the mess and walk several hours on the route to Baños on Friday. Then they closed the way, even to walkers. There is absolutely no way to get in or out of Baños. The town is running low on supplies. I was stuck in Baños. Sunday, I tried to leave Baños to make it to Inti Raymi, the Incan sun festival, in Salasaca. After walking a few hours through flooded roads that buses could not drive through, I reached the largest landslide, the disaster area.
Machines like grotesque animals pushed dirt around hundreds of feet above us. A sheer cliff of dirt obscured the tiny path that I had used a mere two days before. The machines triggered more landslides, the mountain slipping into the river, trapping everyone in Baños. The police arrived and told us to go back to Baños. The freezing rain lashed our tired bodies, and the people around me decided if the could not leave, neither could the police. They surrounded the police car, banging on the windows and the hood, out of desperation, after hours of walking in the cold, the wind, the mud. Back to Baños, I thought resolutely. Through the sheets of rain I walked, returning to Baños, no way home. My bones so cold I thought my soul was shivering when a man on a motorcycle stopped abruptly, the only vehicle that I had seen all day. ´´To Baños? Two dollars.´´ A ridiculous price. But my frozen fingers unglued to dig out the money. Accepting helmetless motorcycle rides from reckless Ecuadorian strangers on Ecuadorian roads in the rain. Usually a bad idea. But the freezing rain changes your persepective.
Monday, the news comes on the family television. No leaving Baños for 8 days. But I had to get back to the school. For my students. Thus I found myself sneaking over a crumbling landslide in the night with two other reckless fools. No need to reprimand me, Mom, Mamaw, I know what you are going to say already.
Baños is dying. No way in means no way in for tourists. In a town where everyone works for the tourist dollar, I felt like I was in a ghost town, or in the great depression. The tourists already have not come for months because of the horrid weather. But now there are none. Zero. Everyone owns a tour agency, or a craft store, or an internet cafe. And the few who dont work directly in tourism are suffering because no one has money to go to the hardware store, for example. And, as I have noted before, no one has any saving.
He shows up at Santiago´s store to lament one thing or another, a friend. His jacket has a small hole in it. ´´What happened there?´´ we ask. ´´That was breakfast,´´ he laughed bitterly. ´´No money for food, so I am eating my jacket. I think I´ll have the hood for lunch.´´
And it is only going to get worse, I fear.
In my province, Tungurahua, a state of emergency has been called. The worst rains in 45 years have devastated the countryside and absolutely destroyed the infrastructure. Thursday, the road between Salasaca and Baños simply crashed into the swollen flooded river hundreds of feet below. I managed to edge around the side of the mess and walk several hours on the route to Baños on Friday. Then they closed the way, even to walkers. There is absolutely no way to get in or out of Baños. The town is running low on supplies. I was stuck in Baños. Sunday, I tried to leave Baños to make it to Inti Raymi, the Incan sun festival, in Salasaca. After walking a few hours through flooded roads that buses could not drive through, I reached the largest landslide, the disaster area.
Machines like grotesque animals pushed dirt around hundreds of feet above us. A sheer cliff of dirt obscured the tiny path that I had used a mere two days before. The machines triggered more landslides, the mountain slipping into the river, trapping everyone in Baños. The police arrived and told us to go back to Baños. The freezing rain lashed our tired bodies, and the people around me decided if the could not leave, neither could the police. They surrounded the police car, banging on the windows and the hood, out of desperation, after hours of walking in the cold, the wind, the mud. Back to Baños, I thought resolutely. Through the sheets of rain I walked, returning to Baños, no way home. My bones so cold I thought my soul was shivering when a man on a motorcycle stopped abruptly, the only vehicle that I had seen all day. ´´To Baños? Two dollars.´´ A ridiculous price. But my frozen fingers unglued to dig out the money. Accepting helmetless motorcycle rides from reckless Ecuadorian strangers on Ecuadorian roads in the rain. Usually a bad idea. But the freezing rain changes your persepective.
Monday, the news comes on the family television. No leaving Baños for 8 days. But I had to get back to the school. For my students. Thus I found myself sneaking over a crumbling landslide in the night with two other reckless fools. No need to reprimand me, Mom, Mamaw, I know what you are going to say already.
Baños is dying. No way in means no way in for tourists. In a town where everyone works for the tourist dollar, I felt like I was in a ghost town, or in the great depression. The tourists already have not come for months because of the horrid weather. But now there are none. Zero. Everyone owns a tour agency, or a craft store, or an internet cafe. And the few who dont work directly in tourism are suffering because no one has money to go to the hardware store, for example. And, as I have noted before, no one has any saving.
He shows up at Santiago´s store to lament one thing or another, a friend. His jacket has a small hole in it. ´´What happened there?´´ we ask. ´´That was breakfast,´´ he laughed bitterly. ´´No money for food, so I am eating my jacket. I think I´ll have the hood for lunch.´´
And it is only going to get worse, I fear.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Current mood: accepting what makes me happy
This is a bit of boring introspection perhaps, but here goes...
I love my life right now. I am genuinely happy! I think I am coming to terms that I am not meant to live a life like everyone else. Being in my mid-20s (yikes!) has brought with it the general soul-searching purpose-of-my-life seeking that is to be expected. My friends have gotten married, gone to med school or law school, even had children! Which is great. And I thought that I needed to get a move on. Everyone else seems to be starting great careers and families. But I am slowly realizing that I am too restless and adventure-seeking for that kind of life right now.
Santiago says to me that we are young, that we can work hard, that we will always find away to survive while fearlessly following our hearts wherever in the world we feel like going. Living in a country where no one has health insurance or 401ks makes you re-think your priorities. Yes, I have saved approximately zero dollars for my retirement so far. But maybe I won´t live until then. And that doesn´t make me sad. It emboldens me to live now, to live every day. And why do people need a 401k? So they can retire from a job they hate, that has consumed their lives, so they can spend a few years in their old age enjoying themselves. But if we live our whole lives without seeing the inside of an office, without settling for lukewarm satisfaction, what do we need to retire from?
Yes, I know one day, especially if I have a family, I will want some security, some guarantee that when I am 70 and need a heart surgery, I will not go bankrupt. Some day, perhaps I might even settle down. But that day is not today. Nor is it this year, nor perhaps this decade.
With 2000 dollars, I can buy a plane ticket and live in some Latin American countries for 6 months. And what is wrong with working for 6 months in the United States, saving 2000 dollars, and living in another country the rest of the year? What is wrong with that if that is what makes me feel alive? I don´t know what I will do next year. I don´t know what I will do with my life. But that doesn´t scare me right now. Instead, I am excited about the endless opportunities.
I am very alive!
Anyone want to throw up from the cheesiness? Haha. But it´s true. And I wanted to share my happiness. Very happy, though I do wish it would stop raining.
I love my life right now. I am genuinely happy! I think I am coming to terms that I am not meant to live a life like everyone else. Being in my mid-20s (yikes!) has brought with it the general soul-searching purpose-of-my-life seeking that is to be expected. My friends have gotten married, gone to med school or law school, even had children! Which is great. And I thought that I needed to get a move on. Everyone else seems to be starting great careers and families. But I am slowly realizing that I am too restless and adventure-seeking for that kind of life right now.
Santiago says to me that we are young, that we can work hard, that we will always find away to survive while fearlessly following our hearts wherever in the world we feel like going. Living in a country where no one has health insurance or 401ks makes you re-think your priorities. Yes, I have saved approximately zero dollars for my retirement so far. But maybe I won´t live until then. And that doesn´t make me sad. It emboldens me to live now, to live every day. And why do people need a 401k? So they can retire from a job they hate, that has consumed their lives, so they can spend a few years in their old age enjoying themselves. But if we live our whole lives without seeing the inside of an office, without settling for lukewarm satisfaction, what do we need to retire from?
Yes, I know one day, especially if I have a family, I will want some security, some guarantee that when I am 70 and need a heart surgery, I will not go bankrupt. Some day, perhaps I might even settle down. But that day is not today. Nor is it this year, nor perhaps this decade.
With 2000 dollars, I can buy a plane ticket and live in some Latin American countries for 6 months. And what is wrong with working for 6 months in the United States, saving 2000 dollars, and living in another country the rest of the year? What is wrong with that if that is what makes me feel alive? I don´t know what I will do next year. I don´t know what I will do with my life. But that doesn´t scare me right now. Instead, I am excited about the endless opportunities.
I am very alive!
Anyone want to throw up from the cheesiness? Haha. But it´s true. And I wanted to share my happiness. Very happy, though I do wish it would stop raining.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Visa problems and a consequent trip to the beach
Thursday I woke up at 5 am in order to catch the bus to Quito to go to the Migration office. At around 9 they opened, and I waited and waited and waited. Finally, they got to me. I told them about how the consulate in San Francisco had wrongly told me that I didnt need a visa, and they listened, and after awhile they said ´´no problem, heres all the papers to apply for a volunteer visa.´´ I was hugely relieved, gave my friend Santiago the thumbs up and went to sit down. ´´But let´s look over the requirements, first, in case I have any questions,´´ I said. He agreed. I had a lot of questions. I kinda skipped over the part that said ´´copy of previous visa.´´
So I got back in line, waited another hour, and finally got to the window. After all my questions, I said ´´oh, and I dont have a previous visa.´´ You dont have a previous 12-VII visa?? Oh, we only do renewals from within the country. You cant get a visa here. Oh, and you are only here for four months? The minimum for a volunteer visa is six consecutive months... And no one thought to mention any of that to me BEFORE! Good thing I asked a ton of questions. SO INCOMPETENT! Well then, we cant help you. They didnt care that I had a letter from the school. Nothing. I begged and pleaded, and finally, they gave me information on a 12-X visa, which doesnt look like it will apply for me either, because the maximum is 6 months in one year, and I will have been here already for that amount of time. So they told me the only thing to do is come back 4 days... 4 DAYS! ... before my passport stamp expires with a letter begging the director of Migration Affairs himself to let me stay until my flight leaves. And if they refuse, I will have three days to get out of the country for 7 weeks! So August 4th I will know whether I am leaving August 5th for Bolivia or if I am teaching in August and September. Arrrrgh! I am writing appeals to the San Francisco consulate, too, hoping they might feel bad because this is their fault, but Ive never received an email reply from them in the past so I am not too hopeful.
On the Quito street I screamed ´´NO QUIERO GENERALIZAR, PERO TODOS LOS OFICIALES EN TU PAIS SON COMPLETAMENTE INCOMPETENTES (I dont want to generalize, but all of the officials of your country are completely incompetent),´´ to Santiago. But he agreed wholeheartedly. Yes, they are like this, he said. He was stressed and tired of the highland cold. I was shaking with anger and very preoccupied. So, obviously, we caught the next 9 hour bus... to the beach!
It was ridiculous, travelling for a day there (Thursday) and a day back (Sunday) to spend two days on the beach en Canoa. But we needed it. Oh man, it was so freakin amazing. The weather was perfect, hot. We did nothing but lie on the beach sipping coconut shakes and plunging into the warm ocean. The coast (la costa) is a totally different climate than the sierra where we live. It is tropical, hot, and humid. It was beautiful to wear a sarong and a bikini top and lie around in hammocks complaining about Ecuadorian migration, fickle tourists, and the Salasacan cold. And the best part, being with a great friend, where the talking just comes easily and everything´s great. Lindo. Beautiful.
But all good things, and warm things, come to an end. I am back in Salasaca, where, of course, all my food is gone (someone ate it) and fifteen people are wandering in and out of my house uninvited, which I finally escaped by hiding in the Internet cafe. Now, its back home to the multitudes of uninvited guests who just finished drinking all my Coca Cola without me or my permission!
So I got back in line, waited another hour, and finally got to the window. After all my questions, I said ´´oh, and I dont have a previous visa.´´ You dont have a previous 12-VII visa?? Oh, we only do renewals from within the country. You cant get a visa here. Oh, and you are only here for four months? The minimum for a volunteer visa is six consecutive months... And no one thought to mention any of that to me BEFORE! Good thing I asked a ton of questions. SO INCOMPETENT! Well then, we cant help you. They didnt care that I had a letter from the school. Nothing. I begged and pleaded, and finally, they gave me information on a 12-X visa, which doesnt look like it will apply for me either, because the maximum is 6 months in one year, and I will have been here already for that amount of time. So they told me the only thing to do is come back 4 days... 4 DAYS! ... before my passport stamp expires with a letter begging the director of Migration Affairs himself to let me stay until my flight leaves. And if they refuse, I will have three days to get out of the country for 7 weeks! So August 4th I will know whether I am leaving August 5th for Bolivia or if I am teaching in August and September. Arrrrgh! I am writing appeals to the San Francisco consulate, too, hoping they might feel bad because this is their fault, but Ive never received an email reply from them in the past so I am not too hopeful.
On the Quito street I screamed ´´NO QUIERO GENERALIZAR, PERO TODOS LOS OFICIALES EN TU PAIS SON COMPLETAMENTE INCOMPETENTES (I dont want to generalize, but all of the officials of your country are completely incompetent),´´ to Santiago. But he agreed wholeheartedly. Yes, they are like this, he said. He was stressed and tired of the highland cold. I was shaking with anger and very preoccupied. So, obviously, we caught the next 9 hour bus... to the beach!
It was ridiculous, travelling for a day there (Thursday) and a day back (Sunday) to spend two days on the beach en Canoa. But we needed it. Oh man, it was so freakin amazing. The weather was perfect, hot. We did nothing but lie on the beach sipping coconut shakes and plunging into the warm ocean. The coast (la costa) is a totally different climate than the sierra where we live. It is tropical, hot, and humid. It was beautiful to wear a sarong and a bikini top and lie around in hammocks complaining about Ecuadorian migration, fickle tourists, and the Salasacan cold. And the best part, being with a great friend, where the talking just comes easily and everything´s great. Lindo. Beautiful.
But all good things, and warm things, come to an end. I am back in Salasaca, where, of course, all my food is gone (someone ate it) and fifteen people are wandering in and out of my house uninvited, which I finally escaped by hiding in the Internet cafe. Now, its back home to the multitudes of uninvited guests who just finished drinking all my Coca Cola without me or my permission!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Mi comida es tu comida
Latin Americans are famous for their hospitality. We´ve all heard ´´mi casa es tu casa´´ my house is your house. That´s great and all, but think about the logical conclusions. Then it´s ´my room is your room´ and ´my food is your food´ and even ´my iPod is your iPod´. Things disappear all the time. It´s great when I am hungry, because someone will give me food. If I need money, a friend would give me the last dime she had. But when I come home looking forward to an egg sandwich and my five eggs and ten pieces of bread are gone, eaten, it gets a little frustrating. And I absolutely have to order people to give my iPod back, which they pick up out of my room, which they entered without permission, and which they are listening to in the town center. Salasaca is very safe, and stealing is almost incomprehensible. But we have very different cultural concepts of stealing. In the United States, we would probably consider taking a 300 dollar iPod out of someone´s house without permission stealing. Here, there is no thought that it is wrong, and there are no bad intentions. But it´s hard to adapt to.
The Quichua is coming along nicely. My Quichua teacher, Francisca, has asked me to help her high school daughter with English, in exchange for my Quichua lessons. What can I say? So my day is quite full now. Get up at 7. 7-8 breakfast with Robert. 9-10 hike to school. 10-1 teach little children. 1-2 hike to Francisca´s house. 2-3 Quichua lessons, speaking short stupid sentences and making a fool of myself generally. 3-4 give English lessons. 4-5 hike to the town in the pouring rain. Then it´s time to make food, use the computer, study Quichua, prepare lessons, read, write, and maybe, finally, sleep.
Good days. Alli punllakuna.
The Quichua is coming along nicely. My Quichua teacher, Francisca, has asked me to help her high school daughter with English, in exchange for my Quichua lessons. What can I say? So my day is quite full now. Get up at 7. 7-8 breakfast with Robert. 9-10 hike to school. 10-1 teach little children. 1-2 hike to Francisca´s house. 2-3 Quichua lessons, speaking short stupid sentences and making a fool of myself generally. 3-4 give English lessons. 4-5 hike to the town in the pouring rain. Then it´s time to make food, use the computer, study Quichua, prepare lessons, read, write, and maybe, finally, sleep.
Good days. Alli punllakuna.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Ah, living by a volcano
The bus ride from Salasaca to Baños should take about 30 minutes. Today, it took me almost 4 hours to get home. So, what´s the deal, you ask?
Between me and my friends there is a very inconvenient volcano called Tunkurawa. After the eruption last year, there have been dramatic mudslides and flash floods that wash out the road every time it rains. And now is the rainy season. Tractors just sort of push the mud around if there is a break in the rain, which is rare. In the style of Latin American infrastructure planning, nothing is really being done. It rains, the road gets washed out, and, if you are lucky, tractors push away enough slush for your bus to bounce roughly through the landslide area. If you are unlucky, you will be walking through the mess running down from the volcano or you will be stuck wherever you are, sometimes for a day. Last week, I couldn´t get home at all from Baños. I left at 6, the bus got stuck, then I had to hike an hour back to Baños, no way out all day.
Here is a great example of Ecuadorian transportation. This morning, I got up at 5 am to leave my friend´s place in Baños. There was no way out. So I started walking, hoping to hitchhike, a common practice here. At about 6 am, the police decided to let buses through. So a bus picked me up. Then the police changed their minds. I sat in the bus for about an hour, then decided to get out and walk through the landslide, about an hour of dangerous trekking through the debris from the volcano. Just then, the police changed their minds again. The only bus that would pick me up was a small little local bus filled with campesinos going to Ambato. As luck would have it, they decided to bypass Salasaca, even though I specifically asked the driver to let me off there when I got on. So they dumped me off in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, after hiking about 30 minutes in what I hoped was the direction of Salasaca, I hitched a ride to the town center. Arriving home finally at 8:30 (3 and a half hours instead of 30 minutes!), I had to leave immediately for my 45 minute walk to school. Over 4 hours to get to school today!!! I am not going back to Baños for a little while! I hate getting stuck!
After school, it´s a 45 minute walk to my Quichua teacher's house. She read my Quichua diary today, and she freaked out! She actually told me that I write Quichua with almost no mistakes at all! I just need to learn to understand and talk better... She said "alli killkarkanki" (you wrote very well) three times before I understood her, haha! She also said that people have noticed how I speak Quichua with the youngest children (that´s because I am less embarrassed with them). I am so excited! I thought she was going to cross out the whole five pages I had written, but she hardly corrected a thing! Now, if only everyone would slow down a ton and stop having that truncated Salasaca dialect... I´d be in good shape.
Salasacapi chiri chiri kan. Ñuka Bañosman rinkapak munani, shinapash, Bañosman risha, ñukapak wasikama mana tikrankapak ushanichu. Shina, kunan tutapi chiri chiri Salasacapi puñucrini. (Salasaca is so cold! I want to go to Baños, but, if I go to Baños, I can´t get back to my house. So, tonight I am going to sleep in freakin´ cold cold Salasaca.... a loose translation) I am so happy with my written Quichua :) Maybe I can pretend I am deaf and have everyone write whatever they are saying down on a little chalkboard slung around my neck. Yeah... good idea.
Between me and my friends there is a very inconvenient volcano called Tunkurawa. After the eruption last year, there have been dramatic mudslides and flash floods that wash out the road every time it rains. And now is the rainy season. Tractors just sort of push the mud around if there is a break in the rain, which is rare. In the style of Latin American infrastructure planning, nothing is really being done. It rains, the road gets washed out, and, if you are lucky, tractors push away enough slush for your bus to bounce roughly through the landslide area. If you are unlucky, you will be walking through the mess running down from the volcano or you will be stuck wherever you are, sometimes for a day. Last week, I couldn´t get home at all from Baños. I left at 6, the bus got stuck, then I had to hike an hour back to Baños, no way out all day.
Here is a great example of Ecuadorian transportation. This morning, I got up at 5 am to leave my friend´s place in Baños. There was no way out. So I started walking, hoping to hitchhike, a common practice here. At about 6 am, the police decided to let buses through. So a bus picked me up. Then the police changed their minds. I sat in the bus for about an hour, then decided to get out and walk through the landslide, about an hour of dangerous trekking through the debris from the volcano. Just then, the police changed their minds again. The only bus that would pick me up was a small little local bus filled with campesinos going to Ambato. As luck would have it, they decided to bypass Salasaca, even though I specifically asked the driver to let me off there when I got on. So they dumped me off in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, after hiking about 30 minutes in what I hoped was the direction of Salasaca, I hitched a ride to the town center. Arriving home finally at 8:30 (3 and a half hours instead of 30 minutes!), I had to leave immediately for my 45 minute walk to school. Over 4 hours to get to school today!!! I am not going back to Baños for a little while! I hate getting stuck!
After school, it´s a 45 minute walk to my Quichua teacher's house. She read my Quichua diary today, and she freaked out! She actually told me that I write Quichua with almost no mistakes at all! I just need to learn to understand and talk better... She said "alli killkarkanki" (you wrote very well) three times before I understood her, haha! She also said that people have noticed how I speak Quichua with the youngest children (that´s because I am less embarrassed with them). I am so excited! I thought she was going to cross out the whole five pages I had written, but she hardly corrected a thing! Now, if only everyone would slow down a ton and stop having that truncated Salasaca dialect... I´d be in good shape.
Salasacapi chiri chiri kan. Ñuka Bañosman rinkapak munani, shinapash, Bañosman risha, ñukapak wasikama mana tikrankapak ushanichu. Shina, kunan tutapi chiri chiri Salasacapi puñucrini. (Salasaca is so cold! I want to go to Baños, but, if I go to Baños, I can´t get back to my house. So, tonight I am going to sleep in freakin´ cold cold Salasaca.... a loose translation) I am so happy with my written Quichua :) Maybe I can pretend I am deaf and have everyone write whatever they are saying down on a little chalkboard slung around my neck. Yeah... good idea.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
A few short tales from my week...
FULL MOON ON THE PARAMO
A camioneta takes us out to Rosa Maria's house. We are lucky because it is a 45 minute walk. We bring two bottles of wine and arrive at the beautiful house where Maria Antonia, the doctoral student in linguistic anthropology, lives. On the patio, the full moon shines like the sun, and the night is so clear that we can make out Chimborazo, the tallest volcano in Ecuador, the placest closest to the sun on the entire Earth, in the distance, the snow shining like glitter in the paramo full moon. Later, inside, songs by guitar fill the warming room as the fire burns in the fireplace lined with actual volcanic rocks from Tungurawa.
AN EXPAT IN THE RAINFOREST
R (Robert)´s friend, Linda lives in the rainforest around San Francisco, on the road between Baños and Puyo. After two long bus rides descending from the paramo to the jungle, we disembark and slosh along muddy trails and through rushing streams flowing into the Pastaza river, arriving after a lengthy hike at a beautiful house standing alone in the forest, where Linda lives with her two German shepherds. The afternoon is lazy, with lemonade on the porch and conversations on the canopy that allows us to look out across untouched forest. Rainforest solitude.
HANGING OUT WITH YOUNG MEN IN BANOS
Baños is a world apart. We watch people pass. People come in and out of the shop. Foreigners, Ecuadorians, but mostly foreigners. Sometimes we teach each a few phrases like +friends with benefits+ and a few other things inappopriate to say... Dance clubs, parties in tattoo parlors, late night drives along the windy road in someone´s car. Driving is a cool here, so driving around listening to music is a perfectly acceptable way for five young people to spend the evening, squished together in the tiny vehicle of that friend that drives. Sleeping in, dinner with friends.
THE ADVENTURE OF TAKING A SHOWER
There is no water. No showers. No toilet. No water for cooking, for washing hands. Someone forgot to fill the water tank, and water only comes on Friday. But I really want a shower. I am gross. Really. So we pass buckets of water that I fill from the outside faucet, passing them up to the roof, hauling enough liters for me to take a quick shower. If you want to appreciate your shower, try hauling all of the water for it up three laters, over a rooftop, and into a plastic tank. No pain, no gain, Robert always intones.
A camioneta takes us out to Rosa Maria's house. We are lucky because it is a 45 minute walk. We bring two bottles of wine and arrive at the beautiful house where Maria Antonia, the doctoral student in linguistic anthropology, lives. On the patio, the full moon shines like the sun, and the night is so clear that we can make out Chimborazo, the tallest volcano in Ecuador, the placest closest to the sun on the entire Earth, in the distance, the snow shining like glitter in the paramo full moon. Later, inside, songs by guitar fill the warming room as the fire burns in the fireplace lined with actual volcanic rocks from Tungurawa.
AN EXPAT IN THE RAINFOREST
R (Robert)´s friend, Linda lives in the rainforest around San Francisco, on the road between Baños and Puyo. After two long bus rides descending from the paramo to the jungle, we disembark and slosh along muddy trails and through rushing streams flowing into the Pastaza river, arriving after a lengthy hike at a beautiful house standing alone in the forest, where Linda lives with her two German shepherds. The afternoon is lazy, with lemonade on the porch and conversations on the canopy that allows us to look out across untouched forest. Rainforest solitude.
HANGING OUT WITH YOUNG MEN IN BANOS
Baños is a world apart. We watch people pass. People come in and out of the shop. Foreigners, Ecuadorians, but mostly foreigners. Sometimes we teach each a few phrases like +friends with benefits+ and a few other things inappopriate to say... Dance clubs, parties in tattoo parlors, late night drives along the windy road in someone´s car. Driving is a cool here, so driving around listening to music is a perfectly acceptable way for five young people to spend the evening, squished together in the tiny vehicle of that friend that drives. Sleeping in, dinner with friends.
THE ADVENTURE OF TAKING A SHOWER
There is no water. No showers. No toilet. No water for cooking, for washing hands. Someone forgot to fill the water tank, and water only comes on Friday. But I really want a shower. I am gross. Really. So we pass buckets of water that I fill from the outside faucet, passing them up to the roof, hauling enough liters for me to take a quick shower. If you want to appreciate your shower, try hauling all of the water for it up three laters, over a rooftop, and into a plastic tank. No pain, no gain, Robert always intones.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Freezing cold, mingas, and los chiquitos
I have one word for you: BRRRRRRRRRRR!
I had no idea it was this cold just thirty minutes away from Baños. The altitude really makes a huge difference, and as you climb away from the rainforest the temperature drops dramatically. The nights are rainy and the mornings FREEZING. I had to buy a new alpaca sweater because I was becoming an ice cube. It´s so cold, I started to wonder if I can stay here for a few months, but I can always head down to Baños in the afternoons or on the weekends, which I definitely will do, considering how cold it is up here. Baños is so warm and modern, it´s only thirty minutes away, but it´s a world apart. There in Baños the tourists roam the streets, the tour agencies hawk their services, the thermal springs teem with visitors and locals. Here the women walk around quietly spinning their wool. A different language cuts in and out of the Spanish conversations. The men in their long black ponchos talk on the street because there is little else to do.
The other day, the community called a ¨minga¨ to fix the school up. A minga is a community event kind of like a barn-raising. Everyone who has students in the school must come to help or they receive a fine for not doing their part in the community. Mingas are a great way to get a bunch of people to do a large job quickly, if it weren´t for the socializing. One man suggested they just get a tractor to do it, and after that, everyone refused to work more. The problem was, they had to wait for the municipal tractor guy to have his lunch break, then they had to compensate him for using his lunch break to take the tractor to the schoolyard to level the ground for the basketball court. The yard was half-leveled until Friday, when the tractor guy finally decided to come. ¨I hate mingas¨ R tells me.
R owns a place down in Ambato, the nearest city, which, like Baños, is thirty minutes away, but in the other direction. Ambato is cold like Salasaca. Last night, we went to a comedy play in Ambato, a play about corruption in South America, and I slept on a massage table at R´s closed-down spa, a much more comfortable spot than my old bed of rocks.
A few of the younger children (we call them ¨los chiquitos¨, the little ones), who don´t know that Quichua, Spanish, and English are different languages and just say whatever in whichever language have mistakenly decided that I speak Quichua. This probably stemmed from the pushing them on the tire game in which I threw in a little bit of my very little Quichua vocabulary. They would scream ¨ñukaka¨ (me, me) and I would shout back ¨canca¨ (you?) and they would say ¨ari¨(yes!). This was a mistake. Now they come running up to me saying things that sound like cuchikunkikukuchunkiminimu and they don´t understand why I answer them with blank stares. I did at least understand the three year old who ran up to me crying ¨carry me, carry me¨ in Quichua.
The Internet gods are, not smiling, but kind of grinning slightly, upon Salasaca this afternoon so I am going to pray to them that this post gets put up. It took me five minutes just to open Blogger.
I will be in Baños this weekend, probably hiking with R, and going out later Saturday night. Maybe I could squeeze in some phone calls.
I had no idea it was this cold just thirty minutes away from Baños. The altitude really makes a huge difference, and as you climb away from the rainforest the temperature drops dramatically. The nights are rainy and the mornings FREEZING. I had to buy a new alpaca sweater because I was becoming an ice cube. It´s so cold, I started to wonder if I can stay here for a few months, but I can always head down to Baños in the afternoons or on the weekends, which I definitely will do, considering how cold it is up here. Baños is so warm and modern, it´s only thirty minutes away, but it´s a world apart. There in Baños the tourists roam the streets, the tour agencies hawk their services, the thermal springs teem with visitors and locals. Here the women walk around quietly spinning their wool. A different language cuts in and out of the Spanish conversations. The men in their long black ponchos talk on the street because there is little else to do.
The other day, the community called a ¨minga¨ to fix the school up. A minga is a community event kind of like a barn-raising. Everyone who has students in the school must come to help or they receive a fine for not doing their part in the community. Mingas are a great way to get a bunch of people to do a large job quickly, if it weren´t for the socializing. One man suggested they just get a tractor to do it, and after that, everyone refused to work more. The problem was, they had to wait for the municipal tractor guy to have his lunch break, then they had to compensate him for using his lunch break to take the tractor to the schoolyard to level the ground for the basketball court. The yard was half-leveled until Friday, when the tractor guy finally decided to come. ¨I hate mingas¨ R tells me.
R owns a place down in Ambato, the nearest city, which, like Baños, is thirty minutes away, but in the other direction. Ambato is cold like Salasaca. Last night, we went to a comedy play in Ambato, a play about corruption in South America, and I slept on a massage table at R´s closed-down spa, a much more comfortable spot than my old bed of rocks.
A few of the younger children (we call them ¨los chiquitos¨, the little ones), who don´t know that Quichua, Spanish, and English are different languages and just say whatever in whichever language have mistakenly decided that I speak Quichua. This probably stemmed from the pushing them on the tire game in which I threw in a little bit of my very little Quichua vocabulary. They would scream ¨ñukaka¨ (me, me) and I would shout back ¨canca¨ (you?) and they would say ¨ari¨(yes!). This was a mistake. Now they come running up to me saying things that sound like cuchikunkikukuchunkiminimu and they don´t understand why I answer them with blank stares. I did at least understand the three year old who ran up to me crying ¨carry me, carry me¨ in Quichua.
The Internet gods are, not smiling, but kind of grinning slightly, upon Salasaca this afternoon so I am going to pray to them that this post gets put up. It took me five minutes just to open Blogger.
I will be in Baños this weekend, probably hiking with R, and going out later Saturday night. Maybe I could squeeze in some phone calls.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Passport woes and Quichua schools
THIS PART IS MORE BORING, BELOW IS COOL SALASACA STUFF
Well, I am in Baños briefly to use what we will call the ¨real internet.¨ Salasaca, sometimes, has very slow Internet, sometimes, maybe.
I arrived in Quito and surprisingly there was absolutely no problem with the pump. They didn´t even ask me what it was! Which was good, because on the plane ride I was thinking about it, and the word for pump in Spanish is ¨bomba,¨ unfortunately, ¨bomba¨ also means bomb. So I didn´t know what I was going to say. Because ¨I have a bomba¨ would probably be translated as ¨I have a bomb,¨ instead of ¨I have a pipe.¨ Talk about lost in translation. But there were no problems.
There was, however, a HUGE problem with my passport. Turns out the Consul General of Ecuador in San Francisco was WRONG. Your six month maximum in the country isn´t the calendar year, it´s from the first date of entry. The guy and I argued a long time, and he was acting like he wasn´t even going to let me in the country! I was very stressed out. Finally, after yelling at me a lot, he stamped my passport for the 72 days I have left out of the six months, stictly admonishing me that I better not overstay.
So, now I need a visa. Luckily, they said at Salasaca that they would help me get a visa. I went to the visa place on Tuesday, an unlabeled office above a bargain retail store (impossible to find!). But of course, they closed at 12 on Tuesdays. So I thought I´d come back on Wednesday. WRONG! They´re closed every Wednesday, just because. So who knows how this is going to work out. But I am sure it will.
NOW FOR THE SALASACA ENTRY
From the roof overlooking my own apartment, you can see three volcanos when it is clear. Tungurahua is incredible. The snow, not present last year because of the eruption, has come back to sprinkle the brim of the volcano right below where the smoke is bellowing out in black curls.
I wake up very early. First, because of the news which is broadcasted over loudspeakers at about 6 am every morning. Landlords pay fifty cents to have the names of their renters who have not paid announced during the news. Supposedly, having your name and rent delinquency awaking the whole village is enough to embarass any one to pay up. Then there are the usual dogs and chickens. After some oatmeal, R and I begin the steep hike up to the school a few kilometers in the mountains. He flies, walking so fast though he is seventy-five, that I can hardly keep up with him, especially with this pounding headache from altitude sickness.
The children in the school are 4 to 14 years old. The school is bilingual (Quichua-Spanish), though they are trying to introduce English to become a true polyglot little place. I helped the littlest children today. They were adorable, but troublesome, like all children.
And, good thing I´ve been studying Quichua. I point to a hummingbird ¨what is this¨ I say in Spanish. Pishku!! they scream proudly. This is not a Spanish word. It´s Quichua for bird. ¨Okay, but what kind of pishku?¨ I asked in Spanish. Then I taught them colibri (hummingbird) and loro (parrot). And Mark, remember ¨mishki murukuna¨?! Today I helped the four year olds sort pictures into ¨mishki murukuna¨(sweet fruits) versus ¨hampi¨ (medicinal) plants.
We ate lunch seated with all the students. Lunch was lentil and potato soup, of course. Later we left to cries of ¨See you tomorrow (English), Hasta mañana (Spanish), and Kayakama (Quichua).¨ That was really cool, being followed by a small horde of children repeating ¨See you later, Hasta mañana, Kayakama¨ as though it was just one long way of saying goodbye.
I think this is going to be a really good experience, especially when I get a softer bed next week that doesn´t feel like sleeping on rocks like my current one does!
I will update the next time I have working Internet (maybe the Internet God will think of Salasaca one of these days).
Well, I am in Baños briefly to use what we will call the ¨real internet.¨ Salasaca, sometimes, has very slow Internet, sometimes, maybe.
I arrived in Quito and surprisingly there was absolutely no problem with the pump. They didn´t even ask me what it was! Which was good, because on the plane ride I was thinking about it, and the word for pump in Spanish is ¨bomba,¨ unfortunately, ¨bomba¨ also means bomb. So I didn´t know what I was going to say. Because ¨I have a bomba¨ would probably be translated as ¨I have a bomb,¨ instead of ¨I have a pipe.¨ Talk about lost in translation. But there were no problems.
There was, however, a HUGE problem with my passport. Turns out the Consul General of Ecuador in San Francisco was WRONG. Your six month maximum in the country isn´t the calendar year, it´s from the first date of entry. The guy and I argued a long time, and he was acting like he wasn´t even going to let me in the country! I was very stressed out. Finally, after yelling at me a lot, he stamped my passport for the 72 days I have left out of the six months, stictly admonishing me that I better not overstay.
So, now I need a visa. Luckily, they said at Salasaca that they would help me get a visa. I went to the visa place on Tuesday, an unlabeled office above a bargain retail store (impossible to find!). But of course, they closed at 12 on Tuesdays. So I thought I´d come back on Wednesday. WRONG! They´re closed every Wednesday, just because. So who knows how this is going to work out. But I am sure it will.
NOW FOR THE SALASACA ENTRY
From the roof overlooking my own apartment, you can see three volcanos when it is clear. Tungurahua is incredible. The snow, not present last year because of the eruption, has come back to sprinkle the brim of the volcano right below where the smoke is bellowing out in black curls.
I wake up very early. First, because of the news which is broadcasted over loudspeakers at about 6 am every morning. Landlords pay fifty cents to have the names of their renters who have not paid announced during the news. Supposedly, having your name and rent delinquency awaking the whole village is enough to embarass any one to pay up. Then there are the usual dogs and chickens. After some oatmeal, R and I begin the steep hike up to the school a few kilometers in the mountains. He flies, walking so fast though he is seventy-five, that I can hardly keep up with him, especially with this pounding headache from altitude sickness.
The children in the school are 4 to 14 years old. The school is bilingual (Quichua-Spanish), though they are trying to introduce English to become a true polyglot little place. I helped the littlest children today. They were adorable, but troublesome, like all children.
And, good thing I´ve been studying Quichua. I point to a hummingbird ¨what is this¨ I say in Spanish. Pishku!! they scream proudly. This is not a Spanish word. It´s Quichua for bird. ¨Okay, but what kind of pishku?¨ I asked in Spanish. Then I taught them colibri (hummingbird) and loro (parrot). And Mark, remember ¨mishki murukuna¨?! Today I helped the four year olds sort pictures into ¨mishki murukuna¨(sweet fruits) versus ¨hampi¨ (medicinal) plants.
We ate lunch seated with all the students. Lunch was lentil and potato soup, of course. Later we left to cries of ¨See you tomorrow (English), Hasta mañana (Spanish), and Kayakama (Quichua).¨ That was really cool, being followed by a small horde of children repeating ¨See you later, Hasta mañana, Kayakama¨ as though it was just one long way of saying goodbye.
I think this is going to be a really good experience, especially when I get a softer bed next week that doesn´t feel like sleeping on rocks like my current one does!
I will update the next time I have working Internet (maybe the Internet God will think of Salasaca one of these days).
Monday, May 28, 2007
Prepared... Finally... I guess (plus an unexpected international call)
Well, it's 3 am, and, finally, I think, all the logistics are set. Stuff is ready to go... I make it quite hard on myself because I am taking about 30 pounds of books. Foolhardy, maybe, but between donations, Quichua dictionaries, Spanish dictionaries, travel guides, and a book or two for leisure, I just can't leave any thing behind. So must of the weight is books. Again. And this time I am taking a laptop. A very old laptop that I got for free.
This time I am also not making the mistake of leaving my iPod behind! No more two day bus rides where you're too squished and sick to read and the only sounds are old Quichua guys snoring contentedly on your shoulder while a baby two rows ahead throws up in the aisle! Now I will have Simon and Garfunkel or Tool to drown that all out!
And an unexpected call from Santiago, an Ecuadorian friend, tonight. Making things even more complicated. He proclaims that "of course he is going to meet me at the airport" the moment my flight arrives, ignoring the fact that I might already have plans, which may or may not include a village pump fiasco (see previous entry). I think he mistook my surprise for reluctance to meet him when it was the opposite. I'd love to see him! I just also would have loved to know that in advance considering I am arriving at midnight, and it's hard to make hotel plans at that hour. My listening-to-Spanish on the phone skills are not what I would like them to be, which does not help the situation. But it appears that I will have a friendly face to greet me when I have just arrived. A bit of a shock as I did expect to adjust a bit before seeing old faces. Bit of a shock. But good. I think. Hmmmm.... mixed feelings!
Stress and exhaustion is making me incoherent and whiny right now so I think I will sign off. I will most likely find a second to update you all on my safe arrival around Tuesday, because tomorrow will be a late night, fighting travel exhaustion, fighting customs, finding lodging, and seeing Santiago for the first time in four months!
Next dispatch from Quito...
Love, Elizabeth
This time I am also not making the mistake of leaving my iPod behind! No more two day bus rides where you're too squished and sick to read and the only sounds are old Quichua guys snoring contentedly on your shoulder while a baby two rows ahead throws up in the aisle! Now I will have Simon and Garfunkel or Tool to drown that all out!
And an unexpected call from Santiago, an Ecuadorian friend, tonight. Making things even more complicated. He proclaims that "of course he is going to meet me at the airport" the moment my flight arrives, ignoring the fact that I might already have plans, which may or may not include a village pump fiasco (see previous entry). I think he mistook my surprise for reluctance to meet him when it was the opposite. I'd love to see him! I just also would have loved to know that in advance considering I am arriving at midnight, and it's hard to make hotel plans at that hour. My listening-to-Spanish on the phone skills are not what I would like them to be, which does not help the situation. But it appears that I will have a friendly face to greet me when I have just arrived. A bit of a shock as I did expect to adjust a bit before seeing old faces. Bit of a shock. But good. I think. Hmmmm.... mixed feelings!
Stress and exhaustion is making me incoherent and whiny right now so I think I will sign off. I will most likely find a second to update you all on my safe arrival around Tuesday, because tomorrow will be a late night, fighting travel exhaustion, fighting customs, finding lodging, and seeing Santiago for the first time in four months!
Next dispatch from Quito...
Love, Elizabeth
Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Legacy of the Village Pump continues
The pump arrived! The pained expression in the picture is because that sucker is heavier than it looks!
So I talked with R down in Salasaca about the logistics of getting the pump through customs. He responded to me, saying that the provincial government was supposed to send a document to Quito exempting the pump from customs fees. But, in typical Latin American style, Thursday was a holiday, and so no one worked on Thursday. And then, for good measure, they just decided not to work Friday either (and these are the government officials!) So, according to R, my permission to take in the pump is sitting on someone's abandoned desk in Pelileo right now. So they are going to "try to handle it on Monday," but if the customs officials give me trouble, then I am to leave the pump there, get all the names, etc, and then we will fight to get it back. Sheesh!
In other news, I am furiously preparing right now, so I don't have time to post much more. Yesterday was Spend-A-Fortune-At-Target Day as I bought 150 dollars worth of soap, toiletries, antibacterial hand stuff, a new watch, sunglasses, batteries, toothbrush holders, razors, etc, etc, etc. Today is Freak-Out-While-Doing-Laundry Day. A little stressed. Scratch that. Very stressed.
Oh, and then I realized that I had nothing booked in Quito even though I am arriving at midnight tomorrow!!! Oops. And I need my own room since I MIGHT have a 1300 dollar village pump with me. So I just called a hostal in Quito that has single rooms, and I am pretty sure I have a room for Monday night, but I remembered why I hate speaking Spanish on the phone, especially when the connection is bad! And they hear my Spanish and think because I speak Spanish that they can talk 100 miles a minute while the static cuts in and out! And Mark was listening to NPR in the background in English! Argh! So, I think I have a reservation! I hope!
Next update might be tonight... might be from Quito...
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Teaching Logistics and Water Pumps
Well, I don't have anything interesting to say, but the day is approaching... so I'll give a few updates...
How does this whole teaching thing work exactly? As some people (Ashli!) observed, I haven't discussed the logistics much, but I figured they be boring. But here they are anyway.
Like anywhere else in the world, Ecuador has its share of American and European expats fleeing their First World comforts in search of... what? I don't know exactly. A purpose? A simpler life (a phrase often used, though probably not PC nowadays)? Take, for example, Bob, who Mark and I met in rural Mexico. He is a former US Marine who retired to the Mexican coast and now spends his days and some of his pension working with a local Mexican nurse just doing good, in general. They help fund school uniforms, they get their American friends to bring medical and educational donations when they come, they visit elderly people and give them food (like Meals on Wheels, but out of a 4x4 Jeep in the coastal jungle).
Salasaca has one of these friends; we'll call him R. R is an American expat who helps run and fund the small school in the village. He is, I assume, retired, and is just a do-gooder who wants to do something more than sit around sipping piña coladas. So he runs a school.
He has gathered materials to conduct English courses and already has developed his curriculum. I will just be assisting in English instuction with the materials and courses already provided by R.
The biology class I am designing completely. I was creating lesson plans using activities I found online, but I was then translating everything into Spanish, which was very tedious and unnecessary. I discussed with R the difficulty of developing a course and translating it all, which is not very efficient, so he agreed that I would continue the course development once I arrived in Ecuador. I will purchase a biology text in Spanish in Quito, and it will be more cost-efficient to make copies of the whole book than buy everyone there own copy. R will worry about the funding for the resources I need, so that is terrific for me! I only need to work on making a good class. The biology class will not start until later in the year, so I have some time to purchase a book in Quito and develop lesson plans (with no translating, yay!) while I am helping with the English courses.
I have been given a great opportunity by R and the community of Salasaca because they have welcomed me to teach and because R has been so generous in procuring any funding needed. Unlike a volunteer program which charges foreigners exhorbitant amounts of money to work, often with other foreigners or tourists, I will be working in exchange for room and board and Quichua lessons. I have been very fortunate in being given this opportunity, which is why I have worked hard to learn some Quichua (to show respect to the local culture) and to bring books (to help in R's appeal to build up the school library). (SPECIAL THANKS to parents and grandparents, who really helped get together a donation of 50 books in Spanish for children!!!)
An interesting story: R sent me an email inquiring as to whether or not I would be able to bring a water pump to the village. The pump that provides water has broken, and R has sent a new 30 pound pump to me so that I can bring it in my luggage. I hope it arrives soon! I'm getting nervous that it won't come in time. The sucker is 3 inches over the size limit for luggage, so I will have to wait til it gets here and mash it down somehow so I don't get slammed with an oversized luggage fee.
In most coutries in Latin America, you can only bring in items tax-free if they are for personal use, so it's going to be interesting if I get questioned! (Yes, customs officer, sir, I always carry around a water pump large enough for a village, you know, you never know when you'll need one! Just the other day, I was hiking in the Redwoods, and I had a desperate need for a village-sized water pump, but I had left it at home. So I told my friends, "I'm never leaving home without this baby again." Yep, personal use 30 pound water pump, sir.)
More posts soon...
How does this whole teaching thing work exactly? As some people (Ashli!) observed, I haven't discussed the logistics much, but I figured they be boring. But here they are anyway.
Like anywhere else in the world, Ecuador has its share of American and European expats fleeing their First World comforts in search of... what? I don't know exactly. A purpose? A simpler life (a phrase often used, though probably not PC nowadays)? Take, for example, Bob, who Mark and I met in rural Mexico. He is a former US Marine who retired to the Mexican coast and now spends his days and some of his pension working with a local Mexican nurse just doing good, in general. They help fund school uniforms, they get their American friends to bring medical and educational donations when they come, they visit elderly people and give them food (like Meals on Wheels, but out of a 4x4 Jeep in the coastal jungle).
Salasaca has one of these friends; we'll call him R. R is an American expat who helps run and fund the small school in the village. He is, I assume, retired, and is just a do-gooder who wants to do something more than sit around sipping piña coladas. So he runs a school.
He has gathered materials to conduct English courses and already has developed his curriculum. I will just be assisting in English instuction with the materials and courses already provided by R.
The biology class I am designing completely. I was creating lesson plans using activities I found online, but I was then translating everything into Spanish, which was very tedious and unnecessary. I discussed with R the difficulty of developing a course and translating it all, which is not very efficient, so he agreed that I would continue the course development once I arrived in Ecuador. I will purchase a biology text in Spanish in Quito, and it will be more cost-efficient to make copies of the whole book than buy everyone there own copy. R will worry about the funding for the resources I need, so that is terrific for me! I only need to work on making a good class. The biology class will not start until later in the year, so I have some time to purchase a book in Quito and develop lesson plans (with no translating, yay!) while I am helping with the English courses.
I have been given a great opportunity by R and the community of Salasaca because they have welcomed me to teach and because R has been so generous in procuring any funding needed. Unlike a volunteer program which charges foreigners exhorbitant amounts of money to work, often with other foreigners or tourists, I will be working in exchange for room and board and Quichua lessons. I have been very fortunate in being given this opportunity, which is why I have worked hard to learn some Quichua (to show respect to the local culture) and to bring books (to help in R's appeal to build up the school library). (SPECIAL THANKS to parents and grandparents, who really helped get together a donation of 50 books in Spanish for children!!!)
An interesting story: R sent me an email inquiring as to whether or not I would be able to bring a water pump to the village. The pump that provides water has broken, and R has sent a new 30 pound pump to me so that I can bring it in my luggage. I hope it arrives soon! I'm getting nervous that it won't come in time. The sucker is 3 inches over the size limit for luggage, so I will have to wait til it gets here and mash it down somehow so I don't get slammed with an oversized luggage fee.
In most coutries in Latin America, you can only bring in items tax-free if they are for personal use, so it's going to be interesting if I get questioned! (Yes, customs officer, sir, I always carry around a water pump large enough for a village, you know, you never know when you'll need one! Just the other day, I was hiking in the Redwoods, and I had a desperate need for a village-sized water pump, but I had left it at home. So I told my friends, "I'm never leaving home without this baby again." Yep, personal use 30 pound water pump, sir.)
More posts soon...
Saturday, May 12, 2007
I like big knives! and other new stuff...
My new knife :)
In preparation for my next four months, I have finally given in, and, yes, you won't believe it... bought some things. I'm really bad about buying new things for myself, because I hate spending money unless I absolutely NEED to, so my resistance to buying a new pack and shoes resulted in some debates with Mark, thus:
Mark: But you NEED new hiking shoes.
Me: Well, I don't NEED them. I could wear my old ones.
Mark: Aren't your old ones falling apart? Hasn't all the lining been worn out? Don't they KILL your feet within five minutes?
Me: Well, yeah, but I don't know if I absolutely NEED to buy new shoes.
Mark: Aren't you in horrible pain when you wear the old ones?
Me: Well, yeah, but-
Mark: YOU NEED NEW SHOES! BUY THEM!
Me: But-
Mark: BUY THEM!
(We had this discussion about 10 times.)
then the pack discussion:
Me: Well, I can just keep sewing the zippers and the shoulder strap. Even though the shoulder strap pops off every time I sew it, and I can't hardly carry the bag around.
Mark: That strap is demolished! You CAN'T carry that pack around. It's falling apart. You can't zip it. And that main strap won't even let you carry it.
Me: But packs are so expensive. I can just-
Mark: NO, you can't! Buy a new pack!
Me: But-
Mark: You NEED a new pack.
Mark says I have a very interesting idea about what I need. As in, any other reasonable person would recognize these things as necessities. I think perhaps I am being extravagant for buying nicer newer gear. But my old stuff is really in unusable shape.
So, I broke down. I found AMAZING North Face hiking shoes (retail 130 dollars) that were on sale for 90 bucks. They are like walking on air. I didn't know shoes could be that awesome! And I got a new pack (retail 175 dollars) at the Wilderness Exchange for 100 bucks. It's 6000 cubic inches (i.e. HUGE), and, best of all, the zippers and the straps all work.
Then, it was time for the "for me" purchase. And of course, what more could a girl like me want than a huge freaking KNIFE, just like I always wanted while traveling. I think I can't carry it in our country because it would be considered a concealed weapon, but it will be nice in Ecuador. I think it's a good compromise between the good ol' Swiss Army and a machete.
So I've spent a whopping 230 bucks for a pack, hiking shoes from God, and a bad-ass knife. But Mark keeps reassuring me that they are "necessities." I keep thinking about how 230 bucks is about my monthly budget down in Ecuador!
Thanks, Mom. I consider my complete unwillingness to spend money on things to be inherited from you!
In preparation for my next four months, I have finally given in, and, yes, you won't believe it... bought some things. I'm really bad about buying new things for myself, because I hate spending money unless I absolutely NEED to, so my resistance to buying a new pack and shoes resulted in some debates with Mark, thus:
Mark: But you NEED new hiking shoes.
Me: Well, I don't NEED them. I could wear my old ones.
Mark: Aren't your old ones falling apart? Hasn't all the lining been worn out? Don't they KILL your feet within five minutes?
Me: Well, yeah, but I don't know if I absolutely NEED to buy new shoes.
Mark: Aren't you in horrible pain when you wear the old ones?
Me: Well, yeah, but-
Mark: YOU NEED NEW SHOES! BUY THEM!
Me: But-
Mark: BUY THEM!
(We had this discussion about 10 times.)
then the pack discussion:
Me: Well, I can just keep sewing the zippers and the shoulder strap. Even though the shoulder strap pops off every time I sew it, and I can't hardly carry the bag around.
Mark: That strap is demolished! You CAN'T carry that pack around. It's falling apart. You can't zip it. And that main strap won't even let you carry it.
Me: But packs are so expensive. I can just-
Mark: NO, you can't! Buy a new pack!
Me: But-
Mark: You NEED a new pack.
Mark says I have a very interesting idea about what I need. As in, any other reasonable person would recognize these things as necessities. I think perhaps I am being extravagant for buying nicer newer gear. But my old stuff is really in unusable shape.
So, I broke down. I found AMAZING North Face hiking shoes (retail 130 dollars) that were on sale for 90 bucks. They are like walking on air. I didn't know shoes could be that awesome! And I got a new pack (retail 175 dollars) at the Wilderness Exchange for 100 bucks. It's 6000 cubic inches (i.e. HUGE), and, best of all, the zippers and the straps all work.
Then, it was time for the "for me" purchase. And of course, what more could a girl like me want than a huge freaking KNIFE, just like I always wanted while traveling. I think I can't carry it in our country because it would be considered a concealed weapon, but it will be nice in Ecuador. I think it's a good compromise between the good ol' Swiss Army and a machete.
So I've spent a whopping 230 bucks for a pack, hiking shoes from God, and a bad-ass knife. But Mark keeps reassuring me that they are "necessities." I keep thinking about how 230 bucks is about my monthly budget down in Ecuador!
Thanks, Mom. I consider my complete unwillingness to spend money on things to be inherited from you!
Friday, May 11, 2007
Poverty equals poor education
So, out of curiosity, I looked up the stats on the school where I am an after-school bilingual teacher. New Highland Academy
Here's what I found out:
30% African American
70% Latino
0 (yes zero)% White
90% economically disadvantaged
60% non-English speakers
15% of students met California school fitness standards
7% of students passed the state standardized test in language arts
13% of students passed the state standardized test in math
lowest academic performance score possible according to California standards (1 on scale of 1-10, 1 being lowest performance)
Lesson learned: No money and no English = no education for you.
My kids come in scared because people were coming in their houses with guns. Violence erupts everywhere. We had to round up 90 kids and fortress ourselves into the cafeteria when adult mothers started a violent fight. The police regularly drop by the area, responding to violence in the schoolyard or mothers who arrive drunk. Many of the parents reek of marijuana when they come to get their children. The feds come in to the children's homes and rip apart families, sending back someone's sister who doesn't have papers while her babies get to stay in the USA because they are citizens but their teenage mother is not. And the thing that sucks the most is the five-year-old girls I am teaching now might be teenage mothers deported back to Mexico in a few years because opportunities just aren't available to them. Education in our country is great. If you live in a rich white suburb. If you are a legal resident. If you speak English.
Rant over.
Here's what I found out:
30% African American
70% Latino
0 (yes zero)% White
90% economically disadvantaged
60% non-English speakers
15% of students met California school fitness standards
7% of students passed the state standardized test in language arts
13% of students passed the state standardized test in math
lowest academic performance score possible according to California standards (1 on scale of 1-10, 1 being lowest performance)
Lesson learned: No money and no English = no education for you.
My kids come in scared because people were coming in their houses with guns. Violence erupts everywhere. We had to round up 90 kids and fortress ourselves into the cafeteria when adult mothers started a violent fight. The police regularly drop by the area, responding to violence in the schoolyard or mothers who arrive drunk. Many of the parents reek of marijuana when they come to get their children. The feds come in to the children's homes and rip apart families, sending back someone's sister who doesn't have papers while her babies get to stay in the USA because they are citizens but their teenage mother is not. And the thing that sucks the most is the five-year-old girls I am teaching now might be teenage mothers deported back to Mexico in a few years because opportunities just aren't available to them. Education in our country is great. If you live in a rich white suburb. If you are a legal resident. If you speak English.
Rant over.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Kids, kids
I assume people know most things about me but turns out more people read this than I thought. So, to explain, I am pulling off a short between-two-Ecuador-stays stint as a bilingual after school teacher. I teach Kindergarten through second grade, mostly my students are Mexican (with one or two Guatemalans and Salvadorans) and speak little to no English. This is in East Oakland.
My five-year-olds love learning about Ecuador. Although they are much more interested in cutting and pasting together Ecuadorian flags out of construction paper and making Quichua-style jewelry from the fake gold beads I bought at Michael's, and getting them to write a sentence on the actual content of the short books I wrote for them is like pulling teeth. But that's understandable. They're five. The new tactic is: complete the very short workbook, and you get to participate in the craft/activity/assorted manners of creating a complete mess.
As for this summer, I have developed a short curriculum for the class in biology that I am creating for the students in Ecuador. However, I've been very bad about the actual lesson planning as I have been very busy. I really need to pull this all together in the next two weeks as I am leaving then!
Speaking of which, I should really give my notice at my job! I think I was supposed to give a month's notice. Oops! I told my most intelligent student (I know we aren't supposed to say things like that, but she definitely is the smartest)... well, I told her that I would be leaving, and she got a concerned look on her face and said "pero, quien nos va a ayudar con la tarea? (but, who is going to help us with our homework)." Talk about guilt. I reassured her that the new Latino guy that was hired speaks Spanish, but she didn't look too happy. I feel bad, but I'm not exactly going to change my plane ticket...
At least it's good to know that even though they grind Playdoh into the carpet, call me "tonta" (a fool), drool juice onto my just cleaned khaki pants, and write all over the class with permanent markers, deep down, they like me. Kids all over the world are really the same.
Speaking of kids, one word I have never found much use for before in Spanish that has become part of my daily vocabulary:
"Baba." It means "drool." :)
My five-year-olds love learning about Ecuador. Although they are much more interested in cutting and pasting together Ecuadorian flags out of construction paper and making Quichua-style jewelry from the fake gold beads I bought at Michael's, and getting them to write a sentence on the actual content of the short books I wrote for them is like pulling teeth. But that's understandable. They're five. The new tactic is: complete the very short workbook, and you get to participate in the craft/activity/assorted manners of creating a complete mess.
As for this summer, I have developed a short curriculum for the class in biology that I am creating for the students in Ecuador. However, I've been very bad about the actual lesson planning as I have been very busy. I really need to pull this all together in the next two weeks as I am leaving then!
Speaking of which, I should really give my notice at my job! I think I was supposed to give a month's notice. Oops! I told my most intelligent student (I know we aren't supposed to say things like that, but she definitely is the smartest)... well, I told her that I would be leaving, and she got a concerned look on her face and said "pero, quien nos va a ayudar con la tarea? (but, who is going to help us with our homework)." Talk about guilt. I reassured her that the new Latino guy that was hired speaks Spanish, but she didn't look too happy. I feel bad, but I'm not exactly going to change my plane ticket...
At least it's good to know that even though they grind Playdoh into the carpet, call me "tonta" (a fool), drool juice onto my just cleaned khaki pants, and write all over the class with permanent markers, deep down, they like me. Kids all over the world are really the same.
Speaking of kids, one word I have never found much use for before in Spanish that has become part of my daily vocabulary:
"Baba." It means "drool." :)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
And in Ecuador news...
I am making a short class on Ecuadorian cultures for my students here in Oakland. We will be learning about people who live in Quito, the highland Quichua, and the Shuar of the rainforest... relevant cultures for me to teach considering they are cultures I have at least directly experienced. Hope it will be interesting, because five-year-olds are hard to entertain, and even harder to teach!
I know this is supposed to be about Ecuador...
but I can't help but comment on the fact that the freeway a mile from my apartment melted and collapsed after a tanker full of fuel EXPLODED. All this went down right at the end of the Bay Bridge. It's on any news site, so pick your favorite site and search for "Oakland" and "melted freeway."
This was the ramp I used to get on the freeway to go to work everyday, and now that it has EXPLODED, MELTED, AND COLLAPSED, it will be interesting finding a new way to work tomorrow.
Wow.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Ecuadorian Consul
It's official. Kind of. Well, as official as I can expect considering it's Latin America. I can enter the country.
I went to the Ecuadorian consul with Alan (the director of VIDA, where I used to work) today. It usually takes 6-8 weeks to get an appointment, and they never answer phones or emails, so it's nice to be connected. Look at me and my crazy contacts :P So, I went in and told the passport lady that before we talked about VIDA's business, I had just a quick "preguntita" (little question). I asked about some very complicated passport issue I might have had.
This is boring but here it is: According to Ecuadorian law, you can only stay in the country for 6 months per CALENDAR YEAR. Actually, when you enter, you only get 90 days, but you can beg the migration office in Quito to give you 90 more days when your first stamp expires, and they are usually pretty nice.
My question was because I had the permission on my passport to stay for three months earlier this year, but I was only there in January, so does that count as one month or three? The passport lady didn't even know, so she had to take my passport back to some important guy and ask him. Turns out, it only counts as the one month I was actually present in the country, so I am good to go! Which is great, considering I already bought my plane ticket!
At least I know the laws are so confusing that the passport person at the consulate didn't even know what to do about my documents!
When I get there, I will be staying for almost four months, so let's hope all goes well in Quito so I won't be "deportada". I refuse to get a visa, which would legalize my lengthy stays but cost hundreds of dollars... so I'll just keep improvising.
It's good to be legal.
I went to the Ecuadorian consul with Alan (the director of VIDA, where I used to work) today. It usually takes 6-8 weeks to get an appointment, and they never answer phones or emails, so it's nice to be connected. Look at me and my crazy contacts :P So, I went in and told the passport lady that before we talked about VIDA's business, I had just a quick "preguntita" (little question). I asked about some very complicated passport issue I might have had.
This is boring but here it is: According to Ecuadorian law, you can only stay in the country for 6 months per CALENDAR YEAR. Actually, when you enter, you only get 90 days, but you can beg the migration office in Quito to give you 90 more days when your first stamp expires, and they are usually pretty nice.
My question was because I had the permission on my passport to stay for three months earlier this year, but I was only there in January, so does that count as one month or three? The passport lady didn't even know, so she had to take my passport back to some important guy and ask him. Turns out, it only counts as the one month I was actually present in the country, so I am good to go! Which is great, considering I already bought my plane ticket!
At least I know the laws are so confusing that the passport person at the consulate didn't even know what to do about my documents!
When I get there, I will be staying for almost four months, so let's hope all goes well in Quito so I won't be "deportada". I refuse to get a visa, which would legalize my lengthy stays but cost hundreds of dollars... so I'll just keep improvising.
It's good to be legal.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Markka quichuata rimanmi (Mark speaks Quichua)
In preparation for my being in Quichua-land, I've been studying a fair amount of Quichua, and I am happy to report I can say useful phrases such as "How many sheep do you graze on the mountain?" with reasonable confidence.
The interesting thing is that Mark, who used to give me blank stares whenever I went on about the language, has become dorkily intrigued. He even proudly proclaimed to Jared last night "ñukaka quichuata rimanimi (I speak Quichua!).'' So, on the subway, imagine us, if you will, speaking halting short Quichua sentences to each other, and correcting each other in Spanish. I think the old ladies across from us on the subway last night thought we were a little bit loco...
The interesting thing is that Mark, who used to give me blank stares whenever I went on about the language, has become dorkily intrigued. He even proudly proclaimed to Jared last night "ñukaka quichuata rimanimi (I speak Quichua!).'' So, on the subway, imagine us, if you will, speaking halting short Quichua sentences to each other, and correcting each other in Spanish. I think the old ladies across from us on the subway last night thought we were a little bit loco...
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Back to South America
Well, the blog shall be resumed... because I am going back to South America.
The anxiety is building back up as I have but a few short weeks to raise some money, get my stuff together, and head south for the summer! The plans are coming together, as they always do... so here are the definites, the maybes, and the prolly nots...
DEFINITES
June, I will be teaching English and Biology in Salasaca, a small Quichua village. In exchange for my mad edu-ma-catin' skills, I will get a place to stay, food to eat, and even some Quichua lessons to beef up on my language skills before I start at Stanford.
I have a good friend in Ecuador... This was previously a maybe, but I am now certain.
I will probably stay in Ecuador until mid-September, that is, about four months... again.
Late September, I will be attending Stanford to get my M.A. in all things cool and Latin American-y. I will be studying politics, economy, anthropology, and the environment, in addition to Quechua (though of the Peruvian variety) and Portuguese. (Yay, polyglots!) I will graduate in the spring, and I will not incur any debt... fellowships equal happiness!
MAYBES
July and August, I could continue teaching in Salasaca. This position maintains me but does not give me oodles of, or in fact any, discretionary income. It's a great opportunity, but I am also quite poor.
July and August, I might be able to continue to teach in July, then participate in a project with a nonprofit in August. They would pay me loads of cash, helping to reimburse me for my expensive plane ticket and giving me access to the fun things in life, like chocolate bars and Coca-cola. Because I am a caffeine addict, and also because money is always a concern, I will accept this position if it is available. But I will not know until May if the nonprofit money will materialize. I hate waiting!
Mark and some other people might come to visit. If you are interested, please let me know! Everyone is invited. The plane ticket will probably be between 600 to 800 dollars, but once you are in Ecuador, 200 dollars for a 10 day trip would be quite a comfortable budget. Consider it! Plus, free translator and guide (aka me)!
PROLLY NOTS
There is a possible Stanford research internship which would give me money for two months, but I might have to go to Peru. The funds for the internship might not come through, I might not be selected, and I might not feel like heading down to Peru. This probably won't happen, but it is on the table for July and August.
I will not be traveling or "going on vacation" unless I have visitors. The money just isn't there, and I have already traveled around. I am now more interested in just living.
I will not be getting a work visa. Too much work and money and then not a lot of job opportunities. That is why I have found other ways to survive.
AND...
that's what's going on with my life. I found explaining this over and over again to various friends and family got repetitive. Thus, let the blog re-commence! Check back for details and please comment so I know you want updates... Thanks! I love my family!!!
The anxiety is building back up as I have but a few short weeks to raise some money, get my stuff together, and head south for the summer! The plans are coming together, as they always do... so here are the definites, the maybes, and the prolly nots...
DEFINITES
June, I will be teaching English and Biology in Salasaca, a small Quichua village. In exchange for my mad edu-ma-catin' skills, I will get a place to stay, food to eat, and even some Quichua lessons to beef up on my language skills before I start at Stanford.
I have a good friend in Ecuador... This was previously a maybe, but I am now certain.
I will probably stay in Ecuador until mid-September, that is, about four months... again.
Late September, I will be attending Stanford to get my M.A. in all things cool and Latin American-y. I will be studying politics, economy, anthropology, and the environment, in addition to Quechua (though of the Peruvian variety) and Portuguese. (Yay, polyglots!) I will graduate in the spring, and I will not incur any debt... fellowships equal happiness!
MAYBES
July and August, I could continue teaching in Salasaca. This position maintains me but does not give me oodles of, or in fact any, discretionary income. It's a great opportunity, but I am also quite poor.
July and August, I might be able to continue to teach in July, then participate in a project with a nonprofit in August. They would pay me loads of cash, helping to reimburse me for my expensive plane ticket and giving me access to the fun things in life, like chocolate bars and Coca-cola. Because I am a caffeine addict, and also because money is always a concern, I will accept this position if it is available. But I will not know until May if the nonprofit money will materialize. I hate waiting!
Mark and some other people might come to visit. If you are interested, please let me know! Everyone is invited. The plane ticket will probably be between 600 to 800 dollars, but once you are in Ecuador, 200 dollars for a 10 day trip would be quite a comfortable budget. Consider it! Plus, free translator and guide (aka me)!
PROLLY NOTS
There is a possible Stanford research internship which would give me money for two months, but I might have to go to Peru. The funds for the internship might not come through, I might not be selected, and I might not feel like heading down to Peru. This probably won't happen, but it is on the table for July and August.
I will not be traveling or "going on vacation" unless I have visitors. The money just isn't there, and I have already traveled around. I am now more interested in just living.
I will not be getting a work visa. Too much work and money and then not a lot of job opportunities. That is why I have found other ways to survive.
AND...
that's what's going on with my life. I found explaining this over and over again to various friends and family got repetitive. Thus, let the blog re-commence! Check back for details and please comment so I know you want updates... Thanks! I love my family!!!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Adios, Ecuador...
last dispatch from ecuador...
4 am, hotel internet, less than an hour left...
but fortunate to have friends and family anxiously awaiting me...
mixed emotions, a potluck dinner of relief, stress, felicity, depression, excitement, disappointment...
ecuador, ya regreso...
4 am, hotel internet, less than an hour left...
but fortunate to have friends and family anxiously awaiting me...
mixed emotions, a potluck dinner of relief, stress, felicity, depression, excitement, disappointment...
ecuador, ya regreso...
Saturday, January 27, 2007
the end is near...
i have made it out of the rainforest, again... and i am moping around baños my final days, incredibly depressed... i am very very sad right now :(
i hope i am able to leave, because i can almost see myself jumping out of the plane on the quito runway at the last second, because i want to stay that badly...
goshdarn money... if i didnt need to eat, i could stay...
:(
i hope i am able to leave, because i can almost see myself jumping out of the plane on the quito runway at the last second, because i want to stay that badly...
goshdarn money... if i didnt need to eat, i could stay...
:(
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Surprise! Back to the jungle...
please don´t expect to hear from me until saturday... as i will be in the jungle with some random tourists... and, well, it will be interesting... but it´s better than sitting in baños...
i will be in touch on saturday!!!
i will be in touch on saturday!!!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
I am in Baños
After two days of traveling on bus after bus after bus, I arrived in Baños. So I am safe and sound in Ecuador.
My time here is coming to an end... :(
My time here is coming to an end... :(
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Kuelap Fortress, Revash mummies, the Lord of Sipan, Trujillo, Huaca de la Luna, Chan Chan
So, sorry to leave you hanging... but I have been traveling quite a lot here in Peru over the past week and haven't really stopped to use the Internet all that much. So let me detail the whirldwind tour of Peruvian ruins.
On Saturday, Michael, Rianne, and I went with our guide Jesus from the town of Chachapoyas in the remote Peruvian Amazonas province to the fortress of Kuelap. After our crazy journey across the border over the previous two days, we really did not feel like getting in a tiny car and bouncing over atrocious roads for three hours to the site. But that was the only way there. Kuelap was built by the Chachapoyans, a pre-Incan culture that fought the Incans for decades before being conquered. They had a huge fortress on this cliff. Kuelap is bigger than Machu Pichu, but no one goes to Kuelap because it is so remote. In fact, only 2000 foreigners visited Kuelap in the whole year last year. We were the only people there. Us plus one American guy who was supposedly some kind of shaman. He decided to take a mixture of San Pedro and ayahuasca, very powerful hallucinogens. Then he went to the highest point in the fortress to do this ritual. I can't imagine a tour guide in the United States saying, Oh, we have to hang on while one of the tourists does drugs on the top of that cliff where he could hallucinate and plunge into oblivion. But that's what Jesus's attitude was toward the situation. When our shaman friend returned, we continued to walk through the fortress, and it looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. There were bromeliads and orchids growing out of original walls that were a hundred feet tall. There were temples with images of snake eyes and puma eyes. There were crumbling Chachapoyan and Incan houses.
On the drive back, we would sometimes have to get out of the car, because with people in it, it weighed too much to get through the mud. So we would get out, push the car through mud, and get back in. Finally, we arrived at the small town of Leymebamba. Jesus found out that the local people had just found out about karaoke, so it was the "inauguration" of karaoke for the town. We were invited to drink a lot of very cheap liquor (which I declined), while they fiddled helplessly with the computer program. It was a complete fiasco. The people could not figure out how to use the karaoke technology, and a lot of people just ended up singing randomly while getting drunk for free. They didn't seem to understand that they were supposed to be reading the lyrics and singing along to the tune. They would just grab the microphone and start singing whatever. It was hilarious... a complete failure... but hilarious.
In the morning, we went to the museum of Leymebamba, where they are storing 219 mummies that they found in local Chachapoyan tombs. They had to move them from the original sites, because graverobbers would sack the tombs, slice open the mummies, and take out any gold or silver the dead people were wearing. So a lot of mummies have been destroyed. It was insane to be in this room filled with intact pre-Incan mummies, some with the skeletons clearly visible, some wrapped in beautiful fabrics. In this tiny museum in the middle of nowhere. They are all in the fetal position, and then they would be placed in tombs on the sides of cliffs.
After seeing the mummies themselves, we went to one of the original mausoleums where the mummies had been found. The site was called Revash. And I became horribly ill. I had problems with parasites. Again. For the third time. And I almost threw up, and the sun got so hot, we were boiling. We hiked and hiked. And I kept stopping, in so much stomach pain... but long after my companions, I finally arrived. Revash reminded me a lot of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado. They are little houses built into the cliff like that, except they are not houses, they are their cemetary. The mummies would be placed in these structures on the cliffside. And the mausoleums were painted with images of pumas and other animals in bright reds and yellows.
We arrived very late back in Chachapoyas, and it was time to take a ten hour overnight bus from Chachapoyas to Chiclayo, going from the eastern side of the Andes mountains, the edge of the rainforest, over to the wesetern Andes, and descending into the coastal desert. The ride was very scary. I tried to sleep, but at one point, I made the mistake of looking at my window, and I almost panicked. Because by the light of the moon, all I could see below me was rushing water!!! No road!!! Because the bus was literally on the edge of the gorge, with mere centimeters between a rock cliff on the right and a flooded river on the left. The funny thing was, this was supposedly a two-way route! But I have no idea what the bus would have done if another car had come along, because it took up the whole entire road by itself!!!
After a lot of carsickness and hairpin weaving through dark mountains, we arrived in Chiclayo at 6 in the morning. We spent the day going to visit the archeological site at Tucume, a huge pre-Incan city. Unfortunately, we were disappointed because it just looked like mud piles because they have not excavated it yet. Then, we went to a museum that showed a lot of the pre-Incan gold. It was the Bruning Museum in Lambayeque. The museum we wanted to see, the Lord of Sipan, was closed on mondays.
Michael went on to meet his girlfriend in Lima, but Rianne and I spent the night in a bad hotel so we could go see the Museum of Sipan in the morning. Tuesday morning, we went to see the museum, and it was amazing! The nearby tombs of Sipan look like the pyramids of Tucume, mud piles in the desert. However, they have excavated Sipan. But all the stuff they discovered is in the museum to protect it. Before the Incans, the Chimu culture lived in the northern desert. Before the Chimu was the empire of the Moches. The lords of the Moche culture were buried with huge amounts of gold and turquoise and silver. We saw earrings the size of tea plates and nose rings bigger than half a man's face, and granpa complains about my piercings!! The gold and all the ornaments and jewelry were unbelievable, and the items are priceless. I really felt like I was stepping back into a Moche temple 1000 years ago. We also learned about how all of the women, military leaders, and priests, of the lord would be buried with him to accompany him to the next life. They actually considered this an honor!
In the afternoon, it was goodbye to dusty Chiclayo, on a four hour bus south to the coastal city of Trujillo. What I didn't realize before coming here, was that the coastal region of northern Peru is a vast desert! It looks like southern Arizona! I would look out the bus window at sand, sand, and more sand. Then I would go to sleep for two hours, wake up, and see sand, sand, and more sand. It was like a twilight zone. Finally, we arrived in Trujillo. We made our way to the nearby small town of Huanchuco, which is on the ocean and where we found a cheap hostel before spending the evening swimming in the sea and watching the sun set.
Wednesday morning, we went to the Huaca de la Luna (or Moon Temple), another ancient structure of the Moche. Unlike Tucume, however, Huaca de la Luna had been excavated, and brilliantly painted murals appeared as archeologists dug through the pyramids. It was strange to stand in a brightly painted room, thinking about the human sacrifices that were happening in this brilliant temple 800 years ago.
In the afternoon, we went to Chan Chan. Chan Chan was the capital for the Chimu Empire, the culture after the Moche and before the Incas in this region. The city was huge, with 300,000 inhabitants and miles and miles of area. There were at least 8 palaces, but only one has been excavated. The palaces are constructed like a maze so that anyone coming in who wasn't supposed to be there would get hopelessly lost. The walls were made of adobe, and the mud was carved into all sorts of geometric shapes and animal designs. Standing in these pyramids and temples in the desert, I felt like I was in Egypt, not in South America! We also got to see where they buried their lords, again with all of the women, servants, military leaders, and priests, as human sacrifices to accompany their lord. Don't worry, though! They didn't even know what was going on when they were sacrificed, our tour guide explained, because they would take the halucinogeno San Pedro cactus before their throats were slit!!! Ew!!!
Well, after a long week of trekking around the Northern Peruvian desert exploring ancient ruins, it's time to leave Egypt... er, Peru. Tonight, I am starting a veeeeeeeeerrrry long two day trek from Trujillo, Peru, to Banos, Ecuador. If Ecuador lets me back in and everything goes according to my very very tentative plan, I will let you know that I am alive and well in Ecuador once I reach Banos.
Call me Elizabeth "Indiana Jones" Dumford...
On Saturday, Michael, Rianne, and I went with our guide Jesus from the town of Chachapoyas in the remote Peruvian Amazonas province to the fortress of Kuelap. After our crazy journey across the border over the previous two days, we really did not feel like getting in a tiny car and bouncing over atrocious roads for three hours to the site. But that was the only way there. Kuelap was built by the Chachapoyans, a pre-Incan culture that fought the Incans for decades before being conquered. They had a huge fortress on this cliff. Kuelap is bigger than Machu Pichu, but no one goes to Kuelap because it is so remote. In fact, only 2000 foreigners visited Kuelap in the whole year last year. We were the only people there. Us plus one American guy who was supposedly some kind of shaman. He decided to take a mixture of San Pedro and ayahuasca, very powerful hallucinogens. Then he went to the highest point in the fortress to do this ritual. I can't imagine a tour guide in the United States saying, Oh, we have to hang on while one of the tourists does drugs on the top of that cliff where he could hallucinate and plunge into oblivion. But that's what Jesus's attitude was toward the situation. When our shaman friend returned, we continued to walk through the fortress, and it looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. There were bromeliads and orchids growing out of original walls that were a hundred feet tall. There were temples with images of snake eyes and puma eyes. There were crumbling Chachapoyan and Incan houses.
On the drive back, we would sometimes have to get out of the car, because with people in it, it weighed too much to get through the mud. So we would get out, push the car through mud, and get back in. Finally, we arrived at the small town of Leymebamba. Jesus found out that the local people had just found out about karaoke, so it was the "inauguration" of karaoke for the town. We were invited to drink a lot of very cheap liquor (which I declined), while they fiddled helplessly with the computer program. It was a complete fiasco. The people could not figure out how to use the karaoke technology, and a lot of people just ended up singing randomly while getting drunk for free. They didn't seem to understand that they were supposed to be reading the lyrics and singing along to the tune. They would just grab the microphone and start singing whatever. It was hilarious... a complete failure... but hilarious.
In the morning, we went to the museum of Leymebamba, where they are storing 219 mummies that they found in local Chachapoyan tombs. They had to move them from the original sites, because graverobbers would sack the tombs, slice open the mummies, and take out any gold or silver the dead people were wearing. So a lot of mummies have been destroyed. It was insane to be in this room filled with intact pre-Incan mummies, some with the skeletons clearly visible, some wrapped in beautiful fabrics. In this tiny museum in the middle of nowhere. They are all in the fetal position, and then they would be placed in tombs on the sides of cliffs.
After seeing the mummies themselves, we went to one of the original mausoleums where the mummies had been found. The site was called Revash. And I became horribly ill. I had problems with parasites. Again. For the third time. And I almost threw up, and the sun got so hot, we were boiling. We hiked and hiked. And I kept stopping, in so much stomach pain... but long after my companions, I finally arrived. Revash reminded me a lot of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado. They are little houses built into the cliff like that, except they are not houses, they are their cemetary. The mummies would be placed in these structures on the cliffside. And the mausoleums were painted with images of pumas and other animals in bright reds and yellows.
We arrived very late back in Chachapoyas, and it was time to take a ten hour overnight bus from Chachapoyas to Chiclayo, going from the eastern side of the Andes mountains, the edge of the rainforest, over to the wesetern Andes, and descending into the coastal desert. The ride was very scary. I tried to sleep, but at one point, I made the mistake of looking at my window, and I almost panicked. Because by the light of the moon, all I could see below me was rushing water!!! No road!!! Because the bus was literally on the edge of the gorge, with mere centimeters between a rock cliff on the right and a flooded river on the left. The funny thing was, this was supposedly a two-way route! But I have no idea what the bus would have done if another car had come along, because it took up the whole entire road by itself!!!
After a lot of carsickness and hairpin weaving through dark mountains, we arrived in Chiclayo at 6 in the morning. We spent the day going to visit the archeological site at Tucume, a huge pre-Incan city. Unfortunately, we were disappointed because it just looked like mud piles because they have not excavated it yet. Then, we went to a museum that showed a lot of the pre-Incan gold. It was the Bruning Museum in Lambayeque. The museum we wanted to see, the Lord of Sipan, was closed on mondays.
Michael went on to meet his girlfriend in Lima, but Rianne and I spent the night in a bad hotel so we could go see the Museum of Sipan in the morning. Tuesday morning, we went to see the museum, and it was amazing! The nearby tombs of Sipan look like the pyramids of Tucume, mud piles in the desert. However, they have excavated Sipan. But all the stuff they discovered is in the museum to protect it. Before the Incans, the Chimu culture lived in the northern desert. Before the Chimu was the empire of the Moches. The lords of the Moche culture were buried with huge amounts of gold and turquoise and silver. We saw earrings the size of tea plates and nose rings bigger than half a man's face, and granpa complains about my piercings!! The gold and all the ornaments and jewelry were unbelievable, and the items are priceless. I really felt like I was stepping back into a Moche temple 1000 years ago. We also learned about how all of the women, military leaders, and priests, of the lord would be buried with him to accompany him to the next life. They actually considered this an honor!
In the afternoon, it was goodbye to dusty Chiclayo, on a four hour bus south to the coastal city of Trujillo. What I didn't realize before coming here, was that the coastal region of northern Peru is a vast desert! It looks like southern Arizona! I would look out the bus window at sand, sand, and more sand. Then I would go to sleep for two hours, wake up, and see sand, sand, and more sand. It was like a twilight zone. Finally, we arrived in Trujillo. We made our way to the nearby small town of Huanchuco, which is on the ocean and where we found a cheap hostel before spending the evening swimming in the sea and watching the sun set.
Wednesday morning, we went to the Huaca de la Luna (or Moon Temple), another ancient structure of the Moche. Unlike Tucume, however, Huaca de la Luna had been excavated, and brilliantly painted murals appeared as archeologists dug through the pyramids. It was strange to stand in a brightly painted room, thinking about the human sacrifices that were happening in this brilliant temple 800 years ago.
In the afternoon, we went to Chan Chan. Chan Chan was the capital for the Chimu Empire, the culture after the Moche and before the Incas in this region. The city was huge, with 300,000 inhabitants and miles and miles of area. There were at least 8 palaces, but only one has been excavated. The palaces are constructed like a maze so that anyone coming in who wasn't supposed to be there would get hopelessly lost. The walls were made of adobe, and the mud was carved into all sorts of geometric shapes and animal designs. Standing in these pyramids and temples in the desert, I felt like I was in Egypt, not in South America! We also got to see where they buried their lords, again with all of the women, servants, military leaders, and priests, as human sacrifices to accompany their lord. Don't worry, though! They didn't even know what was going on when they were sacrificed, our tour guide explained, because they would take the halucinogeno San Pedro cactus before their throats were slit!!! Ew!!!
Well, after a long week of trekking around the Northern Peruvian desert exploring ancient ruins, it's time to leave Egypt... er, Peru. Tonight, I am starting a veeeeeeeeerrrry long two day trek from Trujillo, Peru, to Banos, Ecuador. If Ecuador lets me back in and everything goes according to my very very tentative plan, I will let you know that I am alive and well in Ecuador once I reach Banos.
Call me Elizabeth "Indiana Jones" Dumford...
Friday, January 12, 2007
I... am in Peru!!!
So after Vilcabamba, I don´t know what to do with myself. I meet a Dutch girl named Rianne, and she says that two days into the Amazonian region of Peru is a crazy pre-Incan fortress, Kuelap, huge ruins to rival Machu Pichu. But almost no tourists in Kuelap because the way there is incredibly difficult to find. So we set out from Vilcabamba heading toward the frontier of Peru, asking along the way, hoping to find ourselves and our path...
A six hour bus through cloud forest from Vilcabamba to Zumba. On the bus, we meet Michael, a German. We are the only three foreigners. We become a team.
The fog clings to the side of verdant green cliffs overflowing with bromeliads and orchids. Shacks cling like the fog along the deep gorges as the road becomes nearly impassable. Jolting and jolting along the supposed highway. Our first military checkpoint.
The soldiers say that a landslide eleven days ago has shut down the border. But we continue on...
Zumba is a tiny town. In a chiva, a sort of pickup truck with benches and a roof, we head towards the border, supposedly. Another military checkpoint. The soldier says that maybe, maybe, we can cross the river on foot with our packs and find our way to the border on the other side. The locals on the chiva laugh at our ridiculously large backpacks and bewildered English discussions. The chiva drives until the road is blocked by a landslide. A friendly bulldozer driver makes, literally makes, a new road for us to get by. An hour later we are on our way again, until we come to a truck stuck in the mud. An hour later it unsticks itself. Then we go on to the real landslide.
The bridge has disappeared, leaving a naked gorge carved by a wildly rushing river. The landslide has blocked the crossing and destroyed the bridge, the highway, everything. Down a makeshift ladder we climb deep into the gorge, slipping on watery mud, squelching, the weight of our packs destroying our balance. At the bottom, our hearts sink. A thin log across the river. The only way to cross. Covered with slime. And we have our packs. No choice. Arms out, breath held, we inch across.
And we make it!
On the other side, another ladder, panting now... and a pickup truck is waiting for the locals to take them on to the border town of La Balsa.
Night is already falling as we descend unbelievably beautiful forested slopes to another river, clinging desperately to the sides of the truckbed where we are tossed with a few Peruvian migrants, two boxes of chickens (alive and squawking), and a teenage Ecuadorian girl.
At La Balsa, the immigration soldier has gone missing. They tell us to go on to Peru, but we insist on getting our exit stamps! The few families that eke out a living by exchanging dollars and soles there search for the official, find him. He stamps my passport, January 10. Then he realizes he forgot to change the date. It was January 11. No one had crossed the border in that area for at least a day. I have lost my tourist card. He does not care, hands me another.
Then, we walk to Peru, across another river, but now we have a bridge.
In Peru, the immigration official is very young, as young as my youngest sister. He has no idea what to ask us and just smiles and tries to practice his basic English. The police control needs to stamp our documents. They are playing video games in the office when we enter and ignore us for a few minutes, finally stamping us into the country without taking their eyes off of their game.
A car is waiting to take us the two hours to San Ignacio. Seven people cram into this car. We drive into Peru in the dark. No electricity in the houses. We pass tiny villages with ghostly candles shining out of concrete block homes. A CD of salsa tunes on repeat accompanies our arrival into Peru, the driver blasting the volume, the songs etching into our brains until we start absentmindedly singing the lyrics.
San Ignacio is a pit stop. Only a pit stop, but we can make it no further the first night. And the place has electricity. A cold shower then bed...
We wake up at 6 in the morning. Minibuses, tiny minibuses, run "about every hour" or "when they get full" the locals tell us. The minibus is the size of my parent´s van. Nineteen people fit in this minibus. People lying on people. People squished in between seats. Children sprawled over each other like chickens in a box. Your knees in your face. Sardines. No words but sardines can convey our situation. Worse than seven people in a car is nineteen people in a van! Three hours until Jaen.
In Jaen, we arrive on the wrong side of town. The moto-taxis are like the tuk-tuks of Asia. A motorcycle with a compartment in the back. After much hassling we get a moto-taxi made for two, squeeze three people and our packs into the back, ride to wear minibuses wait like giant white bugs in the dusty heat of the frontier town.
A minibus again. Hours from Jaen to Bagua Grande. In Bagua Grande our luck runs out.
One camioneta goes to Pedro Ruiz per day, usually. And it had already left...
A lot of negotiating with sweaty Peruvian taxi drivers. Futile. We must pay 22 soles each (about 7 dollars), a ridiculous price, to reach Chachapoyas. We pay the taxi driver and begin the drive to Pedro Ruiz, two hours away.
The roads in Amazonas in Peru are wretched, falling away in landslides during this rainy season. We do not drink so that we will not have to pee. We have not eaten. Dehydrated, hungry, tired, carsick.
We pass Pedro Ruiz and the road ends. "No hay paso" (there is no way through) says the polite female road worker. A river has risen and covered the only road out. We beg and plead and finally we are allowed to drive through... through the river. The shallowest point still nearly obscures our car, the water rising fast as we almost float over the rocky riverbed.
Past the flooded river, we drive into an incredible canyon, alone on the dirt highway, jostling along still. The scenery is amazing. Like the formations of Utah with the rocky greenness of Colorado. We drive along the river.
Night is falling on the second day as we climb out of the canyon to Chachapoyas, a small city on a ridge. The city is an anomaly. Who would build a town here? I think. We think. We don´t know. But we are grateful. A hostal to sleep in. Yes. And we even find hamburgers, hamburgers doomed to disappear quickly as we devour them after our long journey and fasting.
A local guide will take us on a two day trek to see the fortress at Kuélap. Tomorrow we leave at 8 in the morning.
And hopefully, next time I write, I will have found this forbidden city in the jungle.
Now I understand why no one comes here. It is an incredible journey...
A six hour bus through cloud forest from Vilcabamba to Zumba. On the bus, we meet Michael, a German. We are the only three foreigners. We become a team.
The fog clings to the side of verdant green cliffs overflowing with bromeliads and orchids. Shacks cling like the fog along the deep gorges as the road becomes nearly impassable. Jolting and jolting along the supposed highway. Our first military checkpoint.
The soldiers say that a landslide eleven days ago has shut down the border. But we continue on...
Zumba is a tiny town. In a chiva, a sort of pickup truck with benches and a roof, we head towards the border, supposedly. Another military checkpoint. The soldier says that maybe, maybe, we can cross the river on foot with our packs and find our way to the border on the other side. The locals on the chiva laugh at our ridiculously large backpacks and bewildered English discussions. The chiva drives until the road is blocked by a landslide. A friendly bulldozer driver makes, literally makes, a new road for us to get by. An hour later we are on our way again, until we come to a truck stuck in the mud. An hour later it unsticks itself. Then we go on to the real landslide.
The bridge has disappeared, leaving a naked gorge carved by a wildly rushing river. The landslide has blocked the crossing and destroyed the bridge, the highway, everything. Down a makeshift ladder we climb deep into the gorge, slipping on watery mud, squelching, the weight of our packs destroying our balance. At the bottom, our hearts sink. A thin log across the river. The only way to cross. Covered with slime. And we have our packs. No choice. Arms out, breath held, we inch across.
And we make it!
On the other side, another ladder, panting now... and a pickup truck is waiting for the locals to take them on to the border town of La Balsa.
Night is already falling as we descend unbelievably beautiful forested slopes to another river, clinging desperately to the sides of the truckbed where we are tossed with a few Peruvian migrants, two boxes of chickens (alive and squawking), and a teenage Ecuadorian girl.
At La Balsa, the immigration soldier has gone missing. They tell us to go on to Peru, but we insist on getting our exit stamps! The few families that eke out a living by exchanging dollars and soles there search for the official, find him. He stamps my passport, January 10. Then he realizes he forgot to change the date. It was January 11. No one had crossed the border in that area for at least a day. I have lost my tourist card. He does not care, hands me another.
Then, we walk to Peru, across another river, but now we have a bridge.
In Peru, the immigration official is very young, as young as my youngest sister. He has no idea what to ask us and just smiles and tries to practice his basic English. The police control needs to stamp our documents. They are playing video games in the office when we enter and ignore us for a few minutes, finally stamping us into the country without taking their eyes off of their game.
A car is waiting to take us the two hours to San Ignacio. Seven people cram into this car. We drive into Peru in the dark. No electricity in the houses. We pass tiny villages with ghostly candles shining out of concrete block homes. A CD of salsa tunes on repeat accompanies our arrival into Peru, the driver blasting the volume, the songs etching into our brains until we start absentmindedly singing the lyrics.
San Ignacio is a pit stop. Only a pit stop, but we can make it no further the first night. And the place has electricity. A cold shower then bed...
We wake up at 6 in the morning. Minibuses, tiny minibuses, run "about every hour" or "when they get full" the locals tell us. The minibus is the size of my parent´s van. Nineteen people fit in this minibus. People lying on people. People squished in between seats. Children sprawled over each other like chickens in a box. Your knees in your face. Sardines. No words but sardines can convey our situation. Worse than seven people in a car is nineteen people in a van! Three hours until Jaen.
In Jaen, we arrive on the wrong side of town. The moto-taxis are like the tuk-tuks of Asia. A motorcycle with a compartment in the back. After much hassling we get a moto-taxi made for two, squeeze three people and our packs into the back, ride to wear minibuses wait like giant white bugs in the dusty heat of the frontier town.
A minibus again. Hours from Jaen to Bagua Grande. In Bagua Grande our luck runs out.
One camioneta goes to Pedro Ruiz per day, usually. And it had already left...
A lot of negotiating with sweaty Peruvian taxi drivers. Futile. We must pay 22 soles each (about 7 dollars), a ridiculous price, to reach Chachapoyas. We pay the taxi driver and begin the drive to Pedro Ruiz, two hours away.
The roads in Amazonas in Peru are wretched, falling away in landslides during this rainy season. We do not drink so that we will not have to pee. We have not eaten. Dehydrated, hungry, tired, carsick.
We pass Pedro Ruiz and the road ends. "No hay paso" (there is no way through) says the polite female road worker. A river has risen and covered the only road out. We beg and plead and finally we are allowed to drive through... through the river. The shallowest point still nearly obscures our car, the water rising fast as we almost float over the rocky riverbed.
Past the flooded river, we drive into an incredible canyon, alone on the dirt highway, jostling along still. The scenery is amazing. Like the formations of Utah with the rocky greenness of Colorado. We drive along the river.
Night is falling on the second day as we climb out of the canyon to Chachapoyas, a small city on a ridge. The city is an anomaly. Who would build a town here? I think. We think. We don´t know. But we are grateful. A hostal to sleep in. Yes. And we even find hamburgers, hamburgers doomed to disappear quickly as we devour them after our long journey and fasting.
A local guide will take us on a two day trek to see the fortress at Kuélap. Tomorrow we leave at 8 in the morning.
And hopefully, next time I write, I will have found this forbidden city in the jungle.
Now I understand why no one comes here. It is an incredible journey...
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Saraguro, Loja, Vilcabamba, Podocarpus National Park
So, sorry not to have updated for awhile, but the Internet has been pretty slow and I had some fiascos involving graduate school recommendations not getting sent, and those took priority.
So after Cajas National Park, we spent Saturday night in Cuenca. On Sunday, we took the bus to Loja. Loja is a very boring ugly town. The only exciting part about Sunday was stopping in Saraguro on the way there. Saraguro is a small Quichua town halfway between Cuenca and Loja. The indigenous people there are some of the leaders of the national indigenous movement. They wear very dark colors, long black skirts, and shawls fastened with antique nickel pins. These pins are called tupus. And I was able to buy one that was four hundred years old. Normally, they would never sell them because they are heirlooms, handed down from one generation to the next. But as the woman who sold it to me said, the young girls are no longer interested in dressing in the traditional way and the heirlooms are being discarded. I also had my first, very short, conversation in Quichua with this woman. It went like this:
me: Quichuata yachacuni (I am learning Quichua)
her: Quichuata alli yachacunqui. (You are learning Quichua very well)
me: Quichuata yachacuni. Cuencamanta shamunchi. (I am just learning Quichua. We are coming from Cuenca)
her: Cuencamanta shamunguichi? Lojaman ricunguichi? (You both coming from Cuenca? You both are going to go to Loja?)
me: .... at this point, I am so excited that I am speaking Quichua that I answer "sí" in Spanish instead of the Quichua "Ari" but that´s okay. I spoke Quichua!!
The women also wear these hats that have cowsking underneath so they look like advertisements for Gateway computers! They also wear these huge beaded necklaces that would be more common in Africa, I think. So I bought a tupu and a necklace. Everyone in Saraguro asked Eva and I if we were in the Peace Corps because they didn´t see very many foreigners and figured that is the only reason we would be out that far from any large towns.
Sunday night we stayed in a disgusting place in Loja. The only good thing about Loja is that it is near Saraguro, Vilcabamba, and Podocarpus National Park. Monday we went to a botanical garden in Loja that sounded nice but was a big disappointment if you´ve spent a lot of time in the real rainforest. We decided it was time to get the heck out of Dodge, er, Loja, and we took the bus to Vilcabamba.
Vilcabamba is a beautiful tiny village in southern Ecuador. Even though it is the last town before the Peruvian border, it is a very rough 9 hour trek to Peru. The valley of Vilcabamba is famous for its old people. Legend says that residents regularly live to be in the 100s and are quite spritely for their age. I don´t know about the magical water or climate, but we sure had a relaxing time in Vilcabamba. We splurged on a hillside resort with spectacular views of the mountain, a German restaurant, a pool, wonderful showers, and included breakfast. It came to 8 dollars a night to stay at the Hosteria Izhcayluma, the most I have paid in my travels for a room. On Tuesday, I went with a local guide to the Podocarpus National Park. We went trekking through the cloud forest south of Vilcabamba, and I even spotted a quetzal bird! Then we found fresh puma tracks in the path. They were very fresh because it had been raining! You know that I have had quite enough with big cats, so I was happy that we did not run across that puma!
On Wednesday, I trekked with some new friends to an overlook of the Vilcabamba valley. We were the first people to test out this new trail, and it was amazing! I mean it was amazing that the route counts as a trail! We were walking along the ridges of high mountains with sheer drops into the cliffs below! And the ground was very crumbly. We were shocked to find cows and horses up there. We have no idea how they do not plummet into the abyss as we almost did. After that adventure, the cool pool and hot showers were wonderful!
Vilcabamba is a wonderful peaceful place to be, but the Internet was horrible when it worked at all, so it was hard to update. We were also staying a thirty minute walk from town.
After Vilcabamba I had no idea what to do with myself next... you´ll never guess what I decided... to be continued...
So after Cajas National Park, we spent Saturday night in Cuenca. On Sunday, we took the bus to Loja. Loja is a very boring ugly town. The only exciting part about Sunday was stopping in Saraguro on the way there. Saraguro is a small Quichua town halfway between Cuenca and Loja. The indigenous people there are some of the leaders of the national indigenous movement. They wear very dark colors, long black skirts, and shawls fastened with antique nickel pins. These pins are called tupus. And I was able to buy one that was four hundred years old. Normally, they would never sell them because they are heirlooms, handed down from one generation to the next. But as the woman who sold it to me said, the young girls are no longer interested in dressing in the traditional way and the heirlooms are being discarded. I also had my first, very short, conversation in Quichua with this woman. It went like this:
me: Quichuata yachacuni (I am learning Quichua)
her: Quichuata alli yachacunqui. (You are learning Quichua very well)
me: Quichuata yachacuni. Cuencamanta shamunchi. (I am just learning Quichua. We are coming from Cuenca)
her: Cuencamanta shamunguichi? Lojaman ricunguichi? (You both coming from Cuenca? You both are going to go to Loja?)
me: .... at this point, I am so excited that I am speaking Quichua that I answer "sí" in Spanish instead of the Quichua "Ari" but that´s okay. I spoke Quichua!!
The women also wear these hats that have cowsking underneath so they look like advertisements for Gateway computers! They also wear these huge beaded necklaces that would be more common in Africa, I think. So I bought a tupu and a necklace. Everyone in Saraguro asked Eva and I if we were in the Peace Corps because they didn´t see very many foreigners and figured that is the only reason we would be out that far from any large towns.
Sunday night we stayed in a disgusting place in Loja. The only good thing about Loja is that it is near Saraguro, Vilcabamba, and Podocarpus National Park. Monday we went to a botanical garden in Loja that sounded nice but was a big disappointment if you´ve spent a lot of time in the real rainforest. We decided it was time to get the heck out of Dodge, er, Loja, and we took the bus to Vilcabamba.
Vilcabamba is a beautiful tiny village in southern Ecuador. Even though it is the last town before the Peruvian border, it is a very rough 9 hour trek to Peru. The valley of Vilcabamba is famous for its old people. Legend says that residents regularly live to be in the 100s and are quite spritely for their age. I don´t know about the magical water or climate, but we sure had a relaxing time in Vilcabamba. We splurged on a hillside resort with spectacular views of the mountain, a German restaurant, a pool, wonderful showers, and included breakfast. It came to 8 dollars a night to stay at the Hosteria Izhcayluma, the most I have paid in my travels for a room. On Tuesday, I went with a local guide to the Podocarpus National Park. We went trekking through the cloud forest south of Vilcabamba, and I even spotted a quetzal bird! Then we found fresh puma tracks in the path. They were very fresh because it had been raining! You know that I have had quite enough with big cats, so I was happy that we did not run across that puma!
On Wednesday, I trekked with some new friends to an overlook of the Vilcabamba valley. We were the first people to test out this new trail, and it was amazing! I mean it was amazing that the route counts as a trail! We were walking along the ridges of high mountains with sheer drops into the cliffs below! And the ground was very crumbly. We were shocked to find cows and horses up there. We have no idea how they do not plummet into the abyss as we almost did. After that adventure, the cool pool and hot showers were wonderful!
Vilcabamba is a wonderful peaceful place to be, but the Internet was horrible when it worked at all, so it was hard to update. We were also staying a thirty minute walk from town.
After Vilcabamba I had no idea what to do with myself next... you´ll never guess what I decided... to be continued...
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Ingapirca, Cajas National Park
So yesterday, Eva Maria and I headed up to the Inca ruins two hours north of Cuenca. The ruins are called Ingapirca (Incan wall, yay my mad Quichua skills). The original walls were built by the Cañari culture in 900 AD. Then the Incas invaded in 1470 and brought with them astrology, technology, all kinds of fun stuff. They built a temple in the shape of an oval, because they knew that the orbits of the planets in space was ellipitical, not circular. And they were the only Amerindian culture that knew about this. In the temple, the niches are perfectly aligned so that during the soltices only the two middle niches are illuminated by the sun. During the equinoxes, only the far niches are illuminated. They also had this amazing rock calendar. They would drill holes in the rocks, fill the holes with water, and use the little puddles like mirrors to watch the night sky. But the moon and the stars, obviously, would move from puddle to puddle throughout the night and throughout the year. In this way, they were incredibly advanced in astrology. We also saw these crazy doors that had more space at top and less around the legs. The guide told us this was because of the huge headdresses that the Incans wore into the ceremonies. The whole little town was built in the shape of a puma. From above, like from an airplane, it still looks like a giant rock puma, even though most of the walls are gone, because the stupid Spaniards stole a lot of the rocks to build houses and roads. Only 2 percent of the original rocks remain.
We also learned about how the llama was sacred to the Incas. Even though they ate llama, they never used them for transport. They never rode them. That is hardcore considering the alternative was carrying all of their cargo on their backs, which they did. The Incas also did not value gold that much. When they came across the Cañari, who traded with coastal people, they were obsessed with seashells because they had never seen them before and had never been to the ocean. Therefore, a lot of Incan gold ended up on the coast, traded for seashells! When the Spaniards came, they destroyed most of the Sun Temple looking for gold... to bad they didn´t want seashells!
Today, we headed out to Cajas National Park. The trails there, like everywhere in Ecuador, were horrible and poorly marked. We ran into an Austrian guy and his Hungarian mother, and the four of us got horribly lost in this crazy forest that looked like it came from China. The trees are the highest elevation trees in the world, all knarled and crazy looking. It looked like we were in that Fire Swamp forest from The Princess Bride. We were also at a very high elevation, and Eva and I both got altitude sickness very badly. After most of the day, we found the original trail to an overlook that we wanted. We almost made it to the top, but the fog was rolling in, and we did not want to get stranded. They say not to even go to that park without a guide, but after my time in Baños, I knew a guide would cost 35 bucks, and we couldn´t pay that! So we got almost to the summit. The view was amazing. This part of Ecuador has over 232 lakes, and it is this unreal paramo landscape in the middle of nowhere. The quiet is amazing. It is freezing cold. And the altitude was 4200 meters!! That´s really really high.
So we just barely caught a random bus on the mountain highway and made it back to Cuenca. Both Eva and I had plopped our hands down in a poisonous-ish plant that made us break out all over our hands and made our hands swell and sting. We were all horribly dirty. Eva twisted her ankle. I fell and landed on a spiny plant that managed to squish a huge splinter under my nail, which began to bleed everywhere. And everyone was getting altitude sickness. So it was a very very long day, even though the experience was worth it. Now I am going back to take a hot shower and to rest before we head to Loja tomorrow. Eva and I are both still suffering horrible altitude headaches and this computer screen doesn´t help.
I´ll be in touch when I am cleaner and healthier!!! Love from Incan ruins and ridiculously high altitude Andean lakes.
We also learned about how the llama was sacred to the Incas. Even though they ate llama, they never used them for transport. They never rode them. That is hardcore considering the alternative was carrying all of their cargo on their backs, which they did. The Incas also did not value gold that much. When they came across the Cañari, who traded with coastal people, they were obsessed with seashells because they had never seen them before and had never been to the ocean. Therefore, a lot of Incan gold ended up on the coast, traded for seashells! When the Spaniards came, they destroyed most of the Sun Temple looking for gold... to bad they didn´t want seashells!
Today, we headed out to Cajas National Park. The trails there, like everywhere in Ecuador, were horrible and poorly marked. We ran into an Austrian guy and his Hungarian mother, and the four of us got horribly lost in this crazy forest that looked like it came from China. The trees are the highest elevation trees in the world, all knarled and crazy looking. It looked like we were in that Fire Swamp forest from The Princess Bride. We were also at a very high elevation, and Eva and I both got altitude sickness very badly. After most of the day, we found the original trail to an overlook that we wanted. We almost made it to the top, but the fog was rolling in, and we did not want to get stranded. They say not to even go to that park without a guide, but after my time in Baños, I knew a guide would cost 35 bucks, and we couldn´t pay that! So we got almost to the summit. The view was amazing. This part of Ecuador has over 232 lakes, and it is this unreal paramo landscape in the middle of nowhere. The quiet is amazing. It is freezing cold. And the altitude was 4200 meters!! That´s really really high.
So we just barely caught a random bus on the mountain highway and made it back to Cuenca. Both Eva and I had plopped our hands down in a poisonous-ish plant that made us break out all over our hands and made our hands swell and sting. We were all horribly dirty. Eva twisted her ankle. I fell and landed on a spiny plant that managed to squish a huge splinter under my nail, which began to bleed everywhere. And everyone was getting altitude sickness. So it was a very very long day, even though the experience was worth it. Now I am going back to take a hot shower and to rest before we head to Loja tomorrow. Eva and I are both still suffering horrible altitude headaches and this computer screen doesn´t help.
I´ll be in touch when I am cleaner and healthier!!! Love from Incan ruins and ridiculously high altitude Andean lakes.
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