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.