2581 Miles to the South

Machu Picchu

2008-05-15T15:53:50Z

Really, words cannot begin to illustrate Machu Picchu well enough, but I will try. We arrived from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes by day the day before and rested in the overpriced, good for nothing town. In the morning, if you can call it that, Frank and I got out of bed and started up the path the Machu Picchu. We hoped to arrive before the first busses arrived at the top at 545am for the opening of the gates at 600am, so we started at 430am. It was still pitch black out, and we were only guided by a handheld flashlight. Already when we got to the trailhead around 500am, we could see flickers of light like fireflies on the hillside of early trekkers attempting to do the same feat we did, only getting a better start than us. With a wad of coca leaves in our mouths, we did climbed the trail in half the time estimated by the information desk. But when we were only minutes upon getting to the gate when we heard the motors and breaks of the first buses arriving. We couldn't believe it. We were maybe two minutes from beating the barely awake bus travelers. In line, maybe 300 back, we noticed all the laws broken pertaining to maintenance of the archeological ruins, people bringing in food, walking sticks, you name it. We abided by the rules, but for seemingly no reason, and it's a shame we did, because we really could have used food for fuel and water to rehydrate us for the long morning still ahead of us. One of the reasons why we wanted to get out early was to get in line to climb Huayna Picchu, which only allows 400 people into the limited access part. Upon entering, we spead around the slow, unfit, and still stiff visitors to the park and managed to get 9th and 10th in line. As we waited th sun peaked over the mountains around Macchu Picchu. It was stunning, minus the already hundreds of people crowding into the park. It is amazing to think that this is the "off season." When we finally got to pass through the gates to get up to Huayna Picchu, it was a repeat of getting to the gate, we passed the struggling and stiff climbers on our way to joining a pair of Canadians to be the first on top of Huayna Picchu. As we got to the top, the sky started to break. Earlier there was a fog that covered the landscape, but when we arrived to the top, we had a clear view of everything around us. It was magical. Alone on the peak, having scaled the high stairs and boulders, we just sat silently soaking it all in. As the day continued, we friended our Canadian hiking partners, and treked around the rest of Huayna Picchu to see the Temple of the Moon and the Great Cave on the back side. The entire time we were completely alone in the great wilderness on the outskirts of Machu Picchu. It was awesome. But the climb back up to the regular park wasn't. I was dehydrated by that point and it seemed like the stairs never ceased to end. We would finally come down, only to come right back up. Around the outside of Huayna Picchu, the stairs hugged a cliff that had at least a 1000ft fall below. When we got back to Machu Picchu we went straight to the entrance to get drinks in celebration. We had hiked all that there was to hike around Huayna Picchu in 90 minutes, when the estimated time was more than twice that. Again, I felt like a champ. But instead of a free cold beer as my reward, it was a steep price of S/16 a piece. Water was something like S/12. But I needed it, badly. After a nice leisurely break, we hiked but again up to the sun gate where those climbing up the Inca Trail would first see Machu Picchu. It was a stunning sight from there. Frank and I sat for nearly an hour soaking it in in complete silence. From there we travelled back down to see the ruins of Machu Picchu when finally the crowds started to thin. We were there almost of magic hour as the sun set, but had to get back down by foot to make it to our train to Ollantaytambo or else take the $24 bus ride down. We decided to walk. By the end of the day my legs felt like jelly. We walked for twelve hours that day, in a continuous climb and decent. But the experience was worth every burnt calorie and more. I am still shaken by the awesome construction of Machu Picchu in the middle of some of the steepest mountains I have seen.

Machu Picchu remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Climbing High

2008-05-08T21:33:01Z

Out of Trujillo, Frank and I ascended into the Peruvian Andes, making our way into Huaraz. Immediately as we got off our night bus we came upon people leading us to hostels and givingus deals for the Santa Cruz trek. We found out fast that the bus terminal was in a new location and quite far off from anyone, so we latched on to one happy Huarazian who directed us to a place to eat. He was offering us an all inclusive trip along the Santa Cruz trek for a whopping $100. He toyed with him getting him down to $80, but ultimately sent him off. We would go up to Punta Union and back for a measley S/120 which was less than half of his offering price. We pulled into Caraz, a pristine little mountain town that reminded me of those in Colorado for the night and found a perfect colonial hostal with someone who helped us plan out our trip up to Punta Union and back so as not to pay a S/65 fee to take the trek. In the morning we got out early to catch a collectivo driven by a hell-bent teenager who sped on the dirt roat past the many points of plunging off the mountain at 90km/hr. Getting out, Frank and I kissed the ground before even taking notice of our surroundings. In front of us was a steep canyon, much to our displeasure, after all climbing at over 3000m high after being at sea level only 35 hours earlier was hellish. It took us awhile, but our youth took over. We cruised through the first camp and off to the second that was recommended for us to stay. But upon getting to French couple going down, they encouraged us to go on farther. Well, what the hell, we made it this far and it's only 2:30. So we kept going... and going... and going... Where was the path anyway? But the scenery was nice. Waterfalls crashing down the steep slopes of mountains seemingly coming from the heavens. We were completely alone with only donkeys and cattle. In front of us were snow capped peaks of over 5000m high. On more than one occation we had to stop and recharge with sugar and some food, leaking already light supply of food supposedly for four days. By the time we saw the tents of others camped at the base of punta union it was 5ish and we were beat. We climbed 20km uphill on limited food. We were already down to just eight fruit and a loaf of bread and some bad andean cheese. I couldn't even sleep at night I was so tired. The morning was very slow coming. At one point I was just impelled to get back outside and stand for a second, and the brilliant stars hung up above. I would have stayed outside, except I was freezing! It had to have been single digits, celcius. Finally the morning did come, and the group camping near us invited us over for mate de coca. It gave us enough of a boost to start early on the hike up to Punta Union, 500m higher than we had slept. We were getting close, at least we hoped, because I was needing to take a break at every switch back to keep my heart from racing like that of a hummingbird's. Then it started to hail on us. I was just about to turn around and go back down. Afterall the pass was not even in sight. But pushed further by looking at a stunning glacier lake, it finally slowed enough to see in front of us. We then saw the sign to signify the top. When we got there, it was not as gratifying with the hail, but every once in a while it would break and the peak ajoining the ridge we topped was in clear view. It was so close, only 1000m higher. I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just proud to say I climbed three miles high in less than three days. Pretty shocking. At 4750m high, or 15675ft, higher than any point in the continental United States, it probably is the highest I will ever be above sea level.

Climbing High remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Ducking into Peru

2008-04-30T03:07:47Z

Well what better way to start out my South American trek than a border crossing from Ecuador into Peru? The Ecuador-Peru border was just about all the stress I could cope with. When we got to the border it was like walking into another world, one of toil and blood.

It was something similar to what I have seen for border crossing into Mexico, only I was living in it, actually passing the border. Much more of a real experience than thinking, "oh poor, poor souls," as I pass on by. The first matter of deceit we ran into was a man kindly leading us across the border. As it was my first, I thought, wow it could be great to have a companion to push us across this place, but he lead us into his trap. He lied, just like everyone, all lies. You have to show $200 dollars to the Peruvian checkpoint to get a visa, he said. That can't be. Frank took over, he had much more experience with this sort of thing. He played bad cop with his confrontational English, and I played good cop because that is all I could translate into Spanish. He took us over to his partners in crime who were offering to make currency exchanges. I was glad to have Frank get us through all the lies.

We then came upon a man as we were walking over the bridge into Peru, while still being followed like celebrities by a least three others looking to make money off of us. He offered to be our taxi to get us to the Peruvian checkpoint, in order to get our visas, and then further down the road so we could catch a bus. He was asking a high price but we lowered it down to $10. It was just too good to be true.

In fact it was. He of course was no different than anyone else. The only thing that helped him get our attention was a ride to speed our departure of the depressing scene. We first stopped in to get our visas. Constantly worried about our things, I decided that I should keep watch in the car as Frank got the stamps to get us entry into Peru. I was horrified. It was a bad decision on my part. Being alone without an escape or any defenses brought back a little trauma for me. I vowed not to split from Frank's side from that point on. So we pressed forward. But then here comes our driver's ploy. Oh you meant the town of Tumbes, not the border shanty place where you can't find a bus that goes anywhere. Uh, duh! Well that will be $40 for the trip then. Whoa whoa whoa. We argued for twenty minutes in the car as we shuffled at no more than 15km/hr with trucks blowing past us. Even then he was having difficulty staying on the road. Constantly looking back at me to explain how disfortunate he is and the high prices of gas and the problems of the world. Rage welled up inside both of us. He saw it too and tried immediately to play the friend. $20, then. $20. There aren't buses to get to Tumbes, gas is $6/gallon. Everything he said was awash. He was disfortunate, living in that wasteland. I can only wonder what life means to people who live that way on border towns.

As we approached Tumbes, I made conserted efforts to identify any fallacies in the driver's story. Gas was 11.50. Wait, what? Oh nuevo soles. I only thought of that later. That makes gas prices equivalent to the states, at about 3.50, another lie. We don't even care at that point though. We just want to get past the border town, move away from these people. But it doesn't end there. We concede $20 to the man and he double takes. He asked for a different bill, perhaps one more used. Excuse me? Does a new $20 not satisfy you? He says that it is fake, that it doesn't have the glimmer of a real bill. But the water mark is there and so is the plastic strip. Well take it to the bank and prove its worth then. Uh, ok.

We walk into the bank and move to exchange $100 into nuevo soles. But one of the twenties is claimed to be fake. How could that be? He does a water check and the bill rips apart like it was a wet kleenex. A fake $20, with a water mark and a plastic band. I think I will never trust money ever again. We give the haughty driver his $20 worth in soles and tell him to beat it. Now we need to get out of Tumbes. The equivalent to a large Del Rio or like El Paso. I don't like the feel. We get to the bus station but the next bus out of there is a night bus, but the sun is still directly overhead. I feel like each minute that passes in this crummy place is leeching future life out of me. There is a crowd around us now, where ever we walk. We find a minibus willing to take us further south for dirt cheap. That's all we need to hear. We are in it in a matter of seconds, and on the road in minutes. Thank God!

We come upon Mancora, a little beach oasis, that welcomes us the second we stumble out of the minibus. It was well deserved though. Kicking back and soaking in the sun was all we wanted to do for 24 more hours before even considering moving further on in Peru.

Ducking into Peru remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Last Weekend

2008-04-08T20:04:46Z

This past weekend was the longest hours of my life. I don't want to tell everyone what happened in the most impersonal way, but I feel obligated to let anyone know who wants know. And for those willing to wait, I just want to make it known that I am recovering very quickly, faster than I ever thought I could, and I am feeling a lot better now. Things like this don't go away, but I feel like if I can make it through the next week, my travels with my brother will be a lot more comfortable and reassuring.

Last Weekend remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Birthdays

2008-04-02T23:11:38Z

I am trying to figure something out. Why is it that everyone in my family in Ecuador seem to have their birthdays on the most inopportune times. In the last week there has been FIVE birthdays.

There is something you should know about birthdays in Ecuador. They drink. A lot. There is no acclaimed alcoholism, and maybe that is because everyone is an alcoholic. So they push you to drink and to drink a lot. Only tonight, I am not in the mood. I got too much to do. It figures that the night is a big one too. The fiftieth birthday of my host mom's boyfriend.

Birthdays remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Andacocha

2008-04-02T22:54:31Z

Andacocha is a destination for prayers of people who are subjected to inequalities so common, especially outside of the towns and cities. It used to be a place for prayers to protect animals or children from illnesses and the like but it has evolved within the last twenty years into a place to pray for safe migration to the United States or elsewhere, often illegally.

They say you have to suffer on the way to get there, and I got a good idea of what that entails. We climbed up steep rocky, muddy, swampy trails until we reached a pass between two higher mountains that is undeveloped, where a church and plaza stood. Depending on the type of suffering required for the type of prayer you are asking for, some migrants climb the slopes barefooted or even by crawling. The thought of either of those is remarkable. It was bad enough with a pair of tennis shoes.

As we climbed, we went along houses that have developed along the way now that a road leads up to the church. The church used to be a small little outpost, but now it is a grandiose building, reconstructed with the thousands upon thousands of dollars from migrants sending money back to pay homage and thanks to their miracle.

The church is home to a miracle, thus making it a miracle working place of worship. The story goes that a worker of a large hacienda found an icon of Jesus, no larger than the length of my hand, out in the middle of the páramo. The owners took the image down into the town below on three different occasions, each of which end with the image miraculously making its way back to the place it was found, close to the poor disfortunate workers of the hacienda. After the third miracle, it was decided that they would construct a chapel there, close to the indigenous people, to serve the indigenous people. Now, the less fortunate go there asking for a change in the inequalities of society here, by allowing a safe passage to the United States.

I made my own sacrifice in reaching the top, hiking the steep trails, and I had a little prayer of my own. One that the heavens above had heard many a time from where I lit my candle. I asked for my safe arrival into the United States. The church itself was lavishly decorated in stained glass windows, paid for with migrant money. They also had a museum paying homage to all the successful migrants who made it to the United States and who are making money to help their family out of debts and suppression. The room was not very big, but it was littered in photographs and plaques professing their thanks and devotion to Señor Andacocha.

Andacocha remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Takin' a Hike

2008-04-01T22:30:39Z

Saturday I went to Cajas National Park with David in order to see what we could find in the polylepis forests in the páramo above the tree line. We are going to be writing a paper on the diversity within the unique forests, but our interest waned because we both knew that the paper that we are going to write is not necessarily scientific. What we really wanted to do in Cajas lay right in front of us, towering up to probably 4000 meters or so. Climb a mountain.

We looked to come around to the ridge at its lowest point and ascend to the peak from there, but when we got over the first hills, it looked a lot more difficult than we thought originally. But we kept on going. I didn't really take note of how difficult it was to breath because my adrenaline was pumping with my excitement. We took a little shortcut to a much higher elevation by climbing up a steep face on a nonexistent path. From there, we could see we were not going to make it up to the ridge. The slope was at least sixty degrees or more and we were already grabbing at our knees to stop ourselves for rest. But there was a polylepis forest right there! What good fortune!

So it was time to come down from our stunning vista, but we hadn't given up all hope of reaching the top of the mountain. So we thought we should walk around the peak at the altitude that we were already at, but we managed to trap ourselves on the way. At our height, I failed to realize before hand that it was mainly sheer cliffs down to where we started, thus our walking around the side earlier in order to find a more accessible way to reach the summit. We went down a steep little incline in order to get around on of the cliffs and at the base it became clear we had only one direction to keep moving, down. To make matters worse, it started to rain.

At long last, we managed to get down off the mountain, slowly but surely, by creeping beside the steep slopes along the bases of exposed rock faces. I would like to thank the physiology of tusset grasses for being sturdy and easy to hold on to, making the decent even possible. It was one of the most exhilarating hikes/climbs I have ever done.

Takin' a Hike remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Update on Dog

2008-04-01T21:58:06Z

Well the scare from near two weeks ago continued to haunt me until Saturday. Hopefully now, it will once and for all be resolved.

Over the past twelve days I have been monitoring the health of the dogs near Sayanusí where I was bit. I had a relatively precise memory of the scene that took place, remembering the exact site, the owner, and the two dogs that chased after me. The advice I heard over and over was to track the dogs, if you can find them, and if they have not died or shown signs of illness from the virus, then you are in the clear for rabies. But still you can't be too sure about anything when your life could be at stake. So I decided to pursue getting the rabies shots (10 in all, 3 more than I previously knew about) for the peace of mind of everyone back home and for myself.

Friday afternoon I went to the clinic, a little in daze, not fully aware how it was like I was walking the last mile. Narcisa and I found out some more unwelcoming news when we found a doctor to talk to. It seemed like tracking the dogs in the area was about as certain of a safety precaution as taking the shots. The doctor told me I was crazy. He basically outright refused to give me the shots at first. He said that after ten days I would have a headache and fever, some sort of personal sign of having contracted the virus. He also gave some information that I did not know about the shots. Not only are they painful, but they are risky. There is a somewhat significant risk of contracting the virus from the shots themselves. Uhh, what, huh?

So I didn't take the shots. That was Friday.

Saturday, I went early in the morning with Narcisa to check up on ol' yeller. The dog was alive. Better yet, we talked with the son of the woman owner of the two dogs and he said the dogs had their injections, something we have heard from many people, but not directly from the source. The son was much more believable than his mother. I think in part because he seemed taken back about having to bring the dogs out and maybe because he had some first-hand experiences on having that dog bite him, as well. So I feel as confident as ever about not having contracted rabies.

Now, I am taking my showers and spending time outside in the sun, proving to myself each day that I have no symptoms of rabies. I think I'm in the clear.

Update on Dog remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Somethin' Jumped up and Bit Me

2008-03-27T16:19:57Z

Tuesday could not have been a worse day for me. I came to school and locked horns with the registrar some more. I can't wait for the day they get their act together. But also, today was the day of interviews. I did not have class with Spanish because I had an interview with someone in the cultural heritage group in Cuenca to gather information on the day of the dead for a Spanish paper. The interview should not have even been made. She did not want to give me the time of day. She immediately led me to the library and told me more or less "here, find what you need." Gee thanks! I could have done this myself! Grr. A wasted morning preparing interview questions. I don't even know why I tried. The second interview was actually a reversal, I was the interviewee for the Admissions internship.

We had class for Ecology in the afternoon, however it was not in the school. We were told to go on a bus towards the mountains of Cajas in order to find this refuge site where we could see some of the endangered animals that we have been learning about in class. I wanted to take an early start and traveled off on my own before the swath of my classmates took the same bus line. I had the directions, "just before the second speed bump, on the left, down a road, over a bridge, it's the first house on the left." That couldn't be too hard. But I missed an important detail, it was the second speed bump after going through the first town we passed. Ohh, if I knew that my day could have been different.

I got off the bus, feeling slightly proud of myself for taking the initiative to go on my own to find this refuge. I started down the street on the left, and took the long, long road, crossed the bridge, and then hiked up the mountainside until I saw the first break off on the left. It was definitely a school, and not a house and there was no refuge site in sight. At that point I got the call. "Hey Zach, where are you?" I tried to figure where I was with poor knowledge because I hadn't really focused on anything but the slowdowns and bumps of the bus on the ride up. But I had to walk all the way back down and up to the main road. And I was getting really hot under the sun in my double jackets to keep myself waterproof. I considered hitch hiking the five minute walk back up the hill just to save energy, but I convinced myself I needed the exercise and energy if I ever wanted to reach the summit of any volcano, let alone Cotopaxi. So I walked up the hill again, and nearly made it to the bus when I was confronted by two dogs who were not pleased to meet me. They ran around behind me, just like every other street dog, only to bark at me from behind, or so I thought, but I felt a sharp pinch on the back of my thigh. Ohh, it stung, like closing your finger in a car door. I just hurried out of there trying to make it to the bus and safety. I checked my jeans and they weren't torn from the bite, so I figured it hadn't broken skin. Now I just concerned myself with finding the refuge. It took me another twenty minutes of going back towards Cuenca, realizing that I hadn't gone far enough, then going all the way back past the two dogs that caught my eye once again, and finally to the refuge. I checked when I got there and saw a to my dismay two dark scabs where the dog got hold of me. Now I started to worry and the pain in my thigh remained painful like the dog still clung to me.

I asked our Ecology teacher what I should do. She said "well, the best thing to do is find the dog and get the number of the owner so you can get news of any weird behavior in the next two weeks. Otherwise, if you can't find the dog, look into taking the shots." I was in no mood to go find the dog that just bit me, especially if I had no method to defend myself. Anyway, I had my phone interview with Brian in twenty minutes and I had no bars on my cell phone. My worries continued over the course of the night. When my host mom arrived, I let her know what happened and finding out about the injections made my stomach turn. If needed, I would have to get seven shots in my stomach, but with a phobia of needles even when I can avoid seeing them inject me, the thought of having it right in front of my eyes made me feel dizzy. I cleaned what I could of the wound, even though it was completely useless now seven hours after the bite, but around the scabs my skin turned a dark shade of green. I just wanted to give up right then.

The next morning, my anxiety lead me to search up symptoms and treatment of rabies. What I found didn't settle my fears. A brief synopsis of what I read: "once symptoms start, you're a goner." So after consulting with Narcisa, we decided that we should look for the dog, against my will. I had remembered precisely the place where I got bit and the probable owner, but it wasn't as easy as I would have hoped. We asked the lady if she had two dogs, as we could see one and I recognized it because it looked like a mop, but she refused. After asking her a third time she said "Oh! Maybe you mean this dog!" And out came the suspect. We asked if the dog had vaccinations but she avoided answering that as well. "No se preocupa, no se preocupa." (Don't worry yourself, don't worry yourself). But we had every reason to worry. We informed her that the bite broke skin and her calm face went pale. But after asking again she said the dog had gotten a shot. Right... I didn't believe her for a second. But we gave her a number to call us and told her we would return in fifteen days, hopefully to find that wretched dog still alive. On the way back to Narcisa's car, we asked a friendly neighbor if there was another dog that could have bit me, after all I had only the few seconds to recognize it before it bit me, and after than, I focused only ahead of me to keep my pace quick to leave that place as fast as I could. The neighbor said that that dog is the bad seed in on the street and that the probability of it being the predator was pretty high. So I found it, I think. I can rest in peace for just a little while until the second search to find the dog dead or alive.

Somethin' Jumped up and Bit Me remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Wah-Wah in the Amazonian Jungle, Pt. 2

2008-03-27T01:16:42Z

The first day in the jungle was an early start with breakfast that I could not eat. The lake reflected back a beautiful sunrise in a cloudless sky. I think one of the most unexpected parts about these entire weeks was that it never rained until our last day, as if to remind us that a return would bring us what we had expected.

We took to our canoe for a short ride to a carved out path of an old Huaorani family that settled there. The first thing that I saw was paja toquilla, the palm plant used from the coast land to make Panama Hats that I read so much about the day before. It didn't occur to me that the plant might have other uses than just providing the fiber to make hats, but it seemed like its uses were infinite. Our guide Fausto knew his stuff. Just like two days before, we could stop at any point and he'd have something to say. One of which was an enormous ant. I had heard of ants like these, only in Africa, ants, that go in hoards and encompass their prey, no matter how big and leaves just it's bones hours later. This was not quite the same. In fact the exact opposite was true. The ant had a punch to its bite, so overwhelming its prey in numbers is not necessary. In fact four or five bites from one of these ants could kill a baby human. I kept my distance. The diversity of ants never let up for a moment. Around one corner would be leaf cutter ants; another corner stood a hollowed tree that housed hundreds upon thousands on nasty little biters. Some of them gave you a good sting, others you couldn't even feel the bite. But perhaps the most peculiar of them all were the lemon ants, not called lemon ants for their association with a lemon tree, but because they in fact TASTE of lemon!

As soon as I started getting comfortable with the slow pace of our exploration, Fausto took off running. We took off after him, in fear of being lost like the two German and French couples we heard about the day before. I had to keep my head down and keep ducking this way and that to keep from running into spider webs or low hanging trees. Anything I brushed up against gave me a sneaking suspicion that I took something along with me for the ride. We ran for what seemed like fifteen minutes until we had a clearer view of the canopy and there was a colony of spider monkeys leaping from tree top to tree top. No one was in any mood to keep the chase going, though. I did a little ants-in-the-pants dance to shake off the sensation of being covered in bugs from the run.

We went back to our stroll through the jungle at which point we came upon a tree of such monstrous size that I can only compare it to a redwood, only it's base was wider than the redwoods I have seen. Hanging down to the ground were vines, reaching up to the heavens above it seemed. The first branches of this tree spread out above the canopy of all the other trees. I was in no mood to test my endurance at climbing the vines to find out that I would give out too high to simply drop back down, but others took on the challenge, not getting more than twenty feet off the ground. The indigenous, according to Fausto, used this climb to the first branches as a little test of going on past adolescence. I felt dizzy just looking up that high.

The next day was spent in similar fashion. We took a little twist in the afternoon to get in some fishing. I was a little giddy about that having already seen what some of the guide members had dredged up from this river. It was like watching Okie noodlin’, the way the boosted of their fishing technique. But the fish were far more exotic than an enormous 80 pound catfish. There were fish with spikes and armor of similar size and weight. The most frightening fact was that one in particular was apparently only a juvenile. Its adult size reaches about five or six meters long! That’s a shark if I have ever heard of any!

I found out precisely why anyone would be proud of their fishing. I was handed a clean hook on a string and given a raw slab of meat. Huh? Piranha fishing. It was possibly the hardest bit of fishing I have ever done. They would strike the meat just for you to help in their tearing off the bait while avoiding being hooked. But I got a lucky piece of bait. One with a sturdy piece of scale attached to the meat. The scale seemed somewhat familiar, probably because it was a piece of the armored catfish I saw earlier in the morning. The piranha couldn't keep from getting their mouth in the hook if they wanted the meat and so I pulled in the one and only piranha. The smallest, puny fish you'd ever seen. If it were just the foreigners fishing, we would easily have used more fish meat in bait than caught in fish. I pulled him out of the water and my knees started shaking. I had to put THIS in the boat with me? My toes had to have looked better than that stiff piece of scale and bone that the piranha had on a death hold. But it never let go of the bait, like a raccoon holding on to a piece of shiny metal.

That night, when everyone when into to wash away their accumulating jungle rot off their body in the acidic waters, the only thought on my mind was not wanting to be like that piece of bait. I did no more than splash the water on me from the deck. That was enough for me. But the adrenaline from the catch encouraged me to go another night hike, this time guided by Fausto. In the first two minutes we came across the biggest bug I have ever seen. And Fausto had never seen it before. It was a huge leaf bug, brown in color, and about the size of two hands spread out next to each other. I was convinced we found a new species, and we did nothing more than look at it for a couple of minutes and then carry on. I didn't think I would find any more than big bugs but Fausto was in to seeing much more than that. He was more interested in finding fish. Fish? In the dark? But sure enough we found one. It was swimming back in forth between the roots of trees that crept into the water. Its eyes were devilishly red. I got the chills looking at it, and standing in its water. Another reason not to swim in it. On the way back, having seen large grasshoppers everywhere and spiders of all sorts, we stumbled upon another unique sight. Well, not really stumbled on, but with Fausto's owl eyes, he spotted a snake coiled up sleeping on a leaf. It was the smallest and most lethal snake in all of the Amazon rainforest. There I was, already slightly nervous about the closet darkness of the forest, now standing in front of the most poisonous snake in the world's largest tropical rainforest supplying an enormous percentage of the Earth's fresh water, the crucial element for nearly every living and breathing animal on the planet, one of the most sobering thoughts that ever came upon me.

The next morning we saw what humanity is beginning to do to the jungle. We walked along the Rio Napo among the inhabitants of Ketchwa living there. I had a preconceived notion that they lived in harmony, only I was wrong. The western developed world had already reached these people. You could see the evidence with the hard hat hung on the wall of one of the raised houses we passed. Plots of land had been crudely chopped down for "sustainable agriculture." We finally came upon a school for the students of the area. Their classes are unlike anything you can imagine. More than forty students in the one concrete constructed building for miles and miles, without a plan of teaching, and pets of every kind, from monkeys to lizards. I am fascinated by the thought that anyone would have the idea that western ways could fit into this kind of world. But I saw how they did. We saw an oil drilling project under way, previously owned by the United States company Occidental, until the Ecuadorian government found out that the company had broke nearly every law on the contract in which it signed. And who’s the new prospective company to drill for oil here? A Chinese company.

It was a hard day to swallow, especially at the last, and I felt like a part of me would never leave or rather the jungle would never leave me. I definitely felt that way on the return trip back to civilization. Nausea and dizziness overtook me from hunger and dehydration. I pulled into the non-existent terminal of Cuenca shaky and ready to recover from a grueling test that I hope to someday encounter again.

Wah-Wah in the Amazonian Jungle, Pt. 2 remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Wah-Wah in the Amazonian Jungle, Pt. 1

2008-03-13T23:26:30Z

The Amazon Jungle couldn't have seemed more vast than the way we traveled to and through it. Travel, though, was really only I could ask for and more. I felt tested at every step of the way, battling the most unforgiving environment in the world while trying to kick away the lingering effects of illness that never seemed to rest.

Our first day was a bus ride through the "easiest" passage in the Amazon Jungle that Ecuador has to offer, but it was nothing more than switch backs and tunnels. It took us nearly ten hours to travel north in the inter-Andean valleys and veer east to plummet into the low altitudes of the Rio Napo watershed. We experienced on the drive far more than I was expecting. The Pan-American highway, in parts, is no more than a gravel road, recently carved into the steep cliffs of the Andes. The flat terrain of the valleys were for the rivers and its inhabitants, not for the long distance traveler. So, high up in the mountains we could see nearly everything but the closest point on Earth to the sun. Chimborazu was blanketed in clouds. Unexpectedly we stopped in a small town that seemed to have no specific purpose. Its church was supposedly the first establishment in Ecuador and most of South America; a little unbelievable, like most of the historical sites found in this country. But the church was remarkable in its minimalism, something rare for the Spanish. Later, we reached the provincial capital of Riobamba, where hopefully at a later date I will return to take "el nariz del diablo," a switch-back train going west towards Guayaquil. From here, we started to head east towards the perpetually erupting volcano of Tungurahua. As if to let us know that it was still there the clouds surrounding the mountain parted to show a high ash cloud ascending into the heavens. The volcano looked higher than any mountain I had ever seen before, and its black silhouette showed the jagged edges of its crater. Further on, vegetation identifiable as tropical forest became more and more lush but still, we were high in the mountains. We stopped for what I thought was only for a casual view of the grand valley of a tropical river which flowed over one thousand meters below our feet, but to my unhappy surprise I was in for more than just a casual view. To get a better view of a stunning waterfall on the other side of the canyon, Ecuador's fine tourist department had built a zip line gondola spanning the canyon. Gratefully I was not first to find myself speeding down a steel cable on a shaky gondola, but the wait may have been worse. Not for the faint of hearts. At last, what seemed like a whole in the wall location, we found our hostel which was no less than a tropical paradise in the capital of its province, Puyo. There we observed how those with money can "experience" the grand Amazon jungle.

That wasn't our final destination, though. On the following day, we stretched our legs for another long bus ride through jungle. We traveled in a little procession of public buses. It seemed so out of place for coach buses on dirt roads at full speed winding through hills where tiny tributaries to the world's largest river began. This was the best route of transit in Ecuador's Oriente. If we decided to go from the border of Columbia to the southern border with Peru, it would take five days in a bus on this road. Fortunately, we were upon the Rio Napo before noon, and a rather bumpy ride led us to our trip guides with a motorized canoe patiently waiting our arrival. Our hostel was comfortably named Hostal Anaconda. Immediately as we stepped off the canoe, we saw what the jungle had to offer. On my first steps along the upper Napo, I spotted a parade of leaf-cutter ants, looking like a thin file of grass on the move. That afternoon, we took a trip upstream, taking twice the time it took going down, in order to get our first true introduction to the Amazon rain forest. It was like I was with the camera crew of the Discovery Channel, seemingly every twenty paces had something unique about this ecosystem. The first was a tree fruiting large green, mango-sized fruits layered in black life. Ants. Hundreds of them on each fruit. It was an example of symbiotic relationship between plants and animals that are so frequently found there. The next was a gnarled tree that is actually a type of vine. It suffocates it's host, like a boa constrictor, killing it. The tree inside rots away, leaving the perfect cove for bats. Inside this particular tree, there slept four of them. There were seemingly infinite instances of unique life. After the hike, we drifted back down to our hostel in poorly constructed rafts of tethered tree trunks. This is claimed as Ecuador's finest river rafting. I saw not one white capped riffle. That night, there was no way I was going to lay still and go to sleep. I gathered up a troop for a night hike into the jungle, unguided as to give us as much time as we wished. I have never had such an exhilarating and terrifying experience in my life. The insects, spiders, and frogs were abundant. Every step had something to see. But the darkness was think, and in the background played a jungle soundtrack coming from some far off party. I felt like Indiana Jones, leading our group of four into perpetual darkness, guided by the pathetic light of my tiny flashlight.

We still weren't at our final destination. Not even close. The next morning, as the sun started to rise, we drowsily boarded our dugout canoe for the longest boat ride I hope to ever take. Eleven long hours until we stopped. I wished I had brought more to keep me occupied. Two hundred pages of The Panama Hat Trail wasn't nearly enough. Midway down we passed the city of Coca. Ironic name, as Ecuador strives to keep itself a clean country. The town was just like I read in my book, however. It was the modern "wild west." Each block housed at least two bars, prostitution houses, and shifty-eyed walkers. This place originated in the oil boom. No other purpose could give rise to clearing land under the harshest sun I have ever felt. The presence of the first-world to the north was very apparent. The best example I'll give came upon finding fairgrounds. We were lured in by the siting of a farris-wheel and sought to get a better look. I choked back tears of childhood joy when I saw behind the gates a Mickey and Minnie caterpillar train. I couldn't be anymore disgusted by this place. I was glad when we finally left. At this point, we still had another four or five hours ahead of us, weaving around sandbars and barges of oil trucks heading towards their company-paved roads. We arrived at last as the sun set. We had a lodge tucked away behind vegetation alongside a placid lake of Rio Piraña (Piranha River). I settled in, knowing for the first time ever, I had absolutely no idea where I was, only the knowledge that I was further away from civilization than I will probably ever be.

Wah-Wah in the Amazonian Jungle, Pt. 1 remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Illness Strikes Back

2008-02-29T23:54:43Z

I think the third time of succombing to some kind of illness in one lone month is just three times to many. I really wasn't prepared for having stomach problems on this trip, but low and behold, I apparently have the second weakest stomach after David, who has spent more than two weeks in the hospital to this point with amoebas, infections, and more than likely parasites to boot. So what was it that got me sick? I couldn't even tell you. I didn't have food from street vendors or anything! Wednesday I spent my lunch in Parque Calderon, a little curveball for my stomach which seeks its daily supply of food in the noon hours. I made David, Katie, and I some fantastically thin peanut butter sandwiches, because we all know that peanut butter in the country where they harvest peanuts is outrageously expensive. So after two paper-thin sandwiches and two fruits, I was still a little hungry. I took out my hunger on the winnings from the day in my Spanish class. A huge amount of chocolate. I had far far too much. I think that's what did me in. I had such great plans for the night, too. What a shame, what a shame. I was planning on watching the Cuenca soccer team continue its loss-less season followed by a night of salsa dancing. My night was cut short with an episode of what everyone knows to be signs of not being on the tip-top shape. The rest of the night was spent dizzly trying to sleep. I spent over fifteen hours in bed and the morning I convinced myself I had to be well enough to go to school. I haven't had fifteen hours of sleep since my concussion, which was never. But sure enough, with a bowl of cereal and a lousy bus ride (they all are pretty lousy) I got to feeling naseous again. I took a trip to the Ecuadorian clinic for a little $25 check up and had proscribed to me another $25 in medicine. I did however avoid a blood sample being taken, thank God. Narcisa, our trip coordinator caught my slip up when I mistakenly agreed that I was peeing abnormally. So I spent another night in bed. This time with little hope of falling asleep. I was in no mood to sleep. The following morning I felt chipper. Free of my exhaustion and queeziness. It's a good thing too. I am going to the Amazon jungle for a week starting tomorrow at the bright and early time of seven. I'm expecting unforgettable experiences to report about next week.

Illness Strikes Back remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Día del Campo

2008-02-29T23:40:28Z

Saturday was the Lewis & Clark College "día del campo." It was an abnormally sunny day, and also a late start. I was supposed to round up the family to arrive by eleven but at eleven we were driving around the city for what, I had no idea. We stopped at a costume shop a milllion miles away that decided to be open half a year away from Halloween on a Saturday, when any other place that ought to be open was closed. I was going to become the Incredible Hulk. Our team name was "Los recontra fantásticos," meaning the super awesome heroes, more or less. No one else was going to be dressed up like me, but I figured what the hell. Might as well help first impressions with the other families by beefing up in green muscles. So we finally did arrive, after missing the exit. It seemed like we weren't going to ever get there at that point. But the party hadn't started. How could it without the Incredible Hulk? It was unbelievably awkward for the following thirty minutes until I took off the straight jacket. In the growing heat we had a parade to celebrate the three teams, only for photo opportunity sake. Then the games began. There was a three-legged race, beer chugging (always good on the first day of starting the malaria pills), musical chairs, limbo, water balloon toss, and much much more. Games I've never even heard of. I didn't really win at anything. Not very close to the victor of the beer drinking competition, a father who had shown his history under the glass. I nearly won the musical chairs, but a greedy teammate swipped my seat so I was the second to last out. And surprisingly nearly won limbo, falling short (literally) to one of the teacher's daughters who was about a foot shorter than me. I let her win. Finally the games came to a close. It was time for lunch and dancing. I won't get into much of that, because I needed the rest after soaking in the sun's rays, but the dance floor was one large game in itself. With a broom, a solitary person, and the rest coupled in dance, the solitary person took hold of the broom to dance with until clank, he or she dropped it on the floor. Then it was a crazy rush to find another couple so as not to be the solitary person. I kind of embraced that role though, as you might expect. Taking it a little over the top, probably. When I got home after a long, long day, I went kaput on my bed. Out till the next morning. A morning without the first book of Harry Potter to keep me up because I finished after becoming hopelessly attached. I am planning to finish the Golden Compass series in the coming weeks and I can't say I'm not excited about it.

Día del Campo remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Ceremonia cultural con la energía de la Mama Quilla

2008-02-26T17:26:51Z

Wednesday would have been like any other day had there not been the rarity of the lunar eclipse at night. Cuenca invited all to come and see/participate in the Ceremonia cultural con la energía de la Mama Quilla in Parque de la Madre, another find in Cuenca's cultural to-do-list for the month. I seemed to be the only one to respond to the invitation, however. I showed up to a nearly empty park. In the corner I came upon a circle of these trendy celebrators swaying back and forth in a circle around a fire lit in some "significant design." I knew coming into it that it was not a real ancient tradition, after hearing Lynn, my anthropology teacher denounce it class after class. Ecuadorians have "no identity" from their past. The colonial conquest stole it all away. Everything now is assumed and postulated, and that's what I thought would make this so interesting. So consequently, I was not surprised to find the group of celebrators mostly young social butterflies. But I didn't want to impede on what might be thought as a serious traditional celebration so I walked around the group and found a place to seat myself and furtively observe the following activities. The circle had a long list of planned activities it seemed like, and I came just in time to enjoy it at its climax. When I sat down the group started to break apart and socialize as the list was sought for by the announcer. Finally, he found it. Over the loud speaker he tried to capture the attention of his audience again "Por favor, por favor." He asked the mingling crowd to recreate the circle. They were about to perform a tribal like dance. On came the music, sounding as it came straight from Pure Moods 11. They all started rounding the fire dancing in step to the mystical music of contemporary artists while in the center a man dressed with a flower headdress danced around while hitting his beating his drum in rhythm to the music. The music finally faded and a female announcer explained the significance of this ceremony. "Tonight we celebrate the rebirth of spring and the moon." It was the first night in nearly two weeks that it wasn't pouring down rain. "With the rebirth of spring, we have the opportunity to have our own rebirth." The silence seemed strained to me, but it may have been from my own upwelling of laughter that I had to hold back. The female announcer continued, "we need to begin our new lives the proper way." She asked everyone to show love and affection toward their neighbors, and the audience took a minute to embrace each other fifteen times over. It seemed like it was finally wrapping up. The coordinators of the ceremony passed out popsicles and everyone started to disperse. I really wanted to capture the moment more effectively with my camera than just distance photography, so I finally willed myself over there after encouraging myself that these people are absolutely trendy and out of their minds, they would love to have their picture taken by a gringo foreigner. So I came upon the drummer and the female announcer. Instantly the woman struck up a conversation with me, "why did you not join us?" "Well you have to come in mid March for the next ceremony." I got my pictures and jetted out of there. They were a little too friendly, cult-ish, and insane for me to stick around. After all I had to try and see the lunar eclipse. To my surprise, there it was. In the smallest opening in the clouds. There was already a partial eclipse. It didn't last long, but I thought it was a perfect way to top of the day, like icing on the cake.

Ceremonia cultural con la energía de la Mama Quilla remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Ingapirca and African Music

2008-02-22T17:39:45Z

This past week I was more or less in repose after the long week of Carnival that came to a screeching hault. I honestly didn't know what to do with myself. I spent the first two days of the week sulking about not having anything to do until I stumbled upon a gold mine. There is a publication every month that sponsors all of the events in Cuenca, music concerts, art shows, you name it. So Wednesday night I took in my first concert here, not realizing how badly I was missing those experiences. The group was from Madagascar, but I was not expecting a lot out of a culturally self indulgent town of 150,000 to bring in good international music. My preconceived notion was reinforced as we walked into the auditorium for the free African concert. Just over twenty people sat in the audience and on stage only a drumkit was set up. Erika, Nick, and I took our seat front and center. Then the concert started only fifteen minutes behind schedule. By then many more people had showed up for the concert. The instrumentation was the drummer, an acoustic guitarist, an electric bass, and the lead singer in the group. He carried with him a bazooka looking instrument made from hallow bamboo that had strings attached around it. His voice was magnificent and his playing equally spectacular. It took me awhile before I realized that he only had one hand, his other hand was deformed, however, he still strummed with the nub and was able to solo at astonishing rates. But it was his emotion and enjoyment of playing that made it all worth while. It was quite a good concert. The best part about it was seeing the upper-class business man grooving to the African beats, especially the man who danced beside me, who was still in his three piece suit. It really made me want to go to Africa. But, I plan to take much more advantage of the culture there is to see here, as most of it is actually free (even if the museums aren't).

That Saturday I braved the constant rain for a much anticipated trip to Ingapirca. Ingapirca is the site of Ecuador's best Incan (and Cañari) ruins. The bus left the station at nine in the morning with already a light drizzle beginning, a poor omen as most of the rain comes much later in the afternoon. We traveled north on the Pan American until we reached Cañar, and then we started the climb up the valley's hills to reach Ingapirca. It was a little anti-climatic. There was just a little reserve no larger than a hectare in size that housed the Incan temple of the sun. We dished out $3 unwillingly after we found out that the last and only bus back from there was in fact the same bus that would be leaving an hour and a half later. The moment we stepped away from the boletería the heavens opened up. It wasn't the hardest of rains, but it reminded me of the tours last semester in Portland that I gave. A steady rain that will unknowingly get you soaked and cold. We bared with the weather, because the views were all the most spectacular because of it. In the background, the hills the surround the ridge in which Ingapirca is located were rapidly changing. The clouds rose up along the sides giving a sensation of being at a very high altitude. The temple itself has been more or less destroyed over the years, just the elliptical base remained formed by perfectly fitted square stones each weight well over a ton. Those rocks were carried over fifteen kilometers from further down the valley where they were mined, but that pales in comparison to the stones that were destined for Cuenca. Those stones were mined around Cuzco, in southern Peru, to create a replica of the Incan temples in the capital. They made it as far as Loja, nearly eighty percent of the way, before abandoning the trek. Loja, to give you some sort of reference is about a five hour drive by bus on a good day. Anyway, the temple itself perched on the edge of its ridge over looking the long corridor that housed the town of Cañar, although we couldn't see it. We finished our tour of the small protected archaeological sight to view the Incan face in the cliffside of an adjacent ridge before having to hustle back and catch the bus. It was a fantastic experience, even only spending less than two hours time. But the rain still continues, and it deterred be from going up to Cajas on Sunday as well. When will the rain cease?

Ingapirca and African Music remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Carnival

2008-02-19T17:37:27Z

First of all, I have to apologize for how long this entry is going to be. I tried to no avail to break up the stories I have accumulated on my week of personal travel with three others. Ecuador has so much to offer and each day can be written like its own little tall tale.

The four of us, David (having just gotten out of the hospital no more than seven hours earlier), Katie, Nick, and I, on Thursday, took a bus that crossed the entire country of Ecuador, the equator, and some of the largest banana plantations in the world in order to arrive at our destination of Esmeraldas. We inquired about the length of time it would take for such a journey and all the estimates ranged from twelve to thirteen hours. But those were favorable estimates for a week after rains on the Andean slopes that caused more than half of the roads to be closed due to mudslides. It took us seventeen hours. Arriving with the sun directly overhead, beating down on us, encouraged us to quickly find a hotel rather than bake while napping in the park plaza. We stayed the night in the beach town of Esmeraldas called Las Palmas. The scene was more or less as depressing as one can get for an equatorial beach. Esmeraldas is home to the pipeline that traverses over the Andes and down into the Oriente Amazonian rainforest where they pump up more than 50% of the countries revenue in "black gold." The horizon was littered with oil tankers each going to all the different parts of the world. In the actual town of Esmeraldas we explored what seem to be more like a Caribbean town, finding music stores for which to come back to. We also ran into a Tía store for some much need groceries and water, buying our first bundle of Club Social crackers for David's diet. We kept Club Social in business with the amount that we bought over the course of the week. We found nothing better for a weak stomach. The following night, after living the life in our air-conditioned room, we headed southwest along the coast to Atacames. In Atacames, we hopped on the ecotaxi, a motorcycle attached with a carriage in front (to obstruct the vision of the driver), until we arrived at the beach where already the stands bordering the beach were blasting their reggaeton. We had reservation through Narcisa so as to have a place during a very busy Carnival in this French Quarter style party strip but on first look we knew it wasn't worth $15 a night. Inside a barbershop, overlooking a bar without a window, and no toilet seat on the toilet helped convince us to move on and find a different place to stay. After a few rejections because of the high prices, we came upon Hostal Jennifer, which was actually in the guidebook. They gave us a bargain price of $12 a night if we signed for three consecutive nights. We took it for the four hammocks and mildly quieter atmosphere. The rest of the day was spent looking for a bathing suit and some flip-flops and then body surfing on the waves of a beach much more acceptable than that in Las Palmas. Each passing day added hundreds and hundreds of more people arrived at the beach, littering it, literally, with people. We took in one night of the party, and that was all I could really handle. We stopped into our first bar-hut looking for some flavorful mixed drinks but I made the wrong choice. Before thinking it through I had ordered "la cucaracha" for its name, meaning "the cockroach." I was not on the top of my game. I got a bowl of tequila and coco flavor literally on fire. I realized later I was supposed to drink it while on fire, but the surprise of it caused me to blow it out like it was an unintentional fire. It was the strongest drink I've ever tasted, and hope to ever taste. Katie, after seeing my reaction to it, wanted to give it a try and immediately spewed it all over me. Only after a few sips, chased down with David's coke, I gave up on the drink and we danced a little to the reggaeton being played. We chose the right bar to be at because I got myself on Ecuadorian television. Afterwards, we took a little time to try and cool off before trying another place where I chose not to make the same mistake again with guessing at a mixed drink and ordered simply "tropical drink." It tasted like pineapple juice and nothing more. A little upsetting. The culture on the beach was quite interesting indeed. Lots of wandering people without choosing a place to sit and dance perhaps. All of the discobars and things in an actual building were for the most part empty. And without bathrooms, drunken guys lined the surf to relieve themselves. Quite an interesting time. The party never really stopped either. The music only subsided when the sun rose again, but only for a few hours before you could hear the bass beats of reggaeton to call breakfast. The following day, David had a reaction to eggs that he ate for breakfast and his health turned very sour. We got close to taking him to the hospital or finding him a way back to Cuenca. It didn't take long for someone to get sick. That night he got to feeling better but none of us really wanted to take part in the activities over night and spent most of the time lounging in the hammocks sharing stories. I indulged in some ice cream in the bottom half of a pineapple, called piña hawaiiana. I was already missing it by the time I finished.

After wearing ourselves down with the high powered experience of Atacames, we headed south down the coast to arrive eventually at Canoa, a small beach town known for it's large beaches and little population. We got an unexpected treat on the bus rides though. It was probably one of my favorite days on the entire trip. We started on a late morning out of Atacames and caught a bus to Mensaje where we could another bus, and then another to arrive at Perdenales where at last we could get a bus to Canoa. The bus rides drove through scenic seaside vistas where out of the green hills of tropical flora came a beautiful view of the Pacific. But most of the enjoyment hailed from the people that we saw. The first bus had a late blooming drunk. He very well could have been up all night, but he was drunker than ever and carrying a bottle of Pilsener. It didn't take long for him to pass out. No one really made a move to help or punish him, only looks and laughs. When we jumped out to catch the next bus, sir drinks-a-lot got the boot. Our next bus pulled up almost immediately. The town we were in, if you can even called one, was a crossroads that housed no more than ten building, all home to vendors of you name it for the buses that drive through. The driver made a pit stop here so we had plenty of waiting time in the center of the road, enough time for Sir drinks-a-lot to purchase a new bottle of Pilsener to spill when he passes out a second time. But David and I sought the seats up front away from the commotion he was bound to cause. The sight to have on this bus was the ayudante, who took the money, provided the music, and hurried the traffic in and out of the bus. He was lost in the culture of the late eighties and early nineties. We listened to essentially the soundtrack to Rocky. We also heard some "Eye of the Tiger" and "Highway to the Dangerzone." Not only was his musical tastes from the late eighties and early nineties but he looked like he came straight out of Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The white rimmed bug-eyed glasses was just icing on the cake. The bus change to go to Perdenales was even more abrupt than the previous one. We hopped of the bus midway down the street to get into a extended open-air hummer-like bus, more common in the north coast of Ecuador. It was only a 50km drive so we figured it would not take more than an hour and a half but the road conditions pushed back our expectations and it took more like two and a half hours. That's a whopping 13km/hr, that's equivalent to less than 10 miles/hr. The road was more like a jungle four-wheel drive road than a coastal highway. There were small indigenous communities built up every ten minutes or so, each bearing three or four kids looking to celebrate Carnival. Like everywhere in Ecuador, there are speed bumps at the most unnecessary points. Unfortunately they were right in the heart of every little community. Prime position for the kids to hurl buckets of water on to everyone stuck in the bus. I got absolutely soaked by the time we pulled into Perdenales. It didn't really matter because the splash mobile came to greet us. This was true anywhere you were around the time of Carnival, certainly true in Cuenca. There would be a crowd of teenagers in the back of a slow moving pickup truck with a huge vat of water for a large supply of these raids on the innocent. We nearly made it the entire two hour wait without being hit, but on the walk to the the bus station, we were spotted and thoroughly drenched. On the bus we got the best American culture, the movie "the Marine." It was your classic stereotypical American film with action scenes every ten minutes, starting in the first two minutes, with the main character in Iraq, killing hundreds of terrorists in the most absurd ways. I was pretty embarrassed to be sitting there in the bus front row, and secretly hoped that no one paid any attention. The volume shorted out midway on the drive, and possibly the most peculiar thing was to see more than one person concerned about turning it up again. One thing is for sure, Ecuadorians love their absurd action. Here's a quick list of some of the movies I've seen on buses: The Fast and the Furious, The Scorpion King, The Medallion, and the Terminator.

Anyway, we finally got into Canoa in the dark, dusty town. Tired and had no idea where to go, we scoped out the places in the lonely planet guide. Everyone was way over priced for a hut with a mosquito net. What we did find was the best room in Canoa for a mere $8 a night. What a score! The fifth story, right on the beach with a cool breeze looking straight at the setting sun. It was a little like heaven. And what more, but Canoa had pancakes to feed our craving in the morning. The next day we spent the day in the corner of a very pristine beach where crabs still lived in their burrowed holes moving back and forth to their homes with any movement and the surf was spotless. We really were living the life. Everyone was near perfect health. Of course that had to change overnight. I got a little over zealous with the good food that we found here and ordered veggie spaghetti, with uncooked vegetables. The onions, which I was told not to eat before going to the coast, were potent. I woke up at 4 in the morning to unbearable pains in my stomach, throwing up, and diarrhea. It was the most sick I think I have ever felt. I had to get an injection and take some crazy amount of pills just to avoid getting an IV. Phew. The next morning I was able to get out of bed to take the long trip down the coast to Montañita. Montañita is more or less a surfer town, caulk full of gringos. We made a similar fantastic find here as we did in Canoa, we scored an $8 room high in a building over looking the bog/swamp near the ocean, just about the best you could find in this far too ritzy coast town. I had to avoid eating the fantastic international food though. I missed my last chance of getting Pad Thai until I return the states more than likely. And then the following morning, Saturday, we found the best pancake place in the world. Oh I was jealous. Eating beans and rice and snacking on crackers to stave off my hunger was my diet for three days. The next morning I felt 100% and had some of those pancakes to die for. Banana an chocolate. Ohhh so good.

The bus back to Cuenca was pretty uneventful. We passed through Guayaquil, surging with people. The bus depot was a three story high bus stop with over 200 terminals! From there we went up the unbelievably steep Andes, fishtailing the turns in the pouring rain, just missing the possibilities of bus plunge. I was finally able to breath by the time we reached Cajas national park, but then I lost it again. The views were breath-taking. Pristine lakes, mountain peaks showing bare rock cliffs, and not a tree in sight to block the view of the sunset and then moonlit scenery. I have to go back! I would stay weeks or months there if I could. Absolutely beautiful, like nothing I've seen before. I got back into Cuenca at 8:30 on Sunday, only to wake up again less than eleven hours later for school once again.

Carnival remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Carnival is Coming

2008-01-29T22:54:02Z

After a long night of basically torrential downpour, I asked my sister if this was an unusual occurance, and her answer was "the rains come for Carnival." I progressively got better of the course of the week and as I entered the weekend was feeling almost fully back up to speed.

Friday night I made sure of it by sleeping well over twelve hours in the course of naps and sleep. So come Saturday, with nothing to do, I made my way downtown alone on a hope to find something to entertain myself with the absence of half the group on a large camping trip and the other half seemingly sick. I took the fourteen bus, which is the one that takes me from my house to school, on the continued route to find out just where it turns back around to head east again. After thirty minutes I found out that the furthest stop is at a huge market called feria libre. There I heard about a huge clothes market on Wednesdays that I think I will take advantage of on future occasions. But this Saturday, I also wanted to explore the park nearby my house before the rains started. The park is definitely the biggest of Cuenca, spanning the full distance between its two major rivers until they come to an unremarkable juncture when they cross paths. The park however was loaded with people on their weekend, enjoying the multitude of soccer fields, playgrounds, a pedal boat pond, and plenty of other places to either take in the sun or enjoy the shade of the tall eucalyptus trees. It is a place I hope to take advantage of later, if the rivers don't rise to swallow the park whole. Saturday night I got a call from Peter, who invited me to join him for a movie. I saw "When a Stranger Calls," which for a horror was not the worst blockbuster movie ever made.

Sunday, I got another call, an invitation to go to the market, which I thought would be a good way to get out of going to Sig Sig in the third episode of Zach as a third party to parental dating. So I took the offer and found myself going back to Guaylaceo and Chordoleg for the second time in three weeks to see the fiesta in the river and also the market full of fresh fruit with Morgan and Rachel. There, I had my fair share of mango, as it was only $.20/mango. But of course, as if I had GPS tagging on me, I managed to find myself where my host mom and her boyfriend were. They caught me red-handed walking among the throng of thousands of visitors for market day. I also did a more expansive tour of the jewelry shops of Chordoleg, the consequence of accepting to go to the a pair of girls to market day. So after thirty-five nauseating hours they finally gave into the requests to return home. Unfortunately at that exact moment came the rain. And so every single visitor of market day made the exact same decision as we did. After waiting a good thirty minutes in stand-still traffic right next to the bus station, hoping for the opportune time to just out and run for cover, we realized a growing hunger. The three of us went back into the market and got hit by another water bomb, while it was raining no less!! These kids take the game to new limits. I am going to have to stock pile for Esmeraldas I think for at least a respectable vendetta. At any rate, when we finally did take the bus back, it took two hours rather than one, and drained what energy I had from the ripe mangoes.

On Monday, we had a field trip with our anthropology class to Sig Sig in order to see Inca and Cañari ruins, but my day started out with a good twist. I planned out what seemed to me more than ample amount of time to arrive at school at the scheduled 8am departure, only that I made one mistake, a mistake I won't make again. Instead of taking the bus at the regular bus stop, I thought I would catch the bus empty before it seemingly goes around the corner and is always full. Instead, what I did was find myself going over the hills into towns in the opposite direction my supposed destination. I kept reassuring myself that the bus would just turn around and it wasn't worth jumping off and paying another fare to catch the same line going in the correct direction. Only after twenty minutes of falsely calming my growing anxiety did I turn to ask when in fact the bus returned towards Cuenca. The fashionably dressed cholo cuencana said "mmm, ten more minutes? This bus goes to one more town." I looked down at my watch. 750. I jumped of the moving bus and made my way with a added haste in my pace to scale the hill back to the town of Valle where I could catch the bus back in town. Then my I tried to call to inform everyone of my situation. Out of minutes. Ultimately, I was half an hour late, holding up the bus headed for Sig Sig, whose seats were already full. I squeezed into the seat accompanied with Xenia, the large lassie-breed dog of our anthropology professor, Lynn. After repressing the strong feeling of guilt, I spent the rest of the day enjoying the sites of Sig Sig and the country surrounding. I walked my first, but not last Incan road, carved below the natural grade of the slopes in the hills, and saw many other unusual and unexplained building built before the Spanish arrival. Even repeating for emphasis the beauty of the vistas does not do the scenic views any justice. I have come to the conclusion that, at least for the western hemisphere, you have not experienced mountains until you have seen the Andes.

Now I am in the heart of a three day week of school before my early departure for Esmeraldas. I am heading off Thursday night at six in order to arrive in Esmeraldas at six, twelve hours later. My energy is booming again with the excitement about an opportunity to experience South America outside of the fairly structured program of the overseas department. I have ten days to soak in, or reflect (hopefully) as much sun as I can on the beaches of northern Ecuador.

Carnival is Coming remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Ecuador on the Inside

2008-01-24T16:52:22Z

Well, I think I have parasites or amoeba in my intestines. It isn't a pleasant experience. I don't really know what to fault for it as I have had far too many new foods and drinks in the past weeks to really claim that any one thing caused it. The pain started about three days ago and hasn't really let up. It hits me strong when I have any type of sugary delicacy. How unfortunate, as it was the birthday for one of my classmates only yesterday and there has been interesting foods at every destination. Outside of what is festering inside me, life hasn't changed much as expected while in school. I am beginning to enjoy my conservation biology course a lot more now that we are starting into the curriculum. It has pretty much defined what I have studied in the past year or so, from biological environmentalism to even ecological economics. My anthropology class is quite interesting. We are learning about some of the pre-Incan history of our area. The reading is dense but quite rewarding, as is the case with most historically based classes I feel. Tomorrow is a festival of food... hurray... Everyone in the group is making one to two Ecuadorian dishes with their family for a big feast during our morning and lunch tomorrow. I would be more ecstatic if I were feeling better. I only hope that it is a parasite so that I can get some antibiotics that are more readily available to deal with the situation. Dealing with amoeba is a different method all together. It's fortunate that so many people here have traveled and know how to deal with parasites and amoeba, as they have had them before. I hope by next time, I will be up and healthy, readying myself for the unique experiences that await in Esmeraldas.

Ecuador on the Inside remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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A Weekend On the Coast

2008-01-22T17:49:44Z

This week I went to the coast with my host mom and her boyfriend, Ricardo, on episode two of Zach as third party to parental dating. This however was a much more extended drive as we descended out of the Andes which calls for a much longer drive that the distance would suggest. But of course the trip was absolutely gorgeous. We stayed at the home of Ricardo's sister. The home is situated in Pasaje, the banana crop country. There were three brothers and it was pretty entertaining to be around kids younger than me, because I have never been an older brother to anyone. I think I will be satisfied with being younger, though. Too much call for your attention when you are the older sibling, but I think I have three new fans of my life here in Ecuador. At any rate, we went to the port of Machala, which is the banana capital of the world. Huge, HUGE barges were in the port that were full of bananas, and apparently they don't even ship like half of their banana crop because of bruises or imperfections of any sort. Only the perfect bananas are exported. But after seeing the extent of the crops in all my driving in the coastal land, I can believe it. They were around every bend. It was like going a constant grove of banana trees, narrowing highways and encroaching on the villages. Machala was pretty clean for the most part, outside of the port water which was littered with everything imaginable. That night I was "hooked up" with a "date" with the next door neighbor, in what seems to be quite common. It was more of a game for the parents to stir up relationships amongst their children. So I got led into it believing that I was going to get some salsa lessons. It is hard to describe with words what it was like being pampered by my parents for a date, but I think their incessant questioning on my interest in my date and a raise of the eyebrows when two children of the opposite sex were in the room gives you some idea of their behavior. But the three of us, Martín, my date, and I, all dressed for a prom, crammed ourselves in a car with the middle brother, Domingo, and Ricardo on a trip to find a discobar in Machala. When we finally decided upon one, after forty minutes of driving in circles around the equivalent to 6th street in Austin (I swear Ecuadorians can take the longest time to make a decision), we filled out into the throng of liquored Machalans out in the streets. We were given a little over an hour for our dates (as Martín paired up with my date's friend) until our safest ride home, a waiting father, would leave. Instead of salsa, we came to a discobar playing reggaeton. After an hour, I needed a drink. The following morning was more or less a slow one. It was falsely assumed that we would have an early morning trip to the beach. At around one, we arrived to more or less the "pristine" beach to the north of Machala. The culture was no less peculiar, but I can't give a current comparison to that of the states as I have avoided an effort to enjoy the ocean in recent years. The water was quite warm and loaded in silt and sediment from the closeby river. It is comparable to the Texas coast, however the water is much warmer still. I strayed away from spending my time neck deep in the ocean as everyone else tended to do. Instead I enjoyed a still different culture around me. There were vendors selling live baby shark, live crab, live shrimp, you get the idea. Everything still alive. I feasted on a banana cuisine, one of many types they had. This one in particular was cooked until charred on the outside, cut open, reveiling a soft inside, and then stuffed with queso. I was a little tenative at the idea of cheese with a banana, but I was pleasantly supprised by the lack of flavor from the banana. And of course it was cheap. The whole experience on the beach cost nothing more than $4, feeding the whole group with the banana con queso, drinks, and parking. It marked the end of my stay in Pasaje and the southern coast of Ecuador. I brought home with me my souvenir, sun burnt feet, what's new? But perhaps the most culturally and interesting part of the trip came in the drives to and from Cuenca. The culture shock was quite intense compared to what I have been prone to seeing here. Near our residence in Pasaje was a canal, entirely polluted with unsupervised children scrounging around for entertainment; in the high Andean valleys, I observed Qichua children, who still speak the Incan language, drinking alongside cows in troughs. Equally powerful were the geological and ecological areas we traversed as we ascended into the Andes. The Andes begin abruptly from the coastal flat land marshes up to four thousand meters. There were three ecological niches before we reached the summit of our drive as well. As we climbed out of the banana plantations, we entered what is called the dry tropical forests, which have naturally growing banana plants and high towering trees. Quite abruptly, as we curved around a significantly tall peak, were the dry mountains. No vegetation grows here, there is only the browns and grays of exposed rock that is steeper than any mountains I have seen. Here the tributaries leading into the brown river far below travel greater distances vertically than they do horizontally. And then at last we reach what is the cloud forest. At this time it was getting dark and the fog was so dense you could not see the pavement that your car drove on. It was unbelievably frightening and like a complete dream, driving as if in the clouds of a dream. Then we broke clear of the clouds, right as we reached the summit of our pass, and there was the full moon in a completely clear night. It was the brightest night I have seen since New Mexico last month, when we drove in the snow without having to use headlights. Coming out of the clouds and into this vast light of the moon was something like coming upon the pearly gates. Around us were yet higher peaks reaching further up into the heavens, blanketed in the fog that we escaped. It was quite an experience all around. I have another nine days in which I plan to make another local trip during the weekend, until I have a week of individual travel during Carnival. I am going to be going across the country to Esmeraldas by bus starting Friday night! I am, to say the least, estatic about the trip!

A Weekend On the Coast remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Not a Perfect Paradise

2008-01-18T19:45:08Z

I have been keeping these encounters under the table since arriving in South America just so that anyone reading can know that I am still safely in one piece, but now that you are aware of my safety, I wanted to share some of my quick and intermittent confrontations with the darker side of Cuenca. Going back to the last night that Katie was here in Cuenca, last Tuesday, our group had our first experience with thievery. We were having a fantastic dinner at a Columbian restaurant that I think I previously mentioned. We were all pretty absorbed in our own conversations but with a little bit of examination of our atmosphere I spotted two pretty sketchy characters. They appeared not to be devoted to a dinner in this restaurant, and one of the two men seemed to concentrate his attention on our group. It was really our own fault for he even had an appearance that should provoke some cautious behavior. But at any rate when we left the restaurant one of our group members had their backpack stolen during the time we had dinner. The group came to the conclusion that it must have been the wiry-haired man who left prematurely from the restaurant. Wednesday, was caulk full of encounters. Over the noon hours, I decided to skip lunch back home and make an effort to get things done around the city. I went to the post office which is stationed only four blocks from school in order to drop of some letters I had accumulated. After exiting the post office, having felt successful of my transaction, I had an encounter with a quite physical beggar. This man spotted me from across the street as I left the post office and took the effort to hassle me for money. He stepped in front of me and gave the motions of every beggar pulling his had out of his pocket, palm up. But this was different than the other encounters because he impeded my travel. The sidewalk, first of all, was narrow, sandwiched between a high wall and the busy traffic of the street. My directions of escape were simply straight forward or backward, and I wanted to give him no opportunity for him to steal anything from my backpack, so I made a motion to the mute beggar that I was not going to give him any money, and went for my first option of walking by him. But he pushed me back and up against the wall, and again indicated his intentions only this time more aggressively desiring my donation. Again I tried to walk by but he blocked my passage. I just took that to mean I can do the same so I pushed him aside and walked by. That was it, but it makes me a little more wary of even the dangers on the same block as the post office and now I understand the absurd security measures they've taken at the post office. Then further on in the day I saw the same wiry-haired criminal from the night before in front of me on my walk home from school. We stared each other down and I kept my eyes trained on him even as I passed, and he tried to break the aggressive tension with an "Hola." It is common, now that I have found myself in some predicaments and taken a more aggressive stance when confronting others, that these characters do not like to maintain that aggression and try to break it by becoming friendly. But the look on his face conveyed to me that he was clearly the thief from the prior night. And then my last little scare came last night. For the past two nights, I have been testing the waters of curfew, and walking closer and closer to 8pm. It gets dark here around 715, and significantly dark on the last half of my walk from school. But I have always been wary of this and kept vigilant while walking by the hospital and the dark abyss that is the park during the day. But last night, gave me more reason to be concerned about the night walks. I approached the front gate of the hospital which marks roughly the halfway mark on my walk home, and there was a man standing at the gate peering in, which is not entirely uncommon, as many people look to be more suspicious than they are, but as I approached he turned towards me and I got a clear look into his face. He said to me, "Ayudame! Ayudame!" ("help me! help me!). His nose was broken and flowing from was fresh blood that you could clearly seen in the faint light from the bridge lights I had already past. It appeared that he had had a tussle with someone and was punched squarely in the nose. Of course I wanted nothing to do with him, so I passed him by, but the night life on the last half of my walk can be clearly represented by him. I've been much more wary of the cars here as well, mainly because of "bombas de agua" which can fly when you least expect it. Those are water balloons that everyone throws as a game primarily during Carnival, but not limited to it. Eggs, buckets of water, and balloons filled with pig's blood are apparently added to the weaponry during Carnival, when no one is spared. I don't really look forward to that, but I guess it is all in the wild anarchy of that week.

Anyway, I just wanted to relay some of the stories that clearly make this experience much more interesting. On a lighter note, I am going to be going to the beach this weekend with my host mom and her boyfriend (another awkward date that I will be a part of, but I couldn't resist a free trip to the beach). I have also decided on my plans for Carnival, which is now in two weeks. I am going with three others to Esmeraldas and other coastal towns further north than the huge city of Guayaquil. I'll keep you posted on the events of the coming weeks, but Carnival is where my attention is being spent. I expect a well-rounded trip with Afro-American music, the Pacific Ocean, the Equatorial Sun, and the dirty city of Esmeraldas.

Not a Perfect Paradise remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Wunderbar

2008-01-15T17:53:27Z

Well, since it has been a while since I last update this, I will try to get you back up to speed. Thursday night I arrived in Cuenca in good spirits, but the following morning I woke up to a sore jaw from a long night of grinding my teeth, a reminder of how nervous I am about the coming days. Friday morning was spent cooped up in a room taking a Spanish placement exam. This was, however, not just an ordinary computer administered exam, in fact to make it even more unique of an experience I sat down next to Marty, the professor joining our trip as the Lewis and Clark faculty representative. It was an interesting experience watching him, among others, squirm at the various tests of our knowledge of Spanish. In no way do I intend to say that I did even remotely well, but I came into the test with a mindset that anything I don't feel comfortable with would not truly exhibit my base of Spanish. And I am beginning to learn a lot about the flaws in my previous tactics of getting around learning the language. Afterwards, I spent most of my time at home settling my nerves. At night, I needed a drink so to relax myself and resist the temptations of another night grinding my teeth. I had an Ecuadorian brew which is nothing to write home about called Pilsener or something like that. The bar is your typical German tourist bar that is by no means a local joint. That was not what I am looking for at this point in my time in Cuenca, I was looking more for a reprieve from the total uneasiness of speaking entirely in Spanish. My host family is very congenial, though. My brother had a hernia on friday though, trying to lift something too heavy. He was absent for nearly three days before I saw him again. He is learning English in order to become a teacher here. Teaching, apparently is a good profession and is paid well in comparison to many of the jobs in this country, however, some statistic I heard said that 95% of the country's population earns less than $7500 dollars per year. On Saturday, I got to experience the town of Cuenca more in a tour. There were two parades running through town, both of which seemed to be insignificant, but they had a parade nevertheless. One was an anniversary for a high school where all the alumni marched in their graduation year and the other was a celebration of January 6th I believe, which seemed odd to have a parade on the 12th, but it is a day similar to Halloween in the States. There have been constant pops from fireworks nearly every day. At first I thought it was because of this holiday but now I am thinking otherwise. And yes, fireworks in the city limits are illegal. In addition to the fireworks, there is a tradition of throwing water balloons at unsuspecting people. This is supposed to be a Carnival tradition but it has spread to a year round thing apparently. I saw on my tour the grandeous cathedral stationed in the center of town and also a Panama hat factory, but the tour was really nothing more than walking through the streets on a Saturday. That afternoon I sought to find notebooks for my class and the entire city had closed down by 3pm. So rejected, I got offered to spend the day with my host mom, Eulalia, on what happened to be a date with her boyfriend. I was the unintelligible third party. We went far from Cuenca into the higher points of the hoyas that are sandwiched between the parallel mountain ranges of the Andes. There we stopped at a plaza of a small town of which I did not figure out the name. At every tienda surrounding the plaza was a jewelry shop filled to the brim with silver jewelry. Here is one of the largest silver mines in South America and you can buy unbelievably cheap jewelry of high quality because of the intense competition in town. On Sunday, I slept in and woke up to my host sisters heading north to pick up my host brother in order to bring him back home to Cuenca. I meet more and more family it seems, everyday. On Saturday afternoon, I went into the higher country to celebrate the birthday of Eulalia's father. There were probably forty or more relatives packed into the small farm house. Too many conversations to keep track of, and far to rapid Spanish being spoken, so I spent most of my time sitting down and soaking in the festivities by my keen sense of sight. On Sunday, I met more family, Wellington's, my host brother's, inlaws. But now, I settle in. I have classes every weekday. Spanish is every morning followed by anthropology in on Monday and Wednesday and biodiversity on Tuesday and Thursday. I also have a night class for Salsa on Monday and Wednesday. The classtime is very laid back but the outside work is much more rigorous. It will keep my time more structured, instead of slipping away on weekdays to far away places. I'll keep you better up to date on my personal experiences as I go, but that is where I stand today.

Wunderbar remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cuenca, The City of Four Rivers

2008-01-15T17:57:56Z

Last night I arrived into Cuenca where I will be stationed for three months for school. I say last night because AeroGal, my airlines decided that a three and a half hour delay was acceptable when confronted with moderate rain. I spent most of my time in the airport getting my fill of cribbage and gin. I have to admit I felt I had amnesia because I could not remember for the life of me how to play cribbage until it was far too late. The flight to Cuenca, when it finally did leave, was no longer than my flight from San Antonio to Houston, a light thirty five minute flight over the Andean highlands. I had this misconception that fertile valleys stretch across the entirety between the two parallel mountain ranges, but there is far more geologic formations than that. I overheard while eavesdropping, which I am getting quite good at, that a drive from Quito to Cuenca is more like a twelve hour odessy. So scratch that out as an idea in the future. But from the sky, it was a little more smooth, even though the turbulance was horrendous. From my side of the plane I was able to see the perfect conical shape of Cotopaxi, one of two volcanoes in the world with such perfect shape, the other being Fuji. Supposedly I would be living in the booneys farthest from the school, so there were plenty of jokes pertaining to the distance of my walk that lies ahead of me five days a week. We landed at el aeropuerto de Cuenca, if you can even call it an airport. I think I was expecting more out of the third most important city in Ecuador. I had a lot of misperceptions about this trip. The plane stopped alongside the side of the airport next to the baggage claim. A terminal did not exist. The baggage claim was equally pequeño. As there was only one plane on the ground within hundreds of miles, there was just one baggage claim track that seemed absolutely absurd. Moving along, I met my host family in mi escuela which is a villa in the heart of "downtown" Cuenca. I met my host family in spurts, actually to be more accurate, I met them basically one at a time on their own. Leslie, who is the daughter of Eulalia, my host mother, is a calm genuine Cuencan who I have not figured out precisely her occupation. Her husband, Wellington, has been the most readily accessible family member to talk with because he is learning English in order to become a teacher. He however, has been laid up since he left last night with a hernia in his stomach, but is supposively in better health. My host mother I met late a night when she arrived back home at around nine. She is a teacher of math at a local high school. Today we had our Spanish placement test which I can't place whether it went over well or not, but I am not too worried. I have no vocabulary for verbs I have become quite well aware of. Tonight, because we only have a tour tomorrow and it is the weekend, I am having a night on the town, well sort of. I plan to go and see a movie and perhaps go to a local bar one of the host families recommended. I feel quite at home here. A huge sigh of relief.

Cuenca, The City of Four Rivers remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Last Night in Quito

2008-01-15T17:56:38Z

So far this trip has managed to satisfy my hunger of bland and general tourism. That is about as far as it goes. Housed in the "Gringoland" district of Quito, there is nothing much to see by foot but a couple of sour faces from taxi drivers and occationally the large group of tourists exhibiting the meager Spanish they know, something I can truly relate to. But this is not really any test of Spanish for every sign, menu and service provider displays its grammatically incorrect English, just enough to get me food from the ethnic resturants I've been endulging upon. It doesn't seem fair at this moment of my life to pocket enough money to give me three meals and be able to last in the "richest" areas of Ecuador. To give you some idea, it cost eight soiled dollar bills for a three person meal in the heart of the tourist mecca.

At any rate, we have been customary tourists upto this point. Nothing but sightseeing and travelling in the littered streets of Quito in our rented bus. The streets can only be characterized as Russian Roulette. Honking is pushed as much as the gas pedal, and that usually gives the right for drivers here the right away to speed through pedestrian crosswalks. Yesterday was highlighted with a travel across the north valley of Quito and back over the equator. What I recall seeing as located in the heart of urbanization was similar to your Walmart, clearcut and built next to Boring, Oregon. I can't really put into words the fallacy of the monumental construction to mark the "precise" location of the equator. Afterwards, we travelled back across town to the central hill that divides the upper, old Quito, from the new and much more delapadated side of town. I was unable to capture the true grandeur of the view from atop the hill. Housing and construction crept up the steep slopes of the towering mountains surrounding the city and the pollution shielded the view of the three gigantic volcanic peaks neighboring the city of Quito. At the crest of the hill stands the third largest statue in the world, following the Statue of Liberty and the mammoth of a statue overlooking Rio in Brazil. The statue is the Virgin of Quito, or Virgin Guadalupe. The would have been the highlight of my exhausting day but I happened to see what is heralded as the greatest church in the Americas called the La Compania. The interior was blanketed in gold leaf, making the experience like finding the golden city. Yesterday was capped off with a little rain and some passing philosophy about life on the patio atop our hostel.

Today was an investigation of the most famous artist of Ecuador, Oswaldo Guayasamin. We chugged along the steep hills to reach his museum. This box like ediface was fabulously decorated in his artwork. I failed to purchase anything from the gift shop but I hope to return on this trip. We returned from the trip with much more energy, only to have it sucked out in a stuffy meeting room to discuss the history of Ecuador's politics. I did give me a fantastic lead on my hopeful senior thesis however. The lecturer, Yuri Guerra, who works with an ecological foundation located here in Quito. I am excited about this lead in order to learn more about the ITT proposal. The proposal seeks to earn money from the international community for the protection and restraint from continued oil exploration in Yasuni National Park.

I have a bit of an upset stomach about tomorrow, or perhaps the strong curry from my Indian food tonight. Tomorrow I meet my host family whom I will be staying with for the next three months. I am all but ready.

Enter language immersion.

Last Night in Quito remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Getting A Little Bit Nervous

2008-01-15T17:54:36Z

I don't think I saw the time in front of me ticking away. It's down to twelve hours before my first flight off towards Houston. In twenty-four hours I will be in another country starting a new life that I have never before experienced. I did finally get my packing wrapped up, but now that I am

Getting A Little Bit Nervous remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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In Quito

2008-01-15T17:55:08Z

Just letting everyone know that I arrived safely in Quito last night, but I am still a little tipsy from exhaustion and the altitude. Upon arriving in the Quito airport, we met with Narcisa who is our coordinator, after a good hour and a half of waiting in the customs lines. Narcisa is a wonderful person who will be fantastic for moral support. I am looking forward to the stay in Cuenca, and there is lots of enthusiasm about the host families and staying in Cuenca. Exploration of the blocks around our hotel is on top of my list. I've been staying with the guys of our trip in a single room of four beds, so I am getting to know them better. My host family is actually the furthest from the classes in the heart of Cuenca, about a thirty minute walk according to Narcisa. The Cordovas, my host family, have adopted a child which was the missing link that I could not understand in their letter. I am very interested in getting to meet and know them more. I will be on my way to Cuenca on Thursday and classes begin the following Monday. Things will start getting much more rapid from here on out. But until then, I think I will embrace the comfort of long sleeps and the company of fellow students. All the best to everyone who continue to enjoy their breaks before the wave of work before them.

In Quito remains copyright of the author kearlkozby, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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