Tag Archives: Quito

Galapagos Wrap-up, pt. IV

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Arriving on Isla San Cristóbal I was more than ready for change. My time on Isla Isabela had put me into a dismissive and negative mood and the sooner I was off the island the better. So I went to Isabela’s airport an hour early and met Veronica, another passenger also eager to be gone. She’s a director in the Ministério del Ambiente, kind of a Parks & Recreation Bureau within Ecuador’s central government.

I didn’t know it at the time but she’s a high-level functionary within the workings of the country’s civil service. I found this out later when visiting a Sailors’ Museum and saw a bronze plaque with her name on it. The plaque commemorated the new museum and its major benefactors, with her name prominent on the list.

Anyway, Veronica suggested some things to do while I visited San Cristóbal. One of them was the path that began at the island’s Darwin Interpretation Center and continued to the summit of a hill overlooking the main city of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. Following that advice I was to take that trail several times during my stay, each time just before sunset. Muchas Gracias, Veronica!

She was very proud of that trail, having recently attended its grand opening after having worked to get it funded and built. She also took my phone number and promised to call and meet while we both visited the island. But this time I was ready for those notorious subjunctive tenses and (rightfully) didn’t expect the call to come. By now I’ve started to recognize “the meeting that will never be.” On the road for less than a year and I’m already making some cultural progress ;}

Who I did meet though were people very different than the folks on Santa Cruz or Isabela. I found people who were not on the make. The people of Santa Cruz, and more specifically Puerto Ayora, are there for your money. They are friendly enough to be sure, but the town and the island by extension, is there to redistribute the wealth (and property if you don’t hold on to your purse) from the visitors of the developed world and relocate this wealth among the people of the developing world. Visitor and resident alike knows this and there’s no misunderstanding. And at a coarser and sleazier level the same is true on Isabela. But San Cristóbal is different.

It also has an airport allowing flights from the mainland, though the traffic is far less than at the main landing strip on Baltra servicing Santa Cruz. And it also has sights and tours to some relatively unique features, like the only natural fresh water source in the Galapagos. What keeps this island different in flavor is the presence of federal offices, a large naval base, and national commercial fishing administration. There are dry-dock facilities, freight-forwarding yards and other trappings of non-tourist related activity. So one’s chances of meeting someone not involved with tourism are far easier on San Cristóbal. No scams for a change, and a welcome one too.

In Puerto Baquerizo Moreno the streets are clean. And the waterfront promenade with its one-way street was named, but what else? Avenida Charles Darwin. All the shop fronts and park benches in the sun and the shade were well-cared for. This port town was neat, proud, and yet still had time to be friendly.

Just outside the Darwin Interpretation Center there is a brand new UNC/Chapel Hill facility housing earth and/or natural sciences graduate students with lecture halls and common areas as well. The architecture blends well with the surrounding structures and land forms. It was the beginning of fall semester and the grad students seemed to be mixing rather smoothly with the local residents. This island is definitely different from the others.

Yet again Janina was right by revealing to me that the people can be every bit as interesting as the animals. I got a first-hand view of her thesis and now am a believer too. People can and do change rapidly in different social structures. They had clearly done so among the inhabited islands of the Galapagos. But do they evolve? Maybe, if they are as adaptable as guppies.

Which brings me to perhaps my biggest failure while visiting the Galapagos: I never visited Floreana, the mystery island. The last, smallest, of the inhabited islands, Floreana boasted a tale of death, perhaps murder and certainly deceit; mistresses and scandal with transformation following hellfire. Being south of the main island group, this outpost holds itself back from the others.

Set completely ablaze by a whaler’s prank in 1819, it is now believed that a number of important and unique species of animals were lost in the conflagration that consumed the entire island. Descendants of the original settlers from early 20th Century still run the single hotel on Floreana. And if I ever return to the Galapagos, I’m going there very early in the trip.

Back on San Cristóbal, one night walking, I encountered a sea lion pup not more than a very few hours old. Cruising along the town’s seawall and encountering herds of sea lions is vaguely reminiscent of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The difference being that the hundreds of sea lions use the beach here, plus the common piers and sidewalks to bask; Watch your Step!!

Barely able to move with most of the umbilicus attached, as was the placenta to the mother, this particular little pup was too weak and still too new to use the flaccid skins that would become flippers. When I returned barely 8 hours later those same flippers had somehow “inflated” and were now able to carry the pups weight as it struggled to find its mother to nurse.

Witnessing both of these sea lion pup events I was accompanied by a recent friend, Michaela. Twenty years my junior, this owner of a German travel agency and I had bumped into each other on 4 islands now, so we ended up wandering the docks and eateries along the waterfront. I was fortunate that Michaela speaks far more English (she’s fluent) than my 4 words of German. We compared notes of our various day tours and she collected the information for her clients back home. My second regret, after Floreana, is that I never directly introduced Janina and Michaela. I’ve made some amends via the computer and I sincerely hope that both of them thrive.

In Puerto Baquerizo Moreno I had my first (and only) lobster in the Galapagos. It was pretty good and pretty cheap. Seafood in the Galapagos is generally a bargain.  Along with visiting Floreana, I will spend more time on this island should I get blown back to this part of the world. If I weren’t so fond of Janina and her family on Santa Cruz, I’d fly directly here from Guayaquil. And being retired, I’d happily and easily spend a month in these islands. Now THAT, would be a vacation!

It’s mid-November as I’m writing this and I’m living a comfortable life in Lima; the Galapagos is a long way away. When I consider those various experiences there and the people I met, I think often about how I could improve on my trip. And the most obvious change would incorporate my new love of being aboard a boat. I would root out more day-trip boat tours, or perhaps even a short multi-day cruise. But I wouldn’t learn to SCUBA dive here. These waters are for experienced divers.

The unique life systems that motivated Darwin to devise his theories were themselves the results of unique geologic and geographic conditions found nowhere else on the planet. These islands sit at the collision point of 5 major and 4 minor ocean currents.

From the massive Humboldt Current bringing both cold water and surprisingly cool air temperatures up from the Antarctic, to the nutritionally important Pacific Equatorial Under Current bringing food eastward from the ocean depths to feed the whales, to the Panama Current bringing rain and clear diving waters, these currents form a complex set of powerful forces which endanger the unwary. So learn to dive elsewhere, learn safety and emergency procedures and then you can put the knowledge to good use here.

A day-trip for SCUBA divers will cost somewhere under $200/person. It’s all-inclusive with well maintained equipment, just show up with your bathing suit (and a set of warm, dry clothes). But if you’re like me with size 13 feet, bring your own fins. Each of the populated islands offers day-trips and with some pre-planning before leaving home one can easily dive in almost all of the biomes in the islands.

What about the last-minute cruise packages, said to be possible at amazing discounts? Possibly. But marketing has changed over the last several years. When the Islands started accepting tourists wholesale a generation ago, the park was geared solely for the well-heeled who could afford multi-day cruises aboard all manner of yachts. There were no land-based facilities and the choice was expensive cruises or stay home.

As more travelers visited the islands, the galapagueños rose to the challenge and began offering trips for land-based tourism. Each year saw newer and more extensive and comprehensive ways to experience these islands without committing to an expensive cruise package that virtually dictates every minute of every day. The change in emphasis from cruises (which, to be sure, still exist in a multitude of options) to land-based day trips brought about a corresponding change in what gets flogged to the newer generation of bargain conscious traveler.

Now that all the hip travel guides mention the lure of last-minute cruise deals that is exactly what is (said to be) offered by every business everywhere on the islands. Of course it begs the question: if they are all last minute, how can this be a bargain? I’m still waiting for that answer. The various agencies, sporting goods stores, and shoeshine boys, each of whom offer tickets to everything everywhere network amongst themselves with smartphone apps, so the deals of a decade ago are deals no more.

What this means is that one sees a leveling of pricing that follows the increase in choices. So one now still has the option for a pampered but rather rigid cruise package (which take the traveler to places off-limits to the day-trippers) or a more personalized though still regulated series of land-based 1/2 day and full day tours. As there is some wriggle-room in pricing for the land-based tours, a general homogenization of offerings among vendors markedly dampens opportunities for bargaining. Yet it doesn’t hurt to ask. Hidden treasures exist if you seek them out and you don’t have to pay the asking price.

The Galapagos Islands is an experience every bit as astounding as people say. I barely touched on what is there and how a visitor can see it. I met a Scottish couple in Quito who spent £800 between the 2 of them, for a week. That’s a bit less per day than I spent and one of them had a sea lion come up to him and kiss his GoPro® while snorkeling off Isla Española. I watched it on their computer back at the SAEX Clubhouse.

There are as many ways to visit the Islands as there are visitors. Pick one…

Climbing the Steps of the City of Zaruma and Climbing the Ladder of Success in Loja

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Zaruma, de la Provincia de El Oro, is unquestionably the most vertical city that I have ever visited. Roads, at least those planed for motorized vehicles, are at best an afterthought throughout the entire municipality. In a city, a village really, of barely 20,000 residents there is a developed and inhabited area that marches up and down the mountain for more than 1,000 vertical feet.

Zaruma Steps

Zaruma Steps

This isn’t a place for someone with a fear of heights. Since as you move about in just the commercial area of Zaruma alone, you move along in the street, up steps, down steps, over curbs, up more steps and then repeat. A still active mining town, Zaruma is like no other. And because of this, Ecuador has petitioned the UN to place it on the short list of World Heritage sites. It certainly has my vote.

Though as beautifully unique as it is, a village this size only has so many things one can do, and with wi-fi being something that not all of the residents had heard about, keeping myself plugged-in was it’s own interesting challenge. It’s a nice, no it’s a great place to visit, but you know the rest.

Three days later I hopped on a bus out of town for the most beautiful yet frightening bus ride yet. The first hour was pretty tame: we coasted downhill to the smaller town of Portovelo where I changed buses after a long wait in the town square. Within 3 minutes of leaving Portovelo the pavement ended and we started climbing up into the Andes.

Zaruma to Loja Road

Zaruma to Loja Road

I was thrilled to be on this route because near the end it would meet up with the road I had taken out of Catemayo in April to attend the Natem retreat. That path ended at the door of the finca we stayed at and this ride would complete the rest of the journey coming in from the opposite direction. However these interprovincial buses are very tall affairs with great stretch out seats.

They are far taller than a Greyhound back in the US, so that when we rounded bends on the one-lane gravel road and overtook an overloaded mining truck, or met an oncoming pickup, my heart lumped up in my throat as the cabin swayed along the hardpack. We weren’t making much speed, since the gravel and washouts prevented over-jouncing along the way. But we were moving about, perched 8 or more feet above the road surface.

We did of course survive the trip. The drivers of these buses do this every day and know the twists and turns of their routes intimately. So at the times when I knew we were going over the edge, the driver carefully and methodically maneuvered this beast easily along to our destination. The days in Zaruma were a true march back in time and this bus ride punctuated the divide.

But now that I’m in Loja, life is different. Somewhere in the vicinity of 200,000 people call Loja home (accurate population figures and, for that matter, municipal boundaries are more of a concept than a reality in much of South America). Considered by the rest of Ecuador as the jewel of the south, this city holds a long memory of mining and agricultural wealth. But it’s the 21st century. The old days were nice and there will always be respect for history (Loja is one of the oldest cities in Ecuador), though I get a clear message here that folks want nothing more than a comfortable middle-class life.

And who can blame them? With the wonders of cable/satellite TV, dubbed Hollywood movies, and the Internet, all the excitement of the outside world beckons, and many here have answered. They have seen much that favors the attraction of a comfortable life and have decided to follow this dream. It’s the American dream, but it’s not exclusive to the US. This is also America, America of the South, and let no one forget it.

With a city of this size, geographically isolated though Loja may be, one can find most anything imaginable for leading the comfortable life. These days that also means that Loja has caught the eye(s) of travel and retirement media as the “new” Cotacatchi, which everyone who’s anyone knows is the “new” Cuenca. And for those who have followed these types of publications, we cannot forget that Cuenca of course was at one time the “new” Ajijic/San Miguel de Allende, and they of course were the “new” on and on and on…

So there is a small and slowly growing expat population here, and these retirement publications are all singing praises for Loja. Of course the result of this favorable press is that expats are moving here. But they are in no way as visible in Loja as the expats are in Cuenca, where they have seemingly taken over the Centro Historico, or are they as visible through sheer numbers, as they are in tiny Cotacachi. But expats are here and they do blog and the blogs make for some interesting reading.

Bolívar Enters Loja

Bolívar Enters Loja

As regards expat life, Loja is still in the first stages of “colonization” and this means that the transplants here are a hardy bunch, by necessity speaking Spanish, and who are quite content flying under the radar and not flocking or swarming as in the other locales. These new Lojanos are happily leading the middle-class life too and fitting in quite well with families tracing Lojano roots back in some cases to the founding of the city in 1546. Ah, but nice though it may be, that same middle-class longing is where problems arise.

Rafael Correa has changed the face of Ecuador like no other president before him. Regardless of how one applauds or rejects his views, his redistribution of wealth essentially made a new country. In multiple comparisons to other South American nations, Ecuador has lifted itself from an also-ran to a contender in virtually all aspects of social metrics. Correa’s administration has lifted more people from poverty than all of his predecessors combined and the country is now in the top tier of wealth, prosperity, and individual contentment across all factors of life in Latin America. Crime is down and happiness is up.

Because of the wealth re-distribution there is now in Ecuador a large sector of the population that not only can simply dream about material gain, but actually achieve it through individual effort. This has never happened before and the people who this message was intended for have embraced it whole cloth and gladly worked hard to move up the ladder; out with the old ways and all aboard for the new ones. Yet differences exist here in the beautiful and rugged south.

Unlike Cuenca, the cultural capital of Ecuador, or Cotacachi, near to the world market of Otavalo, or the main cities of Quito and Guayaquil, Loja is off the (international) tourist trail. It is at the bottom of an isolated valley, nearly 7,000 ft above sea-level, and surrounded by rough and mountainous mining country. Loja therefore is at the mercy of its geography, and as a result of these defining landforms the city, like any city anywhere in similar circumstances, has an insular outlook on life and the values that define it as a community.

Seeing the world of the outside and how the Loja of old compared to that world, and seeing progress as good thing, it was only natural that Loja too would be moving forward. If hard work and a clear vision were the antidotes to stagnation, then Lojanos were ready for their share of the rewards. It would be worth it for now and for the future. But at what cost?

When I arrived here last Thursday I had several immediate tasks before me. In order to stay on the road I have certain regular chores and the occasional “one-off” task that come up. This last week I needed to have some laundry done, a haircut, and some forms filled and mailed back to a US bank. I also wanted to purchase some palo santo.

This sweetly aromatic wood is burned in curandismo ceremonies and next week I begin a 12-day retreat hosted by 4 curanderos. The plan was to purchase quantities of palo santo for each of the shamans as symbolic offerings. Once I leave Loja I will be again in isolated country south of Cuenca and unable to locate such things. So Loja is where I had to find my palo santo.

Booking a room in a centrally located hotel in colonial cities has many benefits, not the least of which is convenience. There is a reassuring sameness to the layout of old Latin American cities. Each has a parque central: a green-space (sometimes more green in concept than in currency) which will have fronting it the city cathedral, the local governmental offices, and provincial and/or federal agencies as well.

Radiating outward from the park will be the supplementary and complementary businesses, shops, and other modes of commerce that keep the community operating. The tailors, the hardware stores, the cyber cafés, and pharmacies, restaurants, and more. Big cities and small pueblos; this layout is both regular and reassuring.

Loja Mercado Centro

Loja Mercado Centro

Among these surrounding stores will also be the mercado central. This will be the grand market selling everything from local produce (which in Ecuador is astounding in variety, beauty, taste, and incredibly low prices), meats: both the butchered and often the live still clothed in feathers or fur, toys for the tots, sweets for both the tooth and the heart, umbrellas, shoes and boots, basketware, items for the kitchen and home, and many, many other items in a large warehouse or series of warehouses with running kids, pleading mothers, hawkers for both licit and illicit goods; a fascinating place to watch one’s belongings while weaving through the always crowded aisles.

Loja’s grand market is barely 2 blocks from my digs, the Hotel Podocarpus, and after scouting it out on Thursday just before the 6pm closing, I knew that checking off my tasks would be a snap; there was even an internet café, so I could print out the forms for the bank. The central post office was 2 blocks in the other direction from my hotel. Perfect! At least mostly so.

After finishing up most of my tasks at the mercado with a $2 haircut (and it looks like a $2 haircut too!) on the top floor amidst the row of barbers, I set out to find the palo santo. In Quito, Cuenca, and many other communities along the major transportation routes, tiendas de remedios (shops selling folk remedies) seem to be on almost every street corner. Yet I couldn’t see any, either in the mercado or along the side streets lined with shops selling everything but remedios.

Mercado Produce

Mercado Produce

So I asked one of the vendors in the mercado who gave me a puzzled look and then pointed me off in some vague direction elsewhere, a common gesture when someone doesn’t know something but can’t bring ones’ self to admit it. So off I went to another sector, got the same treatment, and repeated this a number of times until the husband of one of the earlier vendors found me several aisles over and pointed out a tiny closet of a shop one more aisle down.

Finally! Success with what turned out to be the last remedio shop in Loja. It was getting late with rain threatening, so I was thankful that I did find my palo santo, and that the old man selling the flower-waters (floristas), trinkets, salves and such had 4 bundles left. He was both quite pleased and puzzled to find a gringo as a customer, and after our transaction admitted that not only was he the last, but that his supply of palo santo had dried up from over-developing the forests for farmland. He also told me that for 10 years or so, fewer and fewer people are following the old ways and that he was going to close down this last of the remedios in Loja.

In their climb up the material ladder, Lojanos have willingly forsaken indigenous ways and plowed up the once plentiful palo santo forests. For progress. Other communities here in Ecuador, ones located on busy and regular transportation routes still accept the old ways and have comfortably integrated them into newer ways of living. There is no real conflict in those cities and both beliefs of health and healing exist symbiotically. However, these folks here in Loja, walled in by the beautiful but culturally stifling mountains, concluded some time back that it was an either/or choice and made their move forward by saying goodbye to traditions that had been in place for millennia. Something was lost here in Loja.

Truly Sad To Leave Quito, But Justly Ecstatic To Find Otavalo

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Inti-Raymi: Coming to a Pueblo Near Me, Otavalo Part I

Mahalo Bar

Mahalo Bar

The weirdest things popping up in the most unexpected places are really why I travel. I don’t quite know why I was surprised to find this establishment, because it was less than 2 blocks away from the local Baha’i meeting place which was also advertised in Quechua. For those who don’t speak any Hawaiian, “Mahalo” means “thank you” in that beautifully rippling Polynesian language. This bar, closed during the day, is on a main street here in Otavalo. Mahalo indeed.

It’s one thing to see the word mahalo in Waikiki, where you see it everywhere including on all the trash cans (of which there are countless, thank you City of Honolulu!). Yet that in itself can be a problem. So many tourists have seen it on the trash cans that many have come to believe that it means trash. So when, for example, a local cashier receives payment tendered and replies “Mahalo,” that Ugliest of Americans takes insult and escalates the misunderstanding further by behaving even more stupidly, thinking that they’ve just been called garbage. Jeez, mahalo nui loa, bubba.

(A piece of advice for those of you who probably don’t even realize that you’re Ugly: take some time to learn a few words before you visit a foreign country. And yes, Hawai’i really is a different country; it’s yet another item that you also might want to study.)

With that rant out of the way I can say that I arrived in Otavalo yesterday. I came to witness Inti-Raymi, the most important Ketchwa (there are nearly a dozen ways to spell this word, so don’t wait for any consistency from me) celebration of the year. Otavalo is the largest indigenous city in Ecuador. And Inti-Raymi pays respect to summer solstice, though please do not ask me how they can tell, being less than 100 miles from the Equator (equal days, equal nights, remember?). But it’s been celebrated for millennia so someone’s been keeping watch.

This morning I greeted sunrise by keeping up my Tai Chi practice here on the roof deck of the Hostal Curiñan (if you visit Otavalo, stay here, period!). Sure, it was sublime: watching the sun behind me lighting up the mountains across the valley, hearing the sheep and goats grazing across the road from the hostal, but it also was a time of revelation: I had made a mistake.

A month previous, having just returned from living with 2 shaman families in Marona Santiago  and having received 2 serious visions via drinking Natem/ayahuasca, I had to start living my truths as revealed. And the second of the visions, the one that told me that my time in Quito was over, led to making this reservation at the hostal. Now the mistake was not staying at the hostal, since it is a piece of heaven in a heavenly place, nor was it in coming to Otavalo for Inti-Raymi, as I’m by now an exposed indigenous junkie. I need to be here, really. It’s not my fault.

No, the mistake was making the reservation for only 10 days. I don’t see how I can apprehend what I’m feeling all around me in such a short period of time. I know many people think that they can tour Europe in 10 days, but there’s no way I’m going to leave here in just a week and a half. The rest of Ecuador will simply have to wait.

Here’s a linear thought in a completely non-linear post: I know that there are more than one or two people who read this blog and who were disturbed by my moral descent through indulging in psychedelia with the Shuar. In my defense, I did mention in an earlier post about the many clinical trials going on in South America with both ayahuasca and DMT. Well, Johns Hopkins, a dreary 2-bit schoolhouse somewhere on the east coast, has also been hitting the hooch, as it were. Try this link on for size an then realize that it’s not all what you’ve been led to believe about those misbegotten 60’s hippies:

Could Psychedelic Drugs Make Smokers Quit?

And while you re-read the article therein linked, pay attention this time to the spirituality reference. Heaven really is where you find it.

Returning, somewhat, to Otavalo I can say that I’ve hated lantana since I first came to Hawai’i in the late 60’s. Back then I joined the Hawai’i Trail and Mountain Club and spent every weekend hiking mountain trails on O’ahu and also among the Outer Islands. Yet so many trails beginning in or near Honolulu were plagued with the wild overgrowth of this decorative little thornbush which raked my ankles and shins, leaving me criss-crossed with bloody scars (wear long pants? in Hawai’i?). Back then I read that it was introduced to the islands from a nursery in Cleveland some time in the 1890’s. Sometime later it somehow escaped someone’s garden. Thanks Cleveland.

I was born 40 miles south of the “Metropolis of the Western Reserve,” the home of the Cavaliers and the returned LeBron James, so it took some time to get over my resentment of Cleveland. Being, as I was, from Akron, we were always 2nd-class to our big brother, the “BigC.” I’m glad that I did get over it though, because I have learned to love the lantana in Ecuador. It’s a decorative bush or even a small tree in many yards in Quito. And here in Otavalo I just returned from the University of Otavalo campus where there is a lantana hedge several blocks long and in full bloom with tiny red and yellow flower clusters. Thanks you jardineros at U of O!

I was following a train of thought here; oh yes: Otavalo. What put the city on the map many years back is that it hosts the largest open-air market in South America (I haven’t personally verified this, but then paid journalists no longer verify either, listening Fox News?, so blame wikipedia). I’ve also heard that the Otavaleños are the most prosperous indigenous group in SA as well.

Now for that piece of info you won’t get an argument from me. With the steroidal 4dr pick-ups cruising town and the casas grandes sprinkled throughout the barrios, it is easily evident that money has been made here and continues to be made. Each Saturday the place is awash with cash-heavy tourists more than willing to trade their dinero for some of the best textiles, weavings, wood carvings, leather goods, “panama hats” (you get the picture) that one can hope to find anywhere. This stuff for sale isn’t junk either, though with some judicious bargaining one can certainly return home with quality artisanal products at far better than store-bought prices. Needless to say, these folks know how to do business. They’re indigenous, truly, but they’re not primitive.

Take for example this hostal. The delightful owners, Don José Miguel and Doña Matilde, along with Don J-M’s brother Joselito (“my brother Earl and my other brother Earl?” you bet!) also drive a monster truck, send a daughter away to college and have this fantastic lodging. (My opinion you can verify, BTW. Check out booking.com if you care to: Hostal Curiñan)

Otavalo

Otavalo

Wait though, that’s not enough for these gentle but focused hosts. Right across the road and uphill a bit they are building a bigger hotel! It will open in 6 months or so and will probably be just as ably run. However, if I return I’ll stick with this smaller version and it’s stunning views.

You might have realized that after 5 months of living in Quito, I’m hyped and on a roll, with thoughts, encounters, and possibilities racing through my little mind. It’s going to take several installments to explain the magic of Otavalo and the surrounding Imbabura Province. Please come back for more and I might infect you too with the wonder that’s all around me. This Sunday night I’ve been invited by my hosts to take part in the Inti-Raymi ritual of midnight cleansing under a 60’ waterfall. Now that’s going to be cool, up here in the mountains.

Language Immersion in Quito

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Terracentro Spanish Language School

It’s not like I’ve been putting this off, but with Guaranda and all, I just got side-tracked. Though now that I’ve just finished my 5th week in a Spanish language immersion program, it’s time for a review. I just ended one program and I’m set to begin a new phase.

Firstly, I have to say goodbye to Raquell Dávalos, my cultural, historical, environmental, and, when I couldn’t avoid it, Spanish teacher. Raquell has headed off to a teaching contract in El Oriente (the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon headwaters) for 2 weeks. All the best Raquell! It was 5 weeks of in-depth exposure to the wonders of Quito.  I could not have hoped for a better profesora.

OK, really, it is now time to buckle down and truly feel, not just know intellectually the difference between Por y Para , the rough Spanish equivalents to the English For. Wait! Let’s put it off some more; first let’s take time for some diversion. I can always study later.

I’m going to meet Frank, coming in from Albuquerque late tonight, and we’re headed to the southern part of the country for some genteel mayhem. It will have to be toned down simply because I’m sporting a plaster cast from mid-calf to my toes on my left foot. I broke the outside metatarsal by looking up when I should have been looking down.

So, with cane in hand, I lead Frank to Cuenca, Ecuador’s 3rd largest city. Like Quito, Cuenca is a World Heritage Site, selected for it’s colonial architecture, postcard setting, many museums, and because it’s just simply a beautiful place. More of Cuenca later, in a separate post.

I stumble back in a week to change my program at the school. Since starting at Terracentro in the beginning of February, I have been enrolled in “Cultural Quito” a stunning introduction to the charms, secrets, and thousand year old history of this amazing city. This program puts the student in class, one-on-one with an instructor in the mornings, then during the afternoons we were riding buses, taxis, and mostly walking in, through, and around some of the museums, markets, churches, cathedrals, historical sites, and so much more, both in and also near to Quito. It’s a good program; no, it’s a great program, but really it was not right for me. And I knew it even before I left Honolulu.

So sue me, that’s the way I am: if moderation is good then it stands to reason that overindulgence must be better, right? Tell that to the broken metatarsal.

It’s been almost 3 years since I bowed out of Spanish classes in Albuquerque: to first remodel the house, and then to sell it to return to Honolulu. Three years is a disastrously long time to be away from a 2nd language that I had certainly not mastered before the hiatus. I knew this, but the thinking was that I would only be in Ecuador for a month or 2 and I wanted to pack as much as I could into that time, so taking a cultural program without remembering basic grammar was a good thing, no? Ahhh, No.

I have no real idea how Raquell put up with such a poor student other than because of her deep love for her native Quito. And the fact that she shares a cynical view of the world. If this old gringo wants to blow his money by tripping over first-semester verb tenses, at least we can have fun. So we did.

Every day for 5 days each week for the full 5 weeks we saw something new and wonderful. Which was after she made me pay for it by squirming from her stare in the classroom.

imageShe’s got a certain sadistic side that hides behind an innocent smile, a smile that speared me daily with questions about how could I possibly ever think to use a first-person present tense ending on a 3rd person past tense verb? Even children don’t speak like that! Yet in spite of myself I have made progress and look forward to the new program. I will spend 5 or more hours in class each day with no more sight-seeing, so that I can really build a strong grammar base to use in this truly expressive language.  ¡Que Bueno!

Two weeks into my cultural program I realized that I need to be in Ecuador for more than the standard 90-day visa allowance. The culture, the language, and most importantly, the people of Ecuador demand (though politely, to be sure) a deeper commitment from me. And I willingly accept this, so I am working with a lawyer to extend my visa to 180 days. Will that be enough? Of course not, but I really do want to see other Andean countries too.

Cotopaxi from my 2nd storey bedroom window

Cotopaxi from my 2nd storey bedroom window

The other part of an immersion language program expects that the student will live the language outside the classroom, and what better way than to live with a family? In my case, I believe that I have the best of all worlds, since I live right here, at the school, with the Director’s parents. Carmen and Hector Villacís are about my age and they have both welcomed me into their home, into their kitchen, and I dare say into their lives. Carmen is a retired banking officer and Hector is a journalist, a Periodista.

Having lived in Long Beach, California for several years while earning an accounting degree, Carmen speaks pretty good English and we, against the rules, often default back there when my Spanish flounders. We spend breakfasts and dinners here at the kitchen table, while I go out for lunch on my own. She’s an avid listener to talk radio, and it’s usually the basis for a protracted breakfast, with heated discussions along the way. Strong into women’s rights, she has little patience for weak-willed, macho politicians. And let’s me know it, often.

Hector, who teaches an advanced arts and politics program for his daughter’s school, speaks no English. Yet somehow, he and I have had any number of 3 hour discussions with both of us enjoying them immensely. He is widely traveled, particularly through Latin America, and has worked for 40 years in radio, in television, and with the printed word, spending decades both in front of and behind the microphone. He has a life-long love of the arts and knows Shakespeare and Tchaikovsky and Velázquez far better than most. He currently writes for a political publication and here in Ecuador these days, that’s not easy.

Well, that’s what I do with my time for the most part. Yet I haven’t explained how I chose Terracentro, one school out of 200 Spanish schools in Quito. And that’s because I haven’t told you about the South American Explorers Club. That might have to wait until after the Cuenca post.

Guaranda, Finally. But Never What We Think

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Guaranda, Part III

With the coming of the New Year, as it had been in many of our “developed” cultures in times past, each family of the Campo greets the other families wishing them well, and this year the Moposita family was the first one out of the shute, as it were. It must have been 10 or 11 in the night when we began this New Year’s version of the custom of serenading the surrounding families. Keep in mind that we had been flying with Pajaro Azul since mid-afternoon, so it took major commitment from the entire goup (5 of us) to hang together on pitch black footpaths or trampling through cornfields, finally stumbling into courtyards of the families nearby. As soon as we arrived, though not silently what with the barking dogs, honking geese, and our own laughter, we began to sing and play this song. Or, in my case since I didn’t know the words, kind of hum and moan and clap my hands, which actually I was pretty good at. Well, that’s how I remember it anyway so I’m sticking to my story.

The other part of the tradition requires that each of the families being serenaded bring out yet more cerveza (beer) and/or Pajaro Azul. This being the campo, and like virtually all farming communities worldwide, folks are early to bed, early to rise. So when the lights turned on in the houses we visited, and the head of the household appeared in the courtyard with a glass and the booze, imagine his, or occasionally her, surprise to see a gringo in the midst of the neighborhood troubadors! Most were quite taken aback, and one or 2 even stumbled in surprise, but none paused in pouring out salutes to health and good harvest. A good time truly, was had by all.

Yet while the campesinos had either started or were soon to start celebrating good fortune and bountiful harvest in the new year, it was anything but good fortune for the pig. His year was starting out badly and went downhill from there.

Jefferson’s father had arrived home well after midnight, having begun the celebrations with friends in other places. We had brief introductions as I was headed off to bed. He seemed to be struggling with the remembrance of just why this tall gringo was standing in his house. He wasn’t angry by any stretch, the Blue Bird sings songs of love, though he was sorely and profoundly puzzled.

But while I was soundly asleep, snoring and drooling, he was sharpening his killing blade. After the deed, and the singeing of the hide with his plumber’s torch, his work was done and the women’s had just begun. His wife began first by scraping the hide, gutting and then sectioning the carcass. She, with help from an ever-changing number of daughters, spent most of the day first butchering then cooking the pig in a gigantic wok-type of pan/pot/whathaveyou.

imageWhile she was building up steam for the task ahead, Jefferson’s father (I never did learn the names of Jefferson’s parents) took me with him for an early-morning wake-up over at his neighbor’s place. As we walked over there, he explained to me the purpose of a gulley that was obviously hand dug along the top of the ridge we followed. I had seen it earlier and thought it curious since it appeared to me as if it were a revetment, designed for fending off invading barbarians. The reason, though not so exciting, was still interesting. This ditch is the traditional way for the indigenous families to mark off boundaries between their separate properties. I’m thinking that few of the lands here are registered with any governmental agencies, and surveyors be damned, so this is an effective way for clear and permanent delineation between neighbors.

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At the neighbor’s house we were offered the red-eye special: fried chitlins in choclo with an aji salsa that cleans the rust from your pipes, washed down with, of course, more booze! Choclo is one of about 7 different types of corn grown in Ecuador. The kernels are huge, the spherical size of a nickel or so, and the aji (pepper) salsa is unique to each family and having grown up with hot and spicy food, hit the spot. Beer for breakfast? Not so exciting, but customs in the hills developed for good reasons and it was not for me to question.

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Back at the house the family was split into 2 factions with one group up to their elbows in pig and the other group getting ready for Guaranda’s Carnaval. As the honored guest, my role had already been defined before I even arrived from Quito, so I boarded another death-ride taxi for a pell-mell dash down the mountain to town. By now it was mid-morning and the parade had already begun. So we squeezed in amongst other revelers to take in whatever happened next.

And what happened next was a traffic jam. A mile from town the dirt road, and all the other ways into Guaranda were blocked. Cars, and more often trucks, handcarts, and the ocasional dumptruck(?) were haphazardly stacked up, one behind or beside the other, so we abandoned the taxi and boosted the children on our shoulders, making the last part of the trek on foot. The city streets were awash with parade-goers and certainly the party was in full-swing.

Before leaving Quito, my host family had provided me with an image of mayhem and wild destruction awaiting the unwary wanting to see a true Andean Carnaval. And in the years past, when both my generation and ones following took part in the festivities this was truly the case. But Ecuador has cleaned up its festivals so in comparison to days past this Carnaval was almost genteel, though not quite.

People of the Andes have for centuries marked the new year with blood all-round. The killing of the Moposita Family pig was certainly part of it, and from the squeals coming from other campesino family compounds it was easy to tell that they too added their parts to the rituals. Though community Carnavals are where this is most evident.

In days past, and still in many parts of Peru and Bolivia, ritual blood-letting was/is not only accepted but strictly enforced. Rival teams of men and youth would confront each other throughout the Andes and trade blows to the head with the expectation that resultant flowing blood would supply Pachamama with the energy she needs to ensure the harvest of the New Year. I’m glad that, at least in Ecuador and Colombia, things have toned down a bit.

imageHowever I was warned that instead of flowing blood I could and should expect raw eggs along with flour missiles and water bombs. So I came prepared, decked out in full-body rain gear, virtually head-to-foot in rubberized clothing. Man, was it hot! Well this year, the eggs are gone, the flour use is pretty trivial, and what is the weapon of choice, excuse me, the expression of joy, is shaving cream; boatloads and boatloads of shaving cream. But not your store-bought Schick or Gillette cans of personal grooming.

There were hawkers parading up and down the street between us, the beer vendors (by the glass or the case), umbrella sellers, and the actual parade participants, selling aerosol cans 18-24” high, and packed with high-pressure shaving cream. These cans allowed the gunners using them to float a focused stream of shaving cream 20 or 30 feet into the crowd. Which they did. We, all of us, found it in our hair, faces, front and back, down the back of the neck. Then there were the youths on the roofs of the buildings above us: ready, willing, and quite able to drench all of us with water balloons. And they too did, often and with great accuracy.

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The actual parade was itself almost a distraction from the aerosol snipers, the overhead water bombardiers, and the drunken couples dancing, stumbling and falling to music from the mega-decibel salsa sound trucks slowly driving by. We saw the obligatory beauty-queens, the hand-made floats crafted during the past year by local artisans, and marching dancers. Or was it dancing marchers? We saw groups of made-to-be hippies of the 60’s, with flourescent hair, wearing costumes from the disco 70’s, we saw tractors pulling memorials to the workers’ cooperatives, we saw elite troups of military and police brigades. And then it rained. And then the rain began to freeze. And then it hailed. And with mild panic, the crowd ran for cover, while the bands played on. There was at least one aging gringo who was glad for his full-body rain gear.

We finally squished our way back to the house where we became one with the New Year pig at the dinner table, sang a bit and went to bed early for a 3AM bus ride back to Quito. Since then, as I consider what transpired I realize that though the Guaranda Carnaval was an enjoyable, though truly frigid experience, what was of greater meaning were the events in el campo. It was a true privilege being welcomed into the Moposita Family home. Though I was more than a bit uncomfortable sitting at the place of honor during meals, I knew that each of the family members freely and unconditionally wanted me to feel at home, to be one of them. And really, I did.

Altitude or Elevation?

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If you squint, you still won't see Cuba, but the sun is setting as we fly over the island on our way to Quito.

If you squint, you still won’t see Cuba, but the sun is setting as we fly over the island on our way to Quito.

Most people use the two words interchangeably, but they’re not really the same. If you find yourself aloft, in a jet plane leaving the US for a South American adventure you are at altitude, a certain distance above mean sea level. When you are standing on firm ground and this happens to be a noticeable height above that same level of the sea, you are at a certain elevation. In spite of that distinction, what laid me out in a hotel room for 4 days when I first arrived in Quito, is commonly called “Altitude Sickness” and I can assure you that no matter what you call it, the symptoms are not  pleasurable.

Having first experienced the malady when I was 19 and climbing Mauna Loa on Hawai’i island, I have since had altitude sickness several times. So I knew that Quito would be a problem. I’ve been living in Honolulu for the past 2 years so any tolerance I built up from living 30 years in New Mexico is gone. Landing in Quito hit me hard and I immediately reached for the medicine bottle. Before leaving I had subscribed to a local travel medicine service, and in addition to updating pertussis, hepatitis A&B, tetanus and typhoid, I also received a generic form of Diamox, the standard medication for relieving the symptoms of altitude sickness. And these symptoms, like symptoms of many other maladies are described as “flu-like,” a description that I’ve never liked.

So after 3 days of Diamox dosing (starting 24 hrs before leaving Tampa) I was feeling no better and actually feeling a little worse. It was time to do what people of the Andes have been doing for many centuries, start drinking Mate de Coca, or coca tea. It’s from the same plant that cocaine eventually comes from but has none of the narcotic effect of the highly processes and chemically tainted cocaine of ill repute. Within 15 minutes of drinking my first cup, the splitting headache was gone, my breathing was less labored (but don’t kid yourself, 9,300 ft elev. is still home to very thin air), and overall, my energy returned to a more normal level. Sometimes the old ways will always be the best.

 

Nosing Around Quito

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This bench, and 2 others like it, is located less than a block from the South American Explorers Quito Clubhouse, where I am staying until Sunday, Feb 1.

The 2 pickpockets scurried across Av. Rio Amazonas during a lull in the heavy traffic. Just before reaching the curb they split up, with one fast-walking ahead and the other inserting himself in the flow of pedestrians a few steps behind me. Seeing them for what they were, I immediately turned toward the street and maneuvered myself close behind the trailing thief. I closed in on him and when he realized what happened, he kept looking back: over one shoulder then over the other. It was my first morning in Ecuador. WELCOME TO QUITO, GRINGO!

There are a few things to note about this little episode. The first is that Quito can indeed be a risky place. But having grown up in Detroit, I learned early on that Motown was no picnic either. It was pure luck that I saw these slimeballs and I’m no Captain America with danger radar protecting my every move. Although since then I have not seen anything that could vaguely put me in harm’s way. But that also means that I don’t walk down the street swinging an expensive camera, wearing a pair of cargo pants stuffed with expensive toys. I also don’t stop on the street to puzzle over a map.  Quito is really no less safe than any big US city, but you just don’t advertise your wealth; this is the capital of a developing country and few Ecuadorians have the financial resources that travelers have, so don’t flaunt what you don’t want to lose.

What I have seen this first week is a fantastic variety of produce, and the SuperMaxi, a be-all grocery store in the elegant El Jardin mall offers easily 2 dozen more fruits that one could buy at the local Safeway back home. I’m drinking raspberry or blackberry juice every morning and papayas are less than 1/2 a buck a pound.