tinto

i cant believe i forgot to mention the very best thing about colombia. not only is it easy to get good coffee, there are actually tons of people walking around in the streets selling the stuff. everywhere you go you see men holding 5 thermoses and shouting "tIN-TO, aRO-MA-ti-co" (black coffee, tea). they have 17000 tiny little cups and if you flag them down they will stop and pour you a shot of coffee or tea, for 200 pesos, the equivilant of 9 cents. you can get the 500 peso cup too, which is larger but not even double the amount, as anthony and i learned this morning after a scientific measuring process. but the 500 peso cup is a good deal because you dont burn your fingers so much since the cup is bigger. you see, they serve the scalding liquid in flimsy plastic cups, not paper or styrafoam cups as you usually get when you order coffee to go (which, btw, does not exist AT ALL in ecuador, save for one very expensive place in quito). so, if you get the 200 peso cup, and even if you get the 500 peso cup, you burn the bejesus out of your hands. its really quite painful and the only way to avoid the pain is to instantly shoot the hot hot shot of coffee, right there in the boiling sun, without giving it a chance to cool. also painful, in a different way, but a different, novel experience. very, very cool.

happy holidaze

im writing this only because i recieved word that it is 60 degrees right now in nyc. god awfully horrifying as that may be (what HAVE we done?), the balmy weather there will make it more bearable for you to read this. if the tempurature were 15 degrees with gusty winds i would not be writing this entry. i mean it! i do have a little compassion.

but, since you are comfy, here we go... colombia is incredible! and you know i dont just throw these kinds of compliments around (think: eh-cuador). picture colombia right now - picture sun, humidity, cloudless skies, multi colored, beautiful people, millions of alien looking fruits and juice stands every three steps blending them together with ice, loud festive music (not only reggaeton!), whole fried fish, great coffee (!) (no, really, i havent seen nescafe once. AND there was a dunkin donuts, a real live one, in the bogota airport, waiting for us when we made our connection to cartegena), and blue blue water. actually, i take that back. the water is more aqua-ish and clear. oh, and its piss warm, in a good way. oh and the sand is white. i know, sometimes i cant stand me either. my future self is really, really, jealous of me right now.

so obviously, ant and i have been having a good time. we landed in cartagena on the night of the 14th. we quickly threw our sweatshirts in the bottoms of our bags, changed into sandals, and set out to explore the city. we spent a few days just walking around cartagena. its a fantastic city. there is a pretty large old, colonial city, filled with plazas and outdoor cafes and pretty buildings. but then, about 1 km away, is the beach. plus there are harbors with all sorts of boats. you know, the kind of place that makes for the perfect sunset. there have been many sunset cocktail hours for us. then, after a few days of enjoying all of that, we went to playa blanca for 3 days. playa blanca is a beach easily accessible from cartagena via 20 minute lancha ride. playa blanca is incredible. we spent all day, each day, in the water. at nigth we watched the sun go down, ate enormous fried fish, and slept in hammocks. nice. after playa blanca we came back to cartagena for a day to do a tour of the mud volcano, which was almost too wierd to write about. basically its a small bump in the middle of flat flat land, and its crater is filled with mud. obviously, the thing to do is to jump in the mud, which is cool and nice and completely lacking in gravity. it is impossible to sink. or move really. really, it was wierd. afterwards these women bathed us in a nearby lagoon. also wierd, to be bathed like that. mine made me take off my bathing suit. i hope she does that with everyone.....

the next day we came here, to sta. marta, another coastal city 4 hours east. the trip was fairly comfortable, another plus for colombia. prices for transport were straightforward and posted, thus relieving a lot of paranoia about being ripped off on my part. sta. marta is beautiful also, with perhaps the second most beuatiful coastline ive ever seen, and cheaper juice. the first most beautiful coastline ive ever seen was in tayrona national park, which we visited yesterday from sta. marta, as it is only an hour away. we hiked through jungle for an hour to get to a wild, jagged beach. then we walked through more jungle for 1-2 hour to get to another beach, which was actually 2 blue blue bays connected by a strip of sand, rocks jutting out and all. obviously we decided to stay the night, although we already had a hotel room in sta marta. we slept in a hammock in this jam packed campground. maybe too jam packed, which is really my only complaint from the past 10 days. we came back to sta marta today, and tomorrow we will go to a fishing village nearby, and then maybe to a town in the mountain range nearby (but not too high up! we have had quite enough of high, high mountains, thanks.)

so, this whole colombia trip has been amazing so far. i know many people have reservations about colombia, as did i at first, of course. but really, it is not to be missed. what i am trying not to think about is how much i miss you guys, esp. now during the holidays. i hope you are having a great time, and i really really hope you are not working right now.

happy holidays!

high and scary

la-ta-CU-nga
la-ta-CU-nga
(think: ma-chu-CAN-do)

we did not go to latacunga. instead, we took a bus to ambato and from there went back to baños. yey, baños. it was prettier than i remembered it. and: different too. you may recall, if you are an avid reader of this blog, as you should be, that we narrowly escaped the disasterous eruption of volcan tungurahua the last time we were in baños, catching a bus to loja only moments before. directly after the eruption baños was declared a disaster zone. it cleaned up real quick but now, 4 months later, there are still entire fields and hills of grey ash. we saw this on the way in. all along the side of the road were petrified, dusty plants that did not really sway in the breeze. interesting. plus: there were less tourists there. this might be more a function of the fact that last time we were there it was august and there were a million american teachers vacationing there. but one must wonder if the threat of eruption dissuades tourists. fine with selfish little me.

but we went, along with our roomates sophia and merryn, and we had a great time. we did the same long bikeride we did last time (that i may or may not have blogged about), on the road that leads from the mountains to jungle. downhill. enjoyable. the road goes through oncoming traffic tunnels, under waterfalls, and around mountians. halfway to the jungle there is a small trail to a massive waterfall, Pailon del Diablo. last time we were there there were about 45 people waiting on line to cross the precarious rope bridge to catch a glimpse of the waterfall. this time, noone, save one lone, friendly man. glorious.

the rest of our time in baños was spent eating at this delicious continental restaurant. i wont mention the name because im not into advertising. but i will say that its a huge tourist place. last time we were there we avoided it because a) we were poor and b) we (i?) thought it was to touristy, sure to be a rip off. but it wasnt at all, and tourists are not always bad, and it was the best food ive had, possibly, since i left ny. we ate every meal there.

but then: we went to this tiny place in the high high lands called chugchilan. chugchilan is tiny, yet filled with plenty of travelers who, largely, fancy themselves hardcore and out to have a unique experience in the indigenous highlands. i know full well that i am not hardcore, but wanted to go anyway for the pretty views. it took 6 long, bumpy hours to get to chugchilan, during which we almost died 26 times. it was perhaps the scariest busride i have taken yet, or at least been concious for (bless the nightbus and dramamine), and there have been plenty of scary ones. but we got off the bus alive, checked into a hostel, at fried fish and eggs from a street vendor (necessary because there are no restaurants), and wandered past the 3 houses and 14 sheep that make up the town. we saw 3 people, all of whom were very nice. then we went back to hostel and sat near the fireplace, played cards and drank canelazo (ive told you about canelazo, right?). it was freezing. we were up at 3200 meters - i dont know what that is in feet, because i dont know math, but its alot. enough to make you feel very very cold. then at dinner we met the meanest person in the world, a peace corps freak from the bronx. he insulted sophia and was just generally horrible, in a peace corps sort of way. nothing against peace corps volunteers in genreal. there are some good, normal, cynical ones, but when they are horrible they are horrible in the same way. i cant really get into it now.

we decided to leave chugchilan for quilatoa, the "town" right next to the famous crater lagoon quilatoa. this required taking a 5 am bus 2 hours in the pitch black, freezing cold. fun. bumpy. again, we didnt fall of a cliff, but i dont know how. when we got off the bus the sun was just coming up and the ground beginning to thaw. we wer at 3900 meters,. do the math, if you can. cold and hard to breathe, and weve been living at 2500m the past 3 mths. but it was just beautiful. we could see mountains in ever direction we looked. we went into a very basic hostel (stone, no electricity or water) and asked to leave our backpacks there while we hiked around the lake. the proprietors kindly agreed but it was intoned that we should Buy Something. so we sat and drank hot tea and ate breakfast. we made friends with their cats and met a belgian couple who spoke perfect spanish.

after breakfast we set off for the lake. we walked up a small hill and there it was, far far below, blue green and surrounded by brown rugged ridges. we could see a white peak in the distance. we shouted and exclaimed for a few minutes and then set off to hike around its rim. after a few easy steps we met a dog, who was sitting regally, overlooking the miles of farmland below, seemingly supervising.he decided to join us for the hike and stayed with us till the bitter, bitter end of it. the hike quickly became challenging - steep and precipice-y. recall my intense, paralyzing fear of the precipice, as described by anthony in his entry about vilcabamba, back in july. but i was fine. great, even. although my chest was about to explode from the steep climb in altitude, i was so impressed by the dramatic scenery. the hike got more difficult, with steep downhills of slippery loose rock and sand leading right to the craters edge. we stopped for lunch and the belgian couple showed up with no water, smoking cigarettes and not panting. amazing. we left them, smoking their cigarettes, to get a head start. within a few seconds they caught up with us and plowed ahead. but then, we somehow got off the ridge and wound up halfway down to the lakes shore. this was Very Bad because we knew we had to get back up to the top of the ridge, and it was very very high and we were very very tired, and we only had an hour to make it back to catch the bus or else we would have to stay in cold, cold quilatoa and possibly miss our flight out of quito to colombia. plus, we had obviously lost the path. the dog was no help. he just kept following us instead of showing us the way, which he surely knew.

so we just kept going up on no path in particular, at times hanging on to nothing but roots of plants to keep from falling into the lake. i admit, this was when i lost my cool. there was crying and hyperventilating involved. i broke my phone too, but that was an accident. eventually we made it back to a semi path and climbed and climbed and eventually made it back to the ridge where we hightailed it and miraculously, caught the bumpy bus to quito. we forgot to say goodbye to our dog. bye dog.

halfway to quito we said goodbye to sophia and merryn, who were headed back to baños. in quito we quickly found an overpriced hostel, took showers and headed out for a well deserved mexican meal of fajitas and mora (blackberry - grow in abundance here) margaritas. in a few hours we will bid farewell to ecuador, at least for the next few weeks, and catch our flight to cartagena, colombia. more later....

back now

alright - im back now. no, really. expect bi weekly blogs from this point on. i mean it.

because - we are off. abandoning our beloved cats, who are really behaving terribly these days. i think they know we are leaving. cats Know Things. also, abandoning our beautiful apartment, and cuenca too. but its all very temporary, we plan to come back and do another term at CEDEI (unless ecuadorian customs officials are in a bad mood on january 1, in which case we may not be allowed back into the country as, apparantly, we will have stayed too long. whatever.) in the meantime, we are off - first to the latacunga/lake quilatoa area, where there is a cold blue lake surrounded by indiginous villages and whatnot, then Back to Baños for 2 nights, then off in an avianca jet to cartagena, colombia. then, 3 weeks later, the southern oriente of ecuador where we might see some jungle animals and hopfully, a shuar village or two (made famous by a notorious tradition of head shrinking.
no-to-RI-ous.)

so we head out tonight, on a midnight bus bound for latacunga. sure to be a blast, that part. and, of course, im in the process of trying to shove everypiece of clothing that i have into my pocketbook sized backpack. ah, traveling. again. i cant lie, i took out my stinky old non absorbant travel towel, stared at it, packed it, cast one last loving glance at my fluffy, absorbant, terry towel and burst into tears. the travel towel epitomizes all the negatives of travel. as the Bible, i mean lonely planet´s South America on a Shoestring, says "travel aint all mangoes and hammocks. sometimes it SUCKS" (sic) oh, it can be fun alright. but having all of your possessions strapped to your back, as you struggle to take a seat on a wildly careening bus that stinks of diesel fumes and spilt coca cola, and sounds of screeching "romantica", and as the bus driver screams at you to SIGA SIGA SIGA NO MAS (the most commonly used expression here makes absolutely no sense) and the woman in the seat next to you curses you as you accidently plop down on her baby´s head, and all the whole while you are trying to fight off a bout of diarrhea and the urge to run off the bus and make for the nearest starbucks (in lima, peru, btw) for a clean bathroom and a real cup of coffee, it can be trying. but then i guess, the idea is that you find an amazing place, sit in a hammock (or hike over the mountains if you are into that. i used to be. i am not anymore.), look at buildings or people or alpacas, and think "it is all worth it. im so glad i am here, doing this. too bad about that baby, though......"

colombia.

back on board

so.

so, i was just beginning this blog on another computer here at The Snootiest and Most Expensive Internet Cafe in south america, when the computer went completely insane and the curser disappeared and the little search box thing filled with "hhhhhhhhhhhh" and then began searching for "hhhhhhhhhh" and a million and seven different boxes popped up on my screen and the keyboard and mouse were rendered entirely helpless and a few of my personal emails and IM conversations popped up on the screen and i couldnt close them or sign out of anything, and now my whole life is up there, on monitor #13 (coincidence?) for the entire world, or entire backpacking gringo population of quito, to see. is this an omen? probably. should i be blogging? probably not. at this point, after the many trials and tribulations encountered as i have attempted to compose my last 3 blogs, i realize that someone, somewhere is trying to stop me. i dont know why - maybe because i speak The Truth About Ecuador. whatever reason, i. get. it. but still, i will continue to attempt a new blog entry because i am a stubborn taurus and also because holly and joe insinuated that i was a punk for not keeping up with the blogs.

this blog is, therefore, for holly and joe. i am not a punk!

ok, so part of the reason that i havent been blogging is because i have fallen into Life in cuenca. meaning: i have an apartment, a coffee maker, and a job that i go to sometimes. i no longer live on a bus. i also have 2 cats now (yes, they are mine. mine.) all of these things are positive developments. i am very happy - i work very little and read a lot and sometimes even sit in the sun in the middle of the day. i know, i hate me for it too sometimes. as nice as this life is, it probably isnt very interesting for you, my adorable readers, to read about. so i havent been writing about it. however, the past 2 weekends are somewhat blogworthy, since i packed a backpack and ejected myself from my comfy apartment and life in cuenca to get Back on Board. that is, back on the ol ecuadorian night bus.

last weekend we went to montañitas, a grey beach town 417 hours away from cuenca. at the last minute, 2 of our roomates decided to join us. the bus trip started off being a little fun. we went for drinks and dinner directly beforehand, thinking that we could get on a 12 am bus drunkenly, which everybody knows is the only way to survive the night bus (unless, that is, you have sleeping pills, which are gorgeous, but in which case you should not drink. just a word from our sponsers. knowing is half the battle.) however as it turned out, there was no midnight bus so we had to wait around for the 130 am bus. no matter - we are wise and have foresight and thought to buy a small bottle of rum, which we swigged from as we waited and played cards on a table with 3 drunken men sleeping sweetly underneath. eventually, it was time to get on the bus and sit there from 9 hours as the driver and his assistant made preparations to leave (which included and always include, sitting and looking out of the windshield, fiddling with the radio station, looking some more, getting out of the bus to look through the windshield the other way, getting back on, getting off again for no reason, trying to find a good reggaeton station, attempting to back out of the prking spot and failing, attempting to back out and suceeding but then stopping in the middle of the road again for a Very Important Reason that remains undisclosed to passengers). anyway we bought some potato chips to bring along for the ride, and i was happy and drunk and i put on my fake ipod and listened, strangely, to van morrison and closed my eyes and snuggled back in the chair and though "here i am. back again." see, the potato chips here are REALLY good. like, amazing. and sometimes they affect the mind, in that they are so good that one becaomes senselessly, deliriously happy and is prone to making sweeping positive generalizations like "oh, the bus isnt so bad. its kind of sweet. like a truly unique ecuadorian experience" and other such bullshit. so when we finally took off, at 9 in the morning (ok fine 137. patience is not one of my stronger traits), and the cool fresh air was flowing into the bus, and we were enjoying it until the man across the way threw his garbage out of it, hawked a loogie out of it, and then promptly shut it and farted, i thought, adoringly, "oh, ecuador." and settled back to sleep.

10 minutes later i woke up hot and sweaty, with a pounding headache from the children screaming (yes, it was 2 am and no, they werent sleeping, and yes, their parents bought them a 3 liter bottle of coca cola to ensure that they would be boisterous and lively throughout the entire trip), and the blasting reggaeton, and the utter lack of air. i tried to move to change to a more comfortable position and realized that i couldnt because my knees were up my nose. i tried to put my hair up to cool down my neck a bit and found that it was wet and sticky with somebodys drool, hopefully mine. i gave up and gazed straight ahead at the seat back 2 centimeters away from my face and counted the skittering roaches. i looked down and noticed that a few were on me. stupid potato chips.

i was back on board all right. and by this point, the honeymoon was over. but, no matter, i only had 9 more hours and three more busses to go.....

the beach was grey, rainy, and uncomfortable. yet strangely fun, relaxing, and hilarious.

ecuador.

down but not out

ok fine, ill try again. i cant even remember what i had blogged about all those other times. i probably told you about the rest of our trip through ecuador, during which we retraced our footsteps until lima, taking about 47 16 hour bus rides, and then took one last long ass overnight ride to the northern peruvian beach town of mancora, where we finally saw the sun after 2.5 mths. we spent 3 days turning brown and eating ceviche (best yet there!). then we did a marathon day time bus trek to cuenca, passing through the unpleasant border between. honestly, it was a pleasure to return to cuenca. truth be told, though we had accepted a job teaching english here back in july, we werent sure we wanted to return to cuenca. we recalled it as a bit boring and blah, in comparison to many of the other dynamic, yet touristy, cities that we had visited. we even submitted our resumes here and there, and probably would be working somewhere else had the other schools not been crappy in comparison to CEDEI, the school in which we will be working. im really glad they were crappy, because now we are back here, and either cuenca has changed or my perspective is different now (i expect less???? surely this wasnt the change in life that i had hoped to accomplish by traveling through south america!). it has been great to be here - the city is a perfect size, we are living in a shared penthouse style apartment, the weather has improved, it is mango season, we have met some nice people, and we have acquired two cats!

more later. i am just building back my trust in Blogger, and am hesitant to post long blogs. baby steps....

getting pissed off

in truth, i have written at least 4 different blog entries since the last, all of which have been lost by blogger. lets see what happens with this one. but hear this, Blogger: im getting pissed....

"a revolution without a $40 entrance fee would never work"

god.
wanna hear something REALLY annoying? sure you do. well, approx 5 days ago i was in an internet shop, writing a blog about machu picchu, like any good blogger would, when the connection was broken. no one, of course, told me, and like an idiot i kept on writing, only to look up 10 mins later and see that nothing had appeared on the screen. my work was lost. fine, this happens to people all the time, especially in s.a. when we tried to tell the guy at the internet shop that this had happened, he did Absolutely Nothing, which is rather characteristic of people in the tourism industry of southern peru (dont even get me started on the "travel agents" i cant write about it, im still too upset. ill tell you later, or carly can tell you, since i just sent her the equivilant of a 900 page email about it). anyway, since it wasnt working, and no one was fixing it, we got up to leave. the man tried to charge us for an hour and a half, when we had only been on for an hour and 10 mins. they round up, but for the past 10 mins it hadnt been working, so we argued that he should only charge us for an hour. "no, 4 soles", he said lamely. we argued with him and he said absolutely nothing in return except "no", so we paid only what we thought we should and left. he shook his head at us, but didnt move or speak beyond that. i view this as laziness, and his loss. he could have argued.

this type of shit happens at least 54 times a day, at least in the touristy areas of peru. people provide lazy, subpar service and then try, but usually dont suceed, to rip you off. its all very hostile feeling. or maybe we are the hostile ones, i dont know. but, its a definate downside of travel, and it can make one very weary.

i was feeling this way, weary, around the time we got to cuzco, which i think i told you. the magical-ness of cuzco made this weariness go away. then, we set off on our machu picchu trek, sure to be a doozy. no, this was not the heavily acclaimed inca trail, or any of the other increasingly popular, ever expensive, multi day hikes. this was the cheap-o, non planner way. this trek involved walking, sure, but it also involved all forms of transport.

the first was an overnight bus from cuzco to a town called santa maria. this was, by far, the most difficult part. the night bus was broken but, in the grand tradition of south and central american bus drivers, the driver was determined to drive it. the bottom step of the bus had fallen off, requiring one to take a flying leap or deep plunge to get wither on or off of the bus. then, the television had been stolen from its case, i guess. no matter, the bus company was diligent enough to cover the empty case with a ripped piece of pink construction paper. there was a pronographic calander from 2003 plastered to the door. a lady came on, selling onions freshly pulled from the ground, shaking them, screaming "cebolla! ce-BOLL-a!" spraying soil on everyone (and who WOULDNT want a freshly pulled onion as a snack on the night bus?). people slept in the aisles. the tire went flat and it took an hour to fix it. i man with a large parakeet cage came and sat next to, but really on, me (the german girl we were traveling with was súpposed to sit there, but when the man came on she insisted we switch seats and she got the more comfortable seat next to anthony. she said she was allergic to parakeets.) after we fixed the broken tire, 2 am now, the parakeet man revealed his true spirit as a revolutionary and incited a mini riot on the bus by screaming, i think, that the roads were built by chinese people (?) and that peru needs a military goverment. or, i need to go back to spanish school. which one do you think?? either way, there was shrill screaming for the rest of the bus ride. oh, and, on 3 seperate occassions we had to back up 30 kiometers, on the winding cliff side roads, because there was forthcoming traffic and the road wasnt wide enough to let it pass without at least one vehicle falling off the cliff. judging from the way the driver and his assistant panicked, no one had ever considered the possibility of forthcoming traffic on this 2 way road.

we got to santa maria at 4 am, just in time for the last COMBI to the next town, santa teresa. the combis ran only from 4pm to 4 am, not to be confused with 4am to 4 pm. does this seem strange to you? btw, i know i already explained combis, but i will again. they are broken down vans, with a few extra seats, that would normally hold 5 people, but typically hold 25-35. not exaggerating. anyway, we met up with a group of israelis on the combi and deduced, of course, that we were being charged 3x the normal price. the isrealis, of course, were not having it. and at that point neither were we. following in the tradition of our ever brilliant leaders, we banded together to fight for our cause, threatening to all leave the combi if we didnt get a fair price, 2x what locals pay. but the combi driver insisted and our plan was destroyed when a french couple got on and said that they didnt mind being overcharged. again with the french! so, with our feet twisted around our necks, we set off for santa teresa. we arrived there as it got light out. from here we had planned to walk 6 hours to aguas calientes, the town closest to machu picchu. but then we heard that there was a truck, one of those fun pick ups where you stand in the back and banana leaves hit you in the head, that could take us to hidroelectrico, the next stop on the way, thus cutting 2 hours off our hike. cool, we thought, we will wait. i really like those trucks.

but there was one slight problem. a white water rapid was between us and the place to catch the truck. there was no bridge. but, brilliantly, there was a zip line with a rickety one man cage attached. in order to use it one must sit cross legged in the cage and be pulled, by gravity, 1/2 way high above the wide river. the next 1/2 required manual labor, as the wire sloped upwards and one had to pull herself alone using a rope. i dont know if you can picture it, but it was kind of nerve racking. still, very fun and a totally different mode of transport. anthony and i managed to squuze in together and we made it, tho i think the line broke after us.

then there was the truck, which we wound up waiting for for 2 hours. keep in mind no one had really slept the night before, so waiting wasnt too bad, except for the mosquitos which were brutal. people spoke in different languages and built a fire to keep the bugs semi away. after the truck we set off to walk towards aguas calientes along the train tracks. the directions were simple - walk on the train tracks. we, of course, immediately got lost and wond up in the middle of the jungle, basically. some wierd bug bit me and my finger swelled up, and then we found our way out and back to the tracks. we walked on the tracks (which were not evenly spaced, by the way, so the walk became cumbersome, though not difficult) along a stream, crossing rickety bridges, for quite a few hours. then we bumped into the french people and stopped, took our clothing off, and jumped into the stream (well, not the german girl). it was cold and glorious, with big jungle leaves everywhere. i worried about piranhas. then we resumed walking for 2 more hours, finally making it to aguas calientes at 3 where we found a crappy hotel, ate a bad pizza, bought our extremely expensive ($40 each!!!!) entrance tickets to MP, and went to sleep immediately.

the next morning we woke at 3:30 to walk up to MP, thanks to a very nice american couple staying at our hotel who woke us up so we could all hike together. we ate granola bars and set off in the pitch, pitch blackness with no flashlights to walk straight up the steep hill directly to machu picchu. we could have taken a bus but i wanted to feel that i had made some sort of effort to get there, to MP, and that it was the end of a journey in a way. plus, the bus cost $6 each. so we climbed, luckily someone had built stairs, and it wasnt easy, but we were at the lowest altitude we had been in in a while, and i didnt find it all that difficult. plus it was, by far, one of the most beautiful hikes ive ever been on. after some time it began to get a little lighter out, and i could make out the big trees and ragged mountains surrounding us. i cant really explain why, but it was just so beautiful. sadly, we lost the american couple along the way, and never ran into them, so i hope they made it up there.

at the top, the light had come out. we passed through the gate and saw immediately what we had been seeing for years, but had never really seen before. the mountians were incredible, and the ruins were so much grander than i thought anything could be, and the alpacas were there too, eating the grass and peeing. and we found a rock, hovering somewhere over the whole scene, and we sat down, and we ate chocolate, and we stared.

end point: i am now broke, but no longer weary.

cuzco: gets its own blog entry

so, i lied. we did not go to the colca canyon. read anthony´s blog about how we were truly wretched travelers in arequipa. we didnt even eat the spicy stuffed pepper, one of the regional dishes i had vowed to eat. me, too lazy to eat?! unheard of. really, i think its natural to hit a point of blahness when traveling, or doing anything for that matter. even the most interesting, novel things can turn routine, after a million interesting, novel things. one must be quite spoiled to develop this mentality. but then, i am quite spoiled.

what we need, when we reach this point (in anything in life. take teaching for example, something that has been on my mind very much recently, now that my teacher friends have all returned to work. while teaching, one might get so tired of waking up at 5 am and taking the same old train to the same old run down, jail-like edifice, to listen to the same old bullshit from the same old subpar administrator, to watch your students struggle over the same old three letter word. yes, one might get so tired of it all they think they cant stand another second. but then little jose pukes through his nose on little timmy, and everything is fascinating again.), is something even more novel and interesting. in my case, i was very lucky to come here to cuzco at just the right time.

cuzco has completely restored my traveling interests and ambitions (think of jose puking from the nose, as in the above tangent). it is a mysterious and fascinating city, and i dont know why more people dont die here. first of all, its at a very high elevation. not the highest in the world, but high enough, especially if you´re from nyc. second of all, the streets are narrow, wind-y, and cobblestone, which pretty much describes every city in peru and ecuador. but here in cuzco they take it to an extreme. the sidewalks are approximately 1.7 inches wide, and the streets are approximately 7.1 inches wide, and extravagantly steep, so it is absolutely impossible for people to walk down the street while a car is driving down it without dying. and of course, the streets are thronged with tourists, and the streets with taxis, and it is all very un-doable, yet i have yet to watch a single person be run over. incomprehensible. plus, at night they give out free drinks in every bar near the plaza de armas, of which there are 913, thus making the streets even more perilous. still, no fatalities, at leats not in the past three days, which is considerable, relatively speaking. knock wood.

so, there is the challenge of the streets which has perked my interest again. plus, in one of the mountains surrounding cuzco, someone has carved an indecipherable phrase. after much examination, i made out the words ¨peru´, ´glorioso¨, and ¨bin¨ (the uneven quotes are not my doing. thats just how the computer decided to make them, and i havent the will to battle it.) i had plently of time to puzzle over the carvings while sitting in our hostel, which is actually a converted farmhouse high up on a hill, with a beautiful view over all of cuzco. its really a great place. there is a little stone table with stumps surrounding it, which gets a lot of sun, and travelers congregate and have the same, yet interesting, conversation over and over again. we´ve met some cool people, and ive decided that i really like germans and irish. additionally, the hostel serves a buffet breakfast which consists of very sweet papaya, bananas, oranges, and grapefruits, fresh bread, blended juice, and actual brewed coffee. my heart leapt when i first spotted the coffee machine. plus, there is a huge kitchen and we are cooking again, which means we get to eat good food at low cost without further clogging our arteries with salt, lard, and fucking potatoes. really, a fantastic time.

but, we have temporarily left our hotel to embark on a mini trek to machu picchu. not the inca trail, but our own slog. tonight we take a night bus to a tiny town, take a combi (typically, this god awful delapidated minivan stuffed beyond capacity with people. last time i counted the people in a combi, there were 32. think average sized minivan, nothing big or fancy, with the door falling off) to another small town, walk 5 hours to another town, stay the night there, wake up at 4 am and walk another 2 hours, steep uphill, to machu picchu. we are doing this part with a nice german girl we met at our hostel, but will probably encounter many others along the way, as this is how its done if you have not booked a trek and are not a millionaire, as the direct train is insanely expensive. the way back will also be a trek´, not exactly doing the above in reverse but another, complicated route with less walking, as we are not so ambitious. still, better than we did in arequipa.

so, ill let you know how it went. wish us luck!!

things in peru

a) the cordillera blanca trek. the trek was good. it was beautiful, with snowy peaks amidst turquoise lakes, green and yellow valleys, and burros galore, who were cute. it was also long. and cold - so.very.cold. at times i found myself thinking that such beauty is wasted on such a cold habitat. but thats not the right perspective to take now, is it? really, it was fantastic. we camped in the most beautiful spots, ate nice meals, cooked by our guide, under the stars, and spoke only spanish with the others on our trek; a spaniard and a swiss girl and the guides, of course. along the trek we stopped in various spots: a turqoise lake, a stream, and a snowy peak (where it snowed as we ate, btw. i told you. cold.) we ate coca leaves and drank coca tea until ur faces were numb. we saw 2 dead cows. a good time.

on the way back i was happy because
a) i could shower again
b) i could not walk for a second and
c) 4 days of walking must be rewarded. and the surefire way to reward is with food at a nice over-budget restaurant. i knew what was coming, as ant and i had been planning it since the first step of our trek. i had exquisite lasagna that night, back in huaraz, along with a (gasp) salad. ant had steak, which was fantastic, and we each had beers. it was hard to pass up the steak, but ive been really into lasagna lately. dunno why. 65 soles - way over budget for us, but about 22 bucks in US.

so now anthony is saying he wants to do another trek: the colca canyon in arequipa, outr next stop. i dunno how i feel about it. on one hand, i need the exercise, and theres sure to be a culinary reward in it. on the other hand, i think i broke my foot. it just feels broken, i can tell. and im terrifically lazy. but, in the end, ill probably do it, for the food alone. i once volunteered at a soup kitchen just for the soup. i dont want to discuss what happened when i realized that there would be no soup.

b) lima. from huaraz we went to lima. i was dreading it because we had heard such dreadful things. we stayed in miaflores, the cop out, backpacker place to stay. miraflores was not billed as much to us, many a european have disdainfully referred to it as "an american style city. not worth going to." with a wave of the hand (when surveyed, most of these people had not visited an american city since they were 2, btw). well, perhaps. but after 8 weeks of traveling, we welcomed the sight of certain luxuries, like starbucks (oh, our vices and addictions. a damn shame. a damn, lovely, sweet shame. when we saw starbucks, i jumped up and down a few times before remembering myself. and then i promptly purchased a venti vanilla latte, thus blowing our budget for the month of september. see you soon, guys.) we sat around in cafes, bought sausage and cheese (cheddar! really!) from a gourmet supermarket, saw the film little man (not going to discuss that), and went to a museum, our first in years. the museaum turned out to be quite boring. the only reason we went was because, over the phone the night before, my father raved about a special room with pornographic incan ceramics. "yey", we thought, "penises!" but sadly, when we got there, we were forced to take a tour and were shown no such room. instead we looked at 5664663 shawls. anthony behaved terribly, although he did find a mini dingus on one of the embroidered incan figurines.

c) chincha: i guess we stopped there because we read that it was one of the few black neighorhoods in peru, plus they had this great afro peruvian music. we found neither black people nor good music, but we sat in a plaza and little kids did a stompy foot kinda dance and stared at us. that part was fun. we ate greasy chicken and left at dawn the next morning.

d) pisco: was good for what we went for, which was a tour of the isla balletsas. yes, these, too, are called the poor mans galapagos. this is due to the huge population of sea lions, boobies, pelicans, and penguins. a boat took us through and around these cool rock formations and we saw tons of all types of the above. of course, the best were the sea lions, but i really took to the penguins. i cant stop thinking they are all wearing tiny tuxedos, going to some benefit dinner. it makes it very interesting to watch them, thinking this way.
after this and a few pisco sours (a salmonela inducing drink made with pisco (grape brandy) lime, sugar, and egg white. tasty! strong!), we left pisco and headed for...

e) huacachina: which is right outside of ica. now this place is really cool. keep in mind that the central south coast of peru is choked by an impermeable fog for most of the year. 3 days of it makes you want to kill yourself. we were feeling kinda glum when we left pisco, and doubted we would ever see the sun again. but when we got here it was bright as could be. huacachina is literally an oasis in a desert. its a green pond surrounded by high, white sand dunes. the thing to do here is either take an expensive buggy tour, our rent a snowboard for a dollar and surf down. we did the latter this morning, and nearly killed ourselves flying down those damn dunes. tons of fun. i discovered that if you let out a blood curdling scream the whole way down it makes it more thrilling, and no one can hear you cuz your in the middle of the desert.
plus, our sunny hotel has a pool, complete with a bar and a lounging scene. there are all you can eat and drink BBQ,s. we wnet to one last night, and maniacally shoved meat and liquor down our throats, and then fell asleep at 9:30.

next stop: arequipa and the colca canyon.

pictures

finally, some pictures. go to

http://360.yahoo.com/profile-u7s3VxA4b66JywAKRO8-?cq=1

and look at my photo album. does this work??? lemme know.

out of ecuador, with a bang

if you are reading this, and to be honest im beginning to suspect that you are not, you probably already know that we were in the town of baños not 15 minutes before a massive volcano erupted onto it. now i dont know if they covered the eruption extensively in the states (probably not, since there is Jon Benet to worry about, again) but its a pretty big deal here. people died - lost crops, livestock, and houses, and several towns, including baños, were destroyed. awful. and its all my fault. it is my fault in very much the same way it was my fault when my 9th grade math teacher, who shall remain nameless, because i forgot her name, came down with a terrific case of shingles and was out of school for 4 months. that was totally my fault because it was i who wished sadness and malaise upon her. it was i who didnt like doing my homework, going to class, or recieving 7% scores on exams. it was i who hated her because she was going to fail me, and told me so. so when she got sick and was out for months, and when we had an even meaner teacher who wound up, of course, failing me, it was all my fault.
its the same with volcan tungurahua. the whole time i was in baños i wanted it to erupt. i was dying to see lava. one night, when we went with a friend who hired a taxi to take us up a nearby mountain to get a direct view of the volcano, i actually chanted "la-VA la-VA la-VA!" i was hungry for it, just the slightest splash of red against the dark sky, maybe a little drop flowing (but not so quickly!) down the side of the volcano. so when, on the night bus from baños to loja, in southern ecuador, we looked out the window and saw, clear as aanything, the peak of the volcano with a brilliant red cloud, and orange spreading slowly downwards, over the sides i thought "well, not that much. lets not get hysterical." and then the next morning, when we heard the news i knew that once again, i had gotten what i wished for, and it was not good.
moral of the story: dont listen to me. ever. i dont mean it. you hear that, volcanoes and math teachers and the fates: Ignore.
unless, of course, i am talking about country borders. then you (especially you eh-cuador) should listen hard. hear this: it is unacceptable to leave the border customs office unmanned, yet rather open and with music blaring, for over 3 hours in the middle of the night. and its not only because there might be people who have taken an overnight bus to peru and need to check out of ecuador before entering peru and are exhausted and mosquito bitten, with no where to go as the bus driver has disrobed and fallen asleep in their seats. its not only for that reason at all. the very simple fact is, that if there is nobody manning the border into ecuador, than it is exceedingly easy for about 20 young boys carrying live upside down chickens by their throats to simply walk into the country. and that they did, wothout looking twice. it is quite possible that ecuadors population doubled that night, as surely more people passed through who i did not see. besides, hasnt anyone heard of bird flu??? paranoia, people. works like a charm every time.

eventually we made it past all of this into peru, which was, by the way, open. we took another endless busride to trujillo, where we discovered peruvian food (exquisite! really! everybody, RUN, do not walk to the nearest preruvian restaurant. there is one on 9th and 50th.) and visited ruins of chan chan, right in the desert. very very cool. i could go on and tell you what chan chan was but, though i am extremely knowledgable about many and most subjects, especially history, i simply havent the inclination.
one more night bus and we made it here to huaraz. way the fuck up here, surrounded by white jagged peaks, over 3000 meters. but, you chew on coca leaves to combat altitude sickness and its really quite nice. tomorrow we head off on a 4 day trek through said white peaks, complete with a burro to hold our stuff. though i am stunningly athletic, of course, i suspect i may not have the INCLANATION to complete the hike, and may have to ride the burro for the duration of the trip.

wish me luck.

monkeys and mud

ok, tena. tena is a city often referred to as a "gateway" city (yey working quotes!). this is because its at the edge of the andes just in the oriente, or jungle. this means big jungly leaves with andes in the background. the setting is beautiful - very dramatic, esp. if traveling in by bus from the andes, which we were. dramatic in a "glad its so pretty because it may be the last damn thing i ever see" sort of way. you know, cliffside roads, all unpaved, semi drunk (?) driver. i spent much of the bus trip trying not to cry. but, beautiful.

so, yeah, tena has the beautiful setting. but the city itself is somewhat of a letdown. we expected a lot, because everybody talks about how nice tena is. it turns out they mean nice in relation to other jungle cities, such as coca and lago agrio, which are supposed to be hell. but we havent been to those cities, or to any hellish ones, and were coming from pretty quito, so we were disappointed in the city.

but no matter. we found a lovely cheap hotel on a hillside right outside the city, with hammocks and views of the misty andes. sorry, but they really were misty looking. i guess its a jungle thang. the hotel was family run, which meant that no one was really staying there except the family, who had screaming kids running around the whole time. not ideal, but par for the course here in ecuador. still, they let us use their kitchen so we, finally, at long last, ate some vegetables....

(side note: vegetables are hard to come by here in ecuador. not in the markets, where they are bountiful and gorgeous, but in any place where food is prepared. in all but the most touristy tourist restaurant it is impossible to find any more than shredded iceberg lettuce. this lack of vegetables often becomes problematic, esp. in light of the fact that most meals are served with rice, potatoes, bananas, AND french fries. we often find ourselves tempted to drink local tap water just to regulate. a travesty. nothing bothers me more than poor cuisine. i dont care how that sounds- its true.)

(another side note: i know you wont believe this, but at present i am sitting in my lovely hostel here in baños, with free internet and great atmosphere. but: they are BLARING the soundtrck to moulin rouge, the remake, which includes bits of dialougue from the movie, which i wish not to be reminded of. its 8am. unbelievable.)

anyway, aside from cooking vegetables, we did 2 great things in tena, or right outside of tena. first we went to isla de los monos, which was great. it had a gorgeous white rock pool, jungle trails, a river to swim in, and monkeys EVERYWHERE. ive never seen a monkey not in a zoo before, and let me tell you: they are scary. they are like hairy aliens, and i dont trust them. my mistrust was justified by an unfortunate incident in which one of the monkies did something terribly inappropriate in anthony{s lap. please read his blog for details. i dont know why the monkey was in his lap in the first place, i find that troublesome, but i was in the pool at the time and am choosing not to worry about it. so other than spending time with our monkey friends, we swam in the pool and walked in the jungle with our friend who we had met that morning while booking our rafting trip. it was nice - a fun, informative day.

next day we went on said rafting trip. white water class 3. now we had done a rafting trip last summer, in revelstoke, british columbia, which was also supposed to be class 3, but it was very different from this trip. this trip was bumpy like crazy. people fell out of the boat. at one point, i was riding on the very front of the boat and a big wave came and knocked me on my back into the boat, feet straight up. i struggled to get back upright, as i knew that at the very moment our picture was being taken by the tour photographer, standing on a nearby rock. but the waves kept knoccking me backwards and i stayed that way, feet up and all. i would love to see that picture.

after rafting for a bit we stopped on a sandy area and walked through the rocks into this canyon type area, which was cool and green. there was all this "medicinal mud" around and we rubbed it on our faces and arms and legs, and washed it off in the river. i have noticed no difference in my skin tone or texture, except that now i have 3 pimples on my chin. medicinal my ass.

we rafted on and ate a lovely lunch and at 4 o clock, finished with a nice beer. thoughtful tour guides! that night we ate more vegeatbles and, the next morning, caught the 6 am bus to baños.

north

initially i had planned to blog every day. obviously thats not going to work. so my new goal is once a week. really, i should blog everytime i get somewhere new, to write about the place i was prior, but nobody needs to read all that (i.e. im lazy and the internet gets too damn expensive). so we´ll settle on once a week. lots of things will happen that will go unblogged (egads.) but, i will somehow manage to still consider them worthy experiences.

so, my lovely readers, here is what we have not discussed: otavalo, the hike to the waterfall, the andean peñas, quito part 2, tena, isla de los monos, white water rafting, and, the here and now: baños. ill start with otavalo, and i probably wont get much farther than that.

after i last blogged, we hung out in quito for a night, which i enjoyed. quito is big but pretty, has many modern conviniences but is still different enough from home to be interesting. everyone ive met on this trip has said the same ting about quito - "skip it - its just a city. big, dirty and scary". true. but some of us happen to like big, dirty, and scary. besides, its really not that dirty or scary. so anyway, we hung out, met up with vincent and some of his friends, who are very nice, and drank wine. yey wine! it had been awhile since i had wine. all the while we were thinking, of course, of moving to quito. but we do that everywhere.

the next morning was friday, and we set out early for otavalo to ensure we would find a hotel room in time for the big saturday market there. this is the big enchilada of markets, complete with seperate textile, produce, and live animal markets. its really quite bustling and colorful, and an exciting sight, especially (as my ecuador book points out) with the high mountains surrounding. the goods are quite tempting and i did go a bit bezerk, buying alpaca sweaters and beaded bracelets with wild abandon. in the end i had to buy a huge woven bag to attach to my backpack to carry it all. ugly american.

and at night, in otavalo it gets cold and there are a few peñas to go to. these are places where indigenous music is played. we found one which i suspect was a tourist trap, but was wonderful nonetheless. it had a roaring fire and this band that played andean music, which sounds like a cross between irish and colombian. it was still chilly, even with the fire so we drank warm canelazo, a drink for which i posted the recipe in a prior blog entry. it was nice sitting there, drinking the warm drink in front of the fire while listening to the live music. we liked it so much we went twice in a row. but this is why it was a tourist trap: on both nights, massive groups of french people were there, with one ecuadorian guide, doing god awful dances. 2 different groups. the dances were truly horrific. it was like night of the living dead, the way they were hopping about, limbs flying, scaring the bejesus out of everyone. they were shameless and they went on and on. the thing is, on both occasions there was an indiginous (otavalo is primarily indiginous. the indiginous wear long thick braids down the center of their backs, fedoras, and, at times, navy blue ponchos. they are highly regarded here, unlike the indiginous in our country for which it seems there is little regard, on the part of the government and all the auxillary Evils Who Determine Things, and they are overall a very friendly group. an example of the high esteem in which they are held here in ecuador, which is not a perfect country but does some things right, is that they are not required to cut their braid if they enter into the army. but then, maybe thats not such a big deal. maybe thats just the way it is and would be in any civilized place.) guide, who was leading all of these dances. it seemed, to me, that the guides were fucking with the tourists to make them look stupid, because the guides couldnt seem to stop giggling, on both occasions. heh. anyway, that was otavalo. oh, and there was a walk to a waterfall which was great cuz we got lost and scaled a mountain (ok, fine, hill) and came out on top of the waterfall so we sat there, at its very edge, on shiny rocks and the sun came down and the waterfall splashed us and we looked down and felt dizzy.

then, we went back to quito for a night where Not Much happened, except that i think i ate bad chicken and we paid too much for everything. the next morning we set off for tena, which is the gateway to both the andes and the jungle. do you really want to hear about tena right now? you must be exhausted or bored. and anthony keeps cutting his evil eyes at me, waiting for the computer.

here, now

it is shameful how long it has been since i last blogged. i am ashamed. in all fairness, its not really my fault. we have been here and there and as it turns out, the computers suck here and there. you know, dial up connections in places where the phones go out on the hour, broken keyboards with no question marks, and the like. but now, we are in quito, the reasonably modern capital of ecuador, and weve found a trendy little internet shop/cafe/bar, the type that i always try not to like, because they are so touristy and blablabla, but secretly love. actually, if there is any reason i dont like these places, its because they are typically expensive. but this place is cheap, much cheaper than on the coast or in Vilcabamba, half the price. also, food and laundry are much cheaper here too. plus you can actually find coffee here. drip coffee, not that cup of hot water and jar of colcafe (generic nescafe) that is served with a spoon everywhere else. ahhh, big cities. say what you will about them, and maybe it makes me an inferior traveler, but i love em.

we came into quito early this morning via overnight bus from puerto lopez, on the central coast. this overnight bus was a delight - we got the seats in front with extra leg room and they turned the blaring merengue off at about midnight, which is very nice considering it typically goes all night long on these busses. our last busride, from loja to guayaquill, was not so pleasant. puerto lopez is 10 hours from here. it is a grey fishing town which, frankly, became terribly boring after we had overstayed our welcome. kindly refer to anthony{s blog for a very accurate description of old puerto lopez, altho he did fail to mention the smell of sewage which permeated the whole town. before that, we were in montanitas, another beach town an hour south of puerto lopez, where we got a room with The Best Shower in the World. hot (but not scalding, a la hotel pichincha in cuenca) and with great water pressure. slightly troublesome, i suppose, was the smell of gasoline which filled the room when the hot water knob was turned. but still. great shower, better than at my parents house even. the rest of montanitas was nice too. we had some great ceviche from a street vendor (i know, i know..street food and raw fish is often an unwise combination, but it was cheap and delicious, and turned out ok), and some even greater fruity rum drinks from our favorite one man disco ball. again, kindly read anthony{s blog for an explanation.

so it was fun but the weather was really shitty. cold and rainy...yes it was! i know you dont believe me, as supposedly this country is on the equator and the equator is supposed to be hot, but i think they made all that shit up. judging from the fact that we were shivering on the coast, wearing our fleeces, i would say that the equator is a contrvied tourist attraction.

oh, in all my negativity i forgot to mention the highlight of our trip to the coast and, possibly, ecuador. the reason we went to puerto lopez was to see the whales. its their mating season, and apparantly they choose a spot 40 minutes off of puerto lopez via speedboat to do it. agencies all over town offer tours to go and see them on the way to Isla de la Plata, a national park dubbed the [Poor Mans Galapagos[ (no quotes on this computer - so much for big city modernity, apparantly people dont paraphrase here), which is filled with interesting birds. birds? you say. how interesting could they be? well, these ones have candy blue feet and nerdy, beady eyes, which they use to stare curiously at the humans who come to see them. but anyway. so we took such a tour and piled on to a speed boatand started off towards the island. i was enjoying the ride but anthony and vincent were getting wet and complained audibly, so the guide pulled down a protective plastic sheet, which we couldnt see through. we rode on for a while until an ecuadorian lady who was on the tour with us shouted "AY! que linda - que LINDA!!" laughing and clapping. the boat came to a sudden hlt and the crew pulled up the plastic sheath in a panicked rush and at first i didnt see anything but i heard anthony and vincents reaction "oh SHIT" and i looked in their direction and i saw it - a whale in mid breach, flopping backwards, its fins flying through the air. and then, at that moment, for the first and only time, the sun came out and the whale breached again and again. anthony and i climbed up to the top of the boat and stayed there as the boat rocked back and forth, gripping onto the guardrail and watching the whales, 2 of them now jump out of the watre again and again. the ecuadorian lady was up there too, and everytime the whale breeched she shrieked, "ay que LI-I-I-I-NDAA!". and it was.

banitos

the plan, originally, was to go to he tourist city of banos, north of cuenca, green and drippy with hiking trails and thermal baths. we were to spend roughly a week there, and for this reason, we hadnt planned to go to the small pueblito of banos, 10 minutes from cuenca, which also has thermal baths and green scenery. but then these things happened:
1) the volcan tunguruhua erupted, thus declaring banos and vicinity a disaster zone.
and
2) in an equivilant but slightly less dramatic show of both strength and vulnerability, anthony hurt his ankle playing basketball, thus causing us to reconsider a one day hiking excursion to el cajas national park.
so we decided that for anthony´s birthday we would take a trip to the little banos to soak his ankle and look at green hills. we took the city bus (good old city bus) out of cuenca again, this time for about 20 minutes. a the bus climbed up we watched families and vendors roast entire pigs, and watched the city change to suburb change to country side. eventually the bus let us off on a steep road, on top of which there was a candy hued blue church with white trim. we hadnt planned to hike.
we wandered up the hill, looking at the different hot spring, weighing our options. the chhurch still looked far away, but it beckoned. it looked like candy land to me, and i was, of course, hungry. so we walked up to the church and looked at it and it was pretty. we turned around and looked down and saw almost all of cuenca. we looked up the road and decided to walk just a little bit more.
a bit more turned into a bit more and soon we were out of town, moving often to the side of the road to let herds of cows (?) pass by. one peed and i thought we would drown. we went up and up and the scenery was greener and greener. it got cold and we saw pigs. we looked down again and this time, saw cuenca and banitos. it was lovely.
we couldnt stop walking.
eventually, though, we got hungry and went down to banos and ate secos (stews) and coca colas. then, we went to the hot springs, which werent so hot but had a fun water slide. after an hour or two, we left banos.
on the way home i decided i absolutely needed a haircut. when we got off the bus i went into a tiny peluquaria and asked, in spanish, or so i thought, if i needed an appointment. everyone laughed, hard, for some reason, and my face burned but i sat down and waited for the hairdresser anyway. i really wanted a haircut. after much miscommunication my hair was shorter. not exactly how i wanted it but shorter nontheless, and for $2.50. i cant complain.
afterwards, we had plans to meet up with our spanish school friends for a famcy (over $4) italian meal to celebrate anthonys birthday. more people came than expected, which was really very nice and after we ate we went back to cafe eucalyptus for salsa night, where we stayed long enough and got drunk enough to actually dance. i thought i was pretty good but apparantly i was wrong -- anthony still calls me coñejo, as i resembled a hopping rabbit, to him. vincent, however, was surisingly good.

the next day, with our bags and hangovers in tow, we set off for vilcabamba.

in memorium: Muffy Zucker 1988-1994

this blog is dedicated to the late and great, yet somewhat androgynous (never did figure its sex out) muffy zucker, who lived in a small fishtank and was the second best younger sibling ive ever had. it is also dedicated to carly, who turned 28, and to anthony, who also turned 28, both last week.
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really, it was very nice of fausto. upon catching wind of the fact that anthony and i, and our friends dave and emily, wanted to go and eat cuy (guinea pig - specialty at occasions here, akin to turkey), he took it upon himself to orgaize a school trip with everyone at simon bolivar, thus guaranteeing a good price and location for the cuy. so on friday at noon we traipsed off to the country side. a 15 minute bus ride out of cuenca found us at an intersection of 2 dusty roads, on which cows and roosters replaced the honking cars and indigenous vendors of centro cuenca. we alighted the bus and entered an unassuming comedor type place, which turned out to be a raher festive looking restaurant inside. fausto led us past the nicely set tables and to the outside cellar. here we found our cuys: hairless, pale, and splayed out, bisected by a wide pole, turning over fire. it is necessary, says anthony´s spanish teacher enma, to constantly turn the bitty pigs so that they dont explode as they are roasting. well, they looked terrible, turning like that, mouths held open by the iron poles as though they were cought in mid scream. but then, no more terrible than anything else. so we took pictures, went upstairs, and sat down to eat.
after some lovely canelazo and suprisingly good mote (incomprehensible boiled corn like substance that is served with. every. meal.) our cuyitos came out. they were presented to us on a platter, they,re skin was brown and cuminy, their heads facing forward, eyes unblinking, staring at nothing. theyre bodies were sprawled and hacked, warm smells eminating, ceremonious, like a turkey.
tasted, more or less, like chicken.

recipe for canelazo:
1 liter (?) boiled water with a few cinammon sticks and 2 naranjillas (other fruits could work. maybe an orange?)
1 half bottle seco, aguardiente, or, if impossible, light rum
more sugar than you would ever think to use.

once water boils, drink, and enjoy. its good for you!

ingapirca-a blog for marni

people, i take requests. you want a personalized blog, you got it. but the deal is you have to read my blog. get it? read. my. blog. also, if you do read it, and you post a comment, it will make me feel good and happy and loved and i will be apt to do nice things, like buy you textiles that i will later throw away because i cant fit them into my bag and dont yet know enough spanish to have them shipped to you (plus, it is highly likely that in this electronic era, i dont know your address. sad.) so i guess it doesnt really behoove you to post a comment, but, hey! - post a comment. so this blog is for marni, my wine drunk, bi coastal friend.

yesterday we went to ingapirca. this is ecuadors only incan ruin, and it has, i suppose, been likened to machu piccu. getting there in and of itself was an adventure. we went with this nice couple from our spanish school. we met up early and got to the bus station, where we couldnt find any bus going to ingapirca. some guy came up to us and asked us where we were going, then told us we had to go to this town called canar instead, then herded us onto the bus. once on the bus, it somehow became apparant that we were probably not going where we wanted to. we rather passively shrugged our shoulders and settled back into our comfy seats to enjoy the scenery (yes, busses in ecuador are comfortable, quite a suprise. no chicken busses here. not yet anyway). about an hour and a half later the bus driven yelled "los pasanjeros quien van a ingapirca!" which was us. the bus barely stopped and we jumped out onto the side of the road. a desolate road. with cornfields and nothing else but a discouraging sign that said "ingapirca - 16 km". it was freezing and the roads were windy and wind-y, at a high altitude. it was tough to breathe. there was no way in hell we were walking. oddly enough, after 15 minutes a cab came out of nowhere (remember, we werent even in a town, or near a highway, or anything. i really dont know why he was there). he told us that there was really no way to get there without waiting for hours for some mythical bus. it was a hard sell, but it worked. we hopped in a paid a searing 10 dollars for the ride. turns out he was a very nice man who has an aunt in astoria. small world. and when we got to the site he tried to tell the people we were ecuadorians, not foregners, so we could get in for one third of the price. didnt work. maybe my seattle baseball cap gave it away???

anyway, we were at a rather high altitude, and the rain was falling and the wind was blowing and i know, dear friends, that you arent going to beleive this but it was fucking freezing. anthony put on his poncho and was making faces and looked like a sad (unjolly) green giant. still there were alpacas and the beautiful scenery and good stone work and it was worth it. i petted an alpaca and we took a tour of the ruins. then we went on a mini hike to find a stone in the shape of a face and saw a few cow-horses. so it was worth it.

then last night it was salsa night yet again. there was this incredible band in a bar and the men and women were throwing each other around. we were wearing hiking shoes and did not dance, but it was entertaining enough just to watch. then we went home and went to sleep and were awakened at 3 am by a parade going past our window. i leaned way out and looked up the street and saw that it was just a 9 man marching band. why they were parading at 3 am is beyond me. this, folks, is legal here in cuenca. this, in conjunction with the fact that thursday seems to be cotton candy day and people here eat ice cream for breakfast, illustrates just how quirky cuenca is. it is adorable, silly, and grey. i love it here.

empanadas

so, spanish school is a good thing, for the most part. the only thing is that it teaches you how much you don´t know. i, as it turns out, know nothing. any word i thought i knew is not used here in ecuador. i´ve spent the last 3 days trying to memorize the word for pen. esfero. not pluma, for those of you who are unenlightened, as was i 3 days ago. nope, the word is not pluma at all, and i was brutally laughed at for using pluma. the word is esfero. esfero. es.fer.o.

we chose our spanish school, simon bolivar, for its cozy feel. they only offer the more expensive individual lessons, which we were against at first, instead of the group lessons we were hoping for. but in the end, it might be for the best, though 4 hours of one to one conversation in a language you dont know can be exhausting. the nice thing about bolivar is that they have evening activities, which are a good way to learn about stuff and socialize. last night we made empanadas in our cooking class. after preparing and cooking them we hung out for a while and ate as many as we could, which for some of us, who shall remain nameless, is quite a few. they were delicious, see the bottom of this post for the recipe. afterwards ant and i went to dinner with a couple from san diego. they were nice, and it was good to have some company. i cant lie, i was feeling a bit lonely. well, not lonely exactly, because i am here with anthony, who is smashing company so long as he is not in a mood or farting. but more like lost and scared, being so far from home and not knowing language, customs, etc. meeting people helps with this, i find. so i was a good evening, cut short by anthony´s inappropriate-for-the-dinner-table gostro-intestinal problems, which i have a feeling he will blog about. so, see anthony´s blog for a full description of diarreha, in all its glory. anyway, spanish school is good for many reasons, and here is the recipe for ecuadrian empanadas:

i dont know any of the portions so, sorry, but experiment and see how it works out:

combine flour, baking soda, vanilla, tepid water, and eggwhites in a bowl. mix with hands until dough.
mince plantain.
mince ecuadorian cheese (which is not disgusting like guatemalan cheese. it was compared, last night, to salty mozzarella. so try mozzarella - it should work.)
combine minced plantain and cheese.
take small piece of dough, roll it into ball using your hands.
roll out ball with a rolling pin, into an oval shape.
put approx half teaspoon of cheese-plantain mixture into bottom half of oval.
close oval. pinch dough around the edges to close in filling, in a fancy pastry chef styñe (i couldnt do this part).
fry in a shit load of butter (i have never seen so much butter. we all gasped).
when golden brown on both sides, sprinkle with sugar.
eat, enjoy, and gain 200 pounds!:)

tonight is salsa night in cuenca. we have a lesson at 6 and then are going to the local salsateca to embarrass ourselves. we are not good dancers. cuencaños, brace yourselves......

cuenca

so, this comes from an extremely slow computer here in cuenca, ecuador. see how good i´m being, blogging on my second day?! maybe i blog now. what a blogger i am. blog.
anyway, cuenca is great. actually, so far, ecuador as a whole is pretty great. its pretty, bumpy, and green, and the people give new definition to the word nice. i never really thought i liked nice people, not being a particularly nice person myself, but it turns out that i didnt really know what nice meant. it turns out, i think, that nice means putting your drink down and giving up your comfortable seat in a crowded cafe to scramble on your hands and knees to help some barrachito pick up the change he spilled all over the floor. nice means putting your hand on your stomach, after a long night of waiting tables in a busy restaurant, and looking an out-of-place tourist straight in the eye to say humbly, "con mucho gusto", without even checking the tip. nice means smiling kindly at a voyeuristic tourist while urinating on the wall of a church.
not to be corny, but we don´t see this often in new york, ¿now do we?

cuenca is filled with churches, plazas, and cobblestones. there is a pretty comprhensive indigenous market, which offers very cheap almuerzos, which are not entirely sanitary, which is where we ate everywhere. the juices and batidos come in all flavors, and empanadas are unbeatable. i like it here, i think. sadly (pathetically), i feel the altitude, or i am coming down with something. my bones ache and i get winded climbing a flight of stairs, which is not my normal state. the alarming thing is that cuenca is not really considered to be very high here, even though the busride we took to get here from guayaquil went above the clouds.

guayaquil, by the way, gets an unfair bad rap. it has a lovely plaza and nice batidos as well. it is not to be looked down upon.

so, we should be here for about 2 weeks. spanish school should happen soon, and it had better, because i have made a complete ass of myself trying to speak. as anthony says, it would nice to be able to say something more complex than "i see mountain".

honey we couldbeinkansas

i only blog when i'm supposed to be sleeping, which says a lot about blogging, i think. i am tired and my shoulders hurt, but i wanted to do this earlier and i just couldn't bring myself to. now i don't want to do this yet i very easily logged onto blogger and started. isnt that just the way of things?

earlier today, it was pointed out to me by a friend that i am "way behind on my blogging". this is true and not true. were i of more consistant constitution, this would be true. i have not blogged in a long time. one must note, however, that i am a rather sporatic blogger (as can be easily seen by reading the rest of the blog). but i've been feeling lately that i should be blogging more, mainly because i have lots to say, which is, coincidentally, the reason why i havent blogged at all.

yes i am drunk. so what? its tuesday - cant a girl have a drinkeen or two? also, the germans are visiting us, here at my parents house - exquisite people who i am somehow related to through my father. they kindly insisted on feeding me bombay sapphire gin and tonics, and i relented. after all, we are sad today, cuz of italy.

i leave for south america day after tomorrow. i don't know what to say about that except that it will be for an indefinate period of time and that lorrie moore says this:
(ok, i packed the damn book and now i can't find it and i will misquote her here)
she says:

it is unacceptable, all the panicked and hopeful missing we are expected to do in life. it is not to be tolerated, not really. [sic]

and she's right, isnt she. so here's what we do: we look forward, north or south, depending on where we are. we don't look back, no final glimpse over our shoulders. we read, write, visit, and live, and we dont miss each other.

not for one second.

pikmeup

this week, a friend of mine told me that she is pregnant. this is a friend with whom i associate all the exquisite vices in life (wine, cigarettes, terrible karaoke), so naturally, when she told me, i was shocked. "what of the cigarettes?! and the wine?! and the ruthless karaoke?!", i thought, hideously. but she is happy for this, and she and her husband are kind, wise people who will undoubtably make a strong family, so i was happy as well. then tonight, i had a glass of wine while watching a terrible made for tv movie about parents whose child goes missing (but then they find him) and the parents were going so bonkers and flipping out in every scene, and i thought, based on that, that it must be a nice thing, having a kid like that. i thought that maybe its worth all the chardonnay in the world, to have a kid like that. i am happy for my friend.

and then tonight, before the glass of wine, i went out to cafe pick me up. i went because i couldnt seem to stop watching this abomidable show (i have a problem with this- i shouldnt own a television) called "so you think you can dance" (i, by the way, think i can dance, but only in the privacy of my own home), and i was becoming disgusted with myself. plus, i wanted to read this book that im trying to finish before we go away, the secret history, by donna tartt. i didnt really want to go at first, but i forced myself and im glad i did. it was good to sit there with a cup of coffee and a negro modelo, trying to read but really just eavesdropping on other peoples conversations and i kept wondering if i could do this in SA. listen to other people's conversations that is. i assume they will not typically be in english, and will my spanish ever be good enough?? it remains to be seen, i guess.

good night, pals and gals.

june

blog blog blog blog bloggy blog blog
blog blog blog blog wamu blog blog

i say, good day. on thursday we went to see flamenco (which anthony's mother heard as flamingos, which led to interpertations on the differences between the two, which led to discussion of flamingos doing flamenco, which is perhaps the grandest and greatest idea in the world). it was at this spanish bar across the street that serves tapas and stuff. so we got a bottle of rioja and some anchovy stuffed olives (which, to be honest, tasted bad, but i wanted to be sophisticated and spanish enough to enjoy them. alas.) and sat and watched the dancers, as the humidity raged one hell of a storm outside. during intermission we watched through the window as people struggled with their broken umbrellas and to get cabs in heels and ties. we sipped our wine and enjoyed the flamingo and i kept thinking about how much i loved the music and gestures, and how happy it made me. and then i thought: i have aficion for flamenco. montoya (you know montoya?) would like me, if there was a flamenco festival and i stayed in his hotel. and i felt very satisfied with myself, of course.

there were two dancers. one was sleek and pretty with hoop earings and a bun. the other had an ugly face, to be quite blunt, with a nose and a blue dress. they sat for a while as the singer warmed up and practiced their clapping. but when they started dancing, the one in the blue dress was graceful and gorgeous and flowing. hoop earings was too, but it wasnt the same. not as effortless. trust me, i could tell. an aficion can always tell. which led me to the realization that depite her nose, blue dress was also an aficion, and if i or montoya had a signed photo of her,we would most certainly never throw it away. and her nose meant nothing, and her blue dress didnt matter for shit. it was splendid.

then, last night, against the pounding rain, i found a cab myself. again the thunder was kicking up and lightening struck here and there and i was going to a bar on the west side of town, for no good reason, except to brave the weather and show it who runs the show around here, i guess. and when the cab had stopped for me i had been relieved because i was well on my way to getting drenched, even under my umbrella. so i was still feeling that relief as we barelled west across ninth street and the rain came down in rivulets on the window, and we listened to free bird really really loud. and i sunk deeper into my cozy seat and thought, lynard skynard isnt so bad, sometimes.

sixth post

i'm in a bad way on this day. my utterly demoralizing job has, at long last, sank its claws into the very final iota of my mental well being. that one previously unmarred dendrite has been sucked dry of its seratonin, and i have 9 year olds and lousy administrators and politicians to thank. motherfuckers. today was (probably not) the ultimate in a series of miserable days, and it brought me to the brink. i will spare you, my masses of devoted readers, the gory details. albeit to say, its a damn good thing i'm about to leave the country. run screaming is a far more appropriate term. thank goodness for the Big Trip, and the fact that there are only 26 days left of the school year, for without these two pardons i dont know what i would do.

so what i did this afternoon, instead of copious amounts of drugs, was go for a long run. at 6 pm it was lovely out and the air felt like freshly laundered silk (ok, im sure if you know about these things, dear readers, you will tell me that you dont launder silk, you launder money and dry clean silk, but im new to metaphors. can you tell??) (hee, even i cant re-read the thing about the silk without laughing out loud. so crass.). ok whatever, it was a nice day out, and running was good. except for the fact that, the second my mind suggested a run to my body, my body came back with a shrill and whiny "but my ankle! its sore!" but, having been battered and abused all day, my tattered mind was stubborn, and before i knew it i was out the door, dodging strollers on 1st avenue and listening to "gasolina" on repeat (also not good for the Mental Health, btw). my ankle tried to protest as i sprinted down ave. a. cut through stuy town (those dicks) and stumbled towards the east river. but i kept going because a) i am mentally unwell and b) the sun felt nice and c) i need some damn exercise. as i ran down the river promanade (your pardner!) i lost all feeling in my foot. then i found a park, which seemed disproportionately lush amidst the concrete promanade (your pardner!). the park had a working water fountain and a rubbery track, which felt good under my ankles for a good .08 seconds. then small pains like icicles began shooting up my leg to my knee, and i hobbled towards the fdr and across the 6th street overpass and home, past a Delicioso Coco Helado guy without even stopping. all in all, it was a long but pathetic run. but it, in part, saved the day.

the other part was that ant sacrficed watching a basketball game (those are never on!) to eat falafel and rum and cokes and watch the motorcycle diaries with me. great movie. it was relevant, enjoyable, and sexy. here's to che! here's to that actor that plays che! here's to rum and cokes!

and, of course, here's to anthony.

thursday

i'm drunk, but that's because it's thursday. this (isn't this?) the point of thursday. we went to BBQ tonite, and i got a "texas sized" big frozen drink callled the Blue Hawaii. what vile excess. and i hate to admit it, but as i ordered, and a good 10 minutes afterward, and a good halfway through the drink actually, i kept thinking about how lethal the drink was. perhaps it was just because we were at bbq, which is by far the most instantaneously lethal eating establishment in the galaxy. perhaps it was because i am old and subtly turning into a person i never wanted to be, but i was really obsessing aver this. i mean, what makes this drink blue?? could it be any natural substance? i have my doubts. in fact, i have the distinct feeling that yellow #5 was involved, not to metion red #5 and, most certainly, high fructose corn syrup. these, in conjunction, make up the evil trio of That Which Will Probably Give Me Cancer. and i have actually been trying not to consume anything that falls into the TWWGMC category (operative word: trying. notice that "suceeding" was not mentioned). basically that means, for me, that i think twice before consuming such substances, then consume them anyway, then lie awake at night imagining tragic scenarios in which it all catches up to me.

anyway, i drank the drink anyway, the entire thing, and now i'm drunk. and this is a relief for a number of reasons: a) being drunk on a thursday is always a relief. b) being drunk on any day of the week is always a relief (oh yes it is. it is! shut it, you puritan.) c) i still have the ability to get drunk off one drink, and that bodes well, in the sense that it means my tolerance cant be that high.

anyway, all this aside, cuz its dumb, its been a long week. in the past few weks, i got to go away to tropical islands and got completely spoiled. sadly, all luxurious things come to an end. and in the end, what is left for us is menial labor. so back to work i went this week. back to my tiny evils at school. they have all grown over 2 feet in the past month, i swear, and they ate me alive this week, what with their answering back and anorexia and misanthropy. one kid even showed up without eyebrows, a mystery im still trying to solve. hence the drink. hence the thursday night rant. hence all the excess.

if you have read this entry and not dropped dead of boredom or loneliness, you are to be comended.

its april now

i am still alive, sort of. but i haven't been blogging, mainly because i don't blog. so there. but, yet, here i am blogging. so i guess i'll blog. here we go.

i teach a class with 28 little kids in it. they are hideous, but its not as bad as one might expect. yet its much, much worse than one might expect. nonetheless*, there are days (most days) when i don't teach them at all. instead, i spend the entire day scanning the room desperatly, looking for things to do instead of teaching**. since its a small room stuffed to capacity with kids like sardines, when i scan desperately i find kids. there is not much that one can do with kids (they are suprisingly inflexible and unbouyant), so when one is bored and kids are there, one often finds themselves conversing with the kids. which is not such a bad thing. kids have good stuff to say that is different than what adults say. also, they have suprisingly well developed senses of humor. they also love talking about purple aliens and grilled cheese sandwiches, so I get on famously with them. anyway, we were having one of our procrastination conversations. the topic of waking up in the morning came up, and we all agreed that lately, we can't stand waking up in the morning. which led to alvin standing up on a chair, pulling on his cowlick and screaming "its the muuuuuusic. i hate the muuuusic!" after we had pulled him off the chair and calmed him down, he explained himself (a little) more clearly. turns out alvin shares a room with his mom, dad, aunt, and 2 cousins. the younger cousin, a 14 year old girl, shares a bed with alvin. it turns out that she, like every other 14 year old girl, is obsessed with her clock radio, and plays it softly all night. this keeps alvin up at night and makes it difficult for him to wake up in the morning. so this is how his outburst was actully quite relevant.

at this point, dante chimed in. "yeah, like my mommer. her tings all night. i hate it mt. tooker. tee alwayt ting." (dante needs speech services and doesnt get them at our school. the upside is that i think he has invented a new language). it turns out dante also shares his bed with his mother, and his 14 year old male cousin, who "tores and farts". similarly, rafe shares a bed with his sister who he hates. rafe's story was a little sad. his reason for not being able to wake up in the morning is that his mom cries all night and he cant sleep through it. im not sure why she cries; rafe didnt elaborate.

while i was having this procrastination time with my students, on the other side of town my father was spending a day touring public schools with a fringe member of bush's education administration, a la "no child left behind", a la standardized testing for all, a la ivory tower. well, according to my father she is actually very nice, and had a lovely time with all the little kids***. but, he said, "she just didnt understand some things." when prompted, he went on, "well, poverty. i don't think she understands poverty." they had spent some of their day walking through one of the lower income low income neighborhoods in queens. she kept looking around at the houses, saying "well its not so bad here. it cant be so bad. just look at the size of those houses. they're HUGE."

thus, my perfectly illustrated point. thank you ma'am, for that.

*one should never use the words "needless to say", in argumentative writing. for if it is so needless to say, then why have you said it? similarly, the words neverteless and nontheless have absolutely no meaning and are potently absurd.

**god forgive me, but i absolutely despise teaching. the mere thought of relaying (usually useless) information to another human being is just too vulgar for words. that is my excuse.

***yeah, you spend all day with them, bitch.


--see why i dont blog???