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.
*****************
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.